Request For Testing - Intel Graphics Drivers in -current

EDIT: Refer to this thread instead now: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...-again-742820/

If you're having any type of problems with the intel graphics drivers in -current, then this thread is for you - please see http://slackware.com/~rworkman/xorg-testing/ and let me know how it turns out. Private mail or replies to this thread are acceptable.

I did some basic testing of these packages on Dell Mini 9 with an Intel 945GME chip.
I used extreme tuxracer as a performance benchmark.

Here's what I found:
With a custom 2.6.30 kernel (KMS enabled):
2.7.99.901 gave me the smoothest performance, but any driver with this kernel wasn't stable for me and trying to quit X or switch to a VT resulted in hard lock ups

With a 2.6.29 kernel (KMS NOT enabled):
2.7.99.901 wouldn't work for me, X froze when I started it.
2.6/2.7 were about equal performance wise.
2.5 was terrible performance wise.
Much more stable in general, can quit X/switch to a VT fine.

I wasn't able to get compiz to work with any of these combinations... maybe I'm doing something wrong but I did have it working before with the old X.

Hope this helps.

I tested the 2.7.1 and 2.7.99.901.
Thinkpad X61 with Intel 965GM
custom 2.6.30 kernel (KMS enabled) and UXA

There were two fatal issues:
1. If you enabled the PAE(RAM > 4G), you have to patch the kernel to enable GEM2 with PAE. If not, you will got X freeze.

2. IRQ error caused X crash random. Here is the bug. The boot parameter "noirqdebug" worked for me (it's running for six hours without crash).

After solved the two issues, the performance of 2.7.1 and 2.7.99.901 were good, switch to VT, play video etc.

I have two machines with on-board Intel video chips, one with the 945GM (Slackware), another with the 915 (Slackware64).
Both performed better with the 2.7.99.901 driver, tested with the -current versions of Slackware{32,64}.

I am not at all into graphics though (no games, no Google Earth, etc.) so I'm definitely not an expert

Hi,

Originally Posted by rworkman If you're having any type of problems with the intel graphics drivers in -current, then this thread is for you - please see http://slackware.com/~rworkman/xorg-testing/ and let me know how it turns out. Private mail or replies to this thread are acceptable.

robby, I created a section 'Slackware Request for Testing' with the link to this thread in 'Slackware-Links'. More than just Slackware® links!

I will add links as I get or see them.

Hope this helps!

Hi! I Tested the 2.6.3 and 2.7.99.901 with my 945GM intel card. Im running current with a default 2.6.29.5-smp kernel.

I had a way better performance with the 2.7.99.901 driver. It fixed a couple of bugs I had with some QT/GTK dialogs not displaying the "input boxes" correctly.

Okay, thanks to everyone for the feedback; Pat discovered the mesa fix right after I posted all of this. If there are still problems, let us know.

Just had a play with slackware-current on my eeepc 1000H with the intel 945GME.

2.7.1 seemed to work OK. One oddity was glxgears was tied to 60 fps i.e. the same as the screen refresh of 60Hz. The screen was corrupted a bit when logging out of kde.

2.7.99.901 was much the same except glxgears gave 180fps and there was no screen corruption on logging out of kde.

I had a play with googleearth: it worked in both, but was very slow.

PS slackware-current with kde 4 is working rather nicely on this little machine

I had problem with mesa-7.4.3.
Login dialog -> input username and password -> splash screen -> crash -> back to login dialog.
can't login to X and nothing special in the logs.

mesa-7.4.1 is fine.

Originally Posted by mcnalu 2.7.1 seemed to work OK. I had a play with googleearth: it worked in both, but was very slow.

Yes, very slow. Interestingly, if you first move /usr/lib/xorg/modules/dri/i915_dri.so away, googleearth tells that you are running in OpenGL with software emulation and it tells that it will run very slowly. But in fact, it runs much faster.

Thanks for packages

slackware-current
intel x3100 on hp notebook

With 2.5.1, 2.7.1 and 2.6.3 dialog box are transparent, with 2.7.99 are ok



with 2.5.1, 2.7.1 and 2.6.3

http://img205.imageshack.us/img205/4549/intel1.png

with 2.7.99

http://img37.imageshack.us/img37/5968/intel2.png

As I indicated elsewhere in this forum I had problems with making intel i810 to work after upgrade to 1.6.1. Java, Flash and even xterm did not work right giving scattered mess on the screen.

When I downgraded to 2.5.1 the driver crashed the X system, then I upgraded to 2.7.99.901 and this time these seem to work properly. However glxgears still gives some kind of mess:

http://advamacs.com/glxgears-mess.png

Good I am able to use java and flash at last.

My specs:
just upgraded from 12.2 to -current
Intel 855GM chipset (old ?)
kernel 2.6.29.5-smp i686
intel driver

xf86-video-intel-2.6.3-i486
For this one, when I starx my entire screen gets fuzzy and interlaced with a bunch of lines across the screen. I cannot see my desktop icons or panel. Desktop is unusable.
-- EDIT: Further testing resulted in either a full screen scramble or a blank black screen. Xorg log complains about (EE): dri module...This one is a dead end for me.

xf86-video-intel-2.7.99.901-i486
For this one, when I startx my icons are all fuzzy and look interlaced with a bunch of lines. If I play around with F5(refresh)--sometimes the icons goes back to normal and sometimes it doesn't. I can still use the desktop. When I run glxgears it gets scrambled and goes back to that same fuzzy look. Video playback with xine is normal. Online flash vids are scrambled with a bunch of lines across the screen. Viewing jpeg files and other formats is ok.
-- EDIT: To avoid this problem, the following line Option "NoAccel" "true" had to be included in the device section which in turn results in poor performance.

xf86-video-intel-2.5.1-i486
For this one, when I startx everything looks normal and no fuzzy interlaced lines. glxgears show 60fps. Desktop is usable just like 2.7.99.901. Video playback with xine is good, no problems. Online flash vids look ok and not scrambled. Sometimes when I open my text file, some text are bolded and some aren't.
-- EDIT: After further testing, I was able to elimate the bold text by having the following lines in my xorg conf file. I noticed a small increase in performance too.

Section "Module"
    Load        "vbe"
    Load        "int10"
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Option      "AccelMethod" "EXA"
    Option      "MigrationHeuristic" "greedy"
    Option      "ExaNoComposite" "false"
EndSection

Section "Extensions"
	Option "Composite" "Enable"
EndSection

xf86-video-intel-2.7.1-i486 (default for current)
When I run this one, it's just like 2.6.3.
-- EDIT: After further testing, I found that it was much more different than 2.6.3. I was able to use this if I have the line Option "AccelMethod" "UXA" under the device section. Xorg log complained about DRI2 needs UXA acceleration. However with this enabled -- glxgears, video playback, and desktop icons results were exactly the same as xf86-video-intel-2.7.99.901-i486. To avoid this problem, the following line Option "NoAccel" "true" had to be included in the device section which in turn resulted in poor performance.

Out of all the drivers that I tested, I'd go for 2.5.1.

I have xorg logs and my xorg config if anyone is interested. I could only upload 3 .txt files, the 4th one for 2.7.99.901 is here at pastebin:

http://pastebin.com/f5c8a2a88

My issue that can't login X resolved by mesa-7.4.4 in current testing.
intel 965GM

It`s a pitty that Slackware 13RC1 incorporates buggy intel driver and intel cards users (at least i810) won`t be able to use X easily. Is there any chance that Slackware 13 will come out with 1.6.1.901 xorg? Fedora works fine with this driver.