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#1 2009-04-07 10:40:00

CaptainShanks
Member
Registered: 2008-10-25
Posts: 57

xf86-video-intel-legacy delivers a massive performance boost to i915

I just jumped into the shark-infested pond that is the testing repository for the hell of it big_smile

But yes, 2D performance got an amazing boost, differing from when I used the xf86-video-intel driver in extra. In the older driver, I would experience random graphical glitches whenever my screen changed resolution, I had just logged in, or Wine programs start.

Just a quick question, is the kernel in the testing repository stock or modified by Arch devs? Just wondering if there's some random way to further increase performance, though kernel compilation scares me lol

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#2 2009-04-07 10:53:45

Allan
Pacman
From: Brisbane, AU
Registered: 2007-06-09
Posts: 11,365
Website

Re: xf86-video-intel-legacy delivers a massive performance boost to i915

The kernel is fairly vanilla.  Here is the repo of the patches applied: http://projects.archlinux.org/?p=linux- … ;a=summary

I am also enjoying the speed boost.  I can play games again instead of doing work.  The last two weeks have been incredibly productive!

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#3 2009-04-07 10:55:24

Fackamato
Member
Registered: 2006-03-31
Posts: 579

Re: xf86-video-intel-legacy delivers a massive performance boost to i915

You can look at the PKGBUILD and see what patches are applied:
32-bit: http://repos.archlinux.org/viewvc.cgi/k … iew=markup
64-bit: http://repos.archlinux.org/viewvc.cgi/k … iew=markup

Last edited by Fackamato (2009-04-07 12:52:45)

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#4 2009-04-07 12:00:25

CaptainShanks
Member
Registered: 2008-10-25
Posts: 57

Re: xf86-video-intel-legacy delivers a massive performance boost to i915

Thanks! This is totally derailing my own topic, but if I randomly decided to downgrade back from Testing, say if 2.6.29 and xf86-video-intel-legacy were to be released, what would be the easiest way to do that?

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#5 2009-04-07 12:05:44

schuay
Package Maintainer (PM)
From: Austria
Registered: 2008-08-19
Posts: 564

Re: xf86-video-intel-legacy delivers a massive performance boost to i915

Fackamato wrote:

You can look at the PKGBUILD and see what patches are applied:
32-bit: http://repos.archlinux.org/viewvc.cgi/k … iew=markup
32-bit: http://repos.archlinux.org/viewvc.cgi/k … iew=markup

Are you sure? I don't see the rt2870 patch in there but it's definitely in 2.6.29.1-2 (thanks for that tpowa, my wlan card finally works without custom drivers smile  plus, arch is now probably the only distro to support this card out of the box! )

Last edited by schuay (2009-04-07 12:09:34)

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#6 2009-04-07 12:15:41

gborzi
Member
From: Sicilia
Registered: 2009-03-18
Posts: 102

Re: xf86-video-intel-legacy delivers a massive performance boost to i915

I tried too the Xorg 1.6 + xf86-video-intel-legacy on my laptop (and libgl, mesa, etc.), that is equipped with a 945GM and it worked much better than Xorg 1.6 + xf86-video-intel. But the current Xorg 1.5.3 + xf86-video-intel from extra is still the best. Some benchmarks

Xorg 1.5.3 + xf86-video-intel 2.4.3
glxgears ~620 fps, compiz ~110 fps, assaultcube ~40-50 fps
Xorg 1.6 + xf86-video-intel-legacy
glxgears ~450 fps, compiz ~85 fps, assaultcube ~30-40 fps
Xorg 1.6 + xf86-video-intel
glxgears ~150 fps, compiz ~25-30 fps, assaultcube not playable.

Regards.


Giuseppe Borzi' - Registered Linux user #34028

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#7 2009-04-07 12:18:45

Allan
Pacman
From: Brisbane, AU
Registered: 2007-06-09
Posts: 11,365
Website

Re: xf86-video-intel-legacy delivers a massive performance boost to i915

CaptainShanks wrote:

Thanks! This is totally derailing my own topic, but if I randomly decided to downgrade back from Testing, say if 2.6.29 and xf86-video-intel-legacy were to be released, what would be the easiest way to do that?

Just remove the testing repo from your pacman.conf and all the testing packages you use will eventually go to core/extra.

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#8 2009-04-07 12:20:24

Allan
Pacman
From: Brisbane, AU
Registered: 2007-06-09
Posts: 11,365
Website

Re: xf86-video-intel-legacy delivers a massive performance boost to i915

schuay wrote:
Fackamato wrote:

You can look at the PKGBUILD and see what patches are applied:
32-bit: http://repos.archlinux.org/viewvc.cgi/k … iew=markup
32-bit: http://repos.archlinux.org/viewvc.cgi/k … iew=markup

Are you sure? I don't see the rt2870 patch in there but it's definitely in 2.6.29.1-2 (thanks for that tpowa, my wlan card finally works without custom drivers smile  plus, arch is now probably the only distro to support this card out of the box! )

Look at the link I gave.  It is probably in the arch patch conglomerate.

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#9 2009-04-07 17:51:52

Lazer
Banned
Registered: 2007-08-02
Posts: 111

Re: xf86-video-intel-legacy delivers a massive performance boost to i915

I just installed intel-legacy drivers... now I have more or less the same performance as before but without screen artifacts or crashes. Yeah!
By the way, when I run a 3D app (even glxgears) I get a message "Failed to initialize GEM.  Falling back to classic.". Should I worry about it? I'm running a 2.6.29 kernel, so I thought I had GEM up and running...

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#10 2009-04-07 18:01:18

schuay
Package Maintainer (PM)
From: Austria
Registered: 2008-08-19
Posts: 564

Re: xf86-video-intel-legacy delivers a massive performance boost to i915

Allan wrote:

Look at the link I gave.  It is probably in the arch patch conglomerate.

I did. I was trying to point out that the PKGBUILD doesn't show which patches are being applied to the kernel - confused me too for a while smile

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#11 2009-04-07 18:14:07

CaptainShanks
Member
Registered: 2008-10-25
Posts: 57

Re: xf86-video-intel-legacy delivers a massive performance boost to i915

Lazer wrote:

I just installed intel-legacy drivers... now I have more or less the same performance as before but without screen artifacts or crashes. Yeah!
By the way, when I run a 3D app (even glxgears) I get a message "Failed to initialize GEM.  Falling back to classic.". Should I worry about it? I'm running a 2.6.29 kernel, so I thought I had GEM up and running...

I'd like to know this too, just ran that and had the same result.

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#12 2009-04-07 19:46:03

JGC
Developer
Registered: 2003-12-03
Posts: 1,664

Re: xf86-video-intel-legacy delivers a massive performance boost to i915

The legacy driver is too old to support GEM. Not only your kernel has to support it, but also the 2D driver. The fallback to classic means that the old code path is taken instead of the new slow GEM codepath, which increases performance a lot this way.

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#13 2009-04-07 20:27:25

Lazer
Banned
Registered: 2007-08-02
Posts: 111

Re: xf86-video-intel-legacy delivers a massive performance boost to i915

JGC wrote:

The legacy driver is too old to support GEM. Not only your kernel has to support it, but also the 2D driver. The fallback to classic means that the old code path is taken instead of the new slow GEM codepath, which increases performance a lot this way.

Well, actually I made some tries, the legacy driver is much more stable (I should say that non-legacy is much more UNstable...), but it is actually slower than the 2.6.99.902 in [testing]... Damn Intel... as far as you know, is there hope for proper support of old graphic chips in future releases of the non-legacy driver? Also for KMS and DRI2 goodness...

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#14 2009-04-07 22:52:45

CaptainShanks
Member
Registered: 2008-10-25
Posts: 57

Re: xf86-video-intel-legacy delivers a massive performance boost to i915

I just tried out the non legacy in testing and... Surprisingly enough, my 3D performance is upped. I still get random artifacts when I change resolutions, a problem I had before I switched to the legacy driver in the first place, but its running quite smoothly.

Something's wrong here XD

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#15 2009-04-09 16:56:24

Hazuki
Member
From: Madison, WI
Registered: 2008-01-09
Posts: 13

Re: xf86-video-intel-legacy delivers a massive performance boost to i915

The intel-legacy drivers conflict with xorg-server-1.5.3 (probably the entire 1.5 branch). They want to remove xorg-server on install but offer nothing to replace it.

I have an Inspiron 1100, whose graphics chip is an 82845G/GL ("Brookdale") Intel IGP. The xf86-video-intel driver glitches horribly on this machine, crashing X on attempted start and creating wide bars of corruption that persist even in console mode and when changing the driver.

What can be done about this? Is there an older xorg-server PKGBUILD anywhere? AUR doesn't have one.

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#16 2009-04-09 18:12:46

hacosta
Member
From: Mexico
Registered: 2006-10-22
Posts: 423

Re: xf86-video-intel-legacy delivers a massive performance boost to i915

The new intel non-legacy drivers in testing ar up to par with the legacy drivers in my intel 945.. YMMV

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#17 2009-04-09 18:27:50

kakabaratruskia
Member
From: Santiago, Chile
Registered: 2003-08-24
Posts: 596

Re: xf86-video-intel-legacy delivers a massive performance boost to i915

snif, I'm going to cry, after 6 months of having Option "NoAccel" "true" in my xorg.conf I can finaly delete it!!! this is a big day!!, I can run google-earth!!


And where were all the sportsmen who always pulled you though?
They're all resting down in Cornwall
writing up their memoirs for a paper-back edition
of the Boy Scout Manual.

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#18 2009-04-15 19:02:34

xodeus
Member
From: Fredericia, Denmark
Registered: 2009-01-20
Posts: 12
Website

Re: xf86-video-intel-legacy delivers a massive performance boost to i915

How to switch from xf86-video-intel to this xf86-video-intel-legacy driver?

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#19 2009-04-15 19:23:44

drag0nl0rd
Package Maintainer (PM)
From: Czech Republic
Registered: 2007-10-24
Posts: 127
Website

Re: xf86-video-intel-legacy delivers a massive performance boost to i915

xodeus wrote:

How to switch from xf86-video-intel to this xf86-video-intel-legacy driver?

Simple removing "pacman -Rd xf86-video-intel" and installing "pacman -Sy xf86-video-intel-legacy" should do it, I think. Settings should stay the same.

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#20 2009-04-15 20:23:39

xodeus
Member
From: Fredericia, Denmark
Registered: 2009-01-20
Posts: 12
Website

Re: xf86-video-intel-legacy delivers a massive performance boost to i915

drag0nl0rd wrote:
xodeus wrote:

How to switch from xf86-video-intel to this xf86-video-intel-legacy driver?

Simple removing "pacman -Rd xf86-video-intel" and installing "pacman -Sy xf86-video-intel-legacy" should do it, I think. Settings should stay the same.

That was easy. And it's working... big_smile
But.
glxgears ~250 FPS assaultcube not playable
Never tried to play any games before. Should I mention that I'm running with kms enabled?

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#21 2009-04-16 11:35:27

mutlu_inek
Member
From: all over the place
Registered: 2006-11-18
Posts: 683

Re: xf86-video-intel-legacy delivers a massive performance boost to i915

xodeus wrote:
drag0nl0rd wrote:
xodeus wrote:

How to switch from xf86-video-intel to this xf86-video-intel-legacy driver?

Simple removing "pacman -Rd xf86-video-intel" and installing "pacman -Sy xf86-video-intel-legacy" should do it, I think. Settings should stay the same.

That was easy. And it's working... big_smile
But.
glxgears ~250 FPS assaultcube not playable
Never tried to play any games before. Should I mention that I'm running with kms enabled?

No, you should not, cause you aren't. tongue KMS is only available with UXA on newer intel drivers. And I would recommend you to play with your xorg.conf, you _might_ get much better performance with e.g. xaa.

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