Help me tweak an Intel Atom D510 w/ integrated GPU

Meson · 05-02-2010, 08:10 AM

I have a new Intel Atom D510 and I'm pretty pleased with it so far. The board is Zotac NM10-ITX.

My first issue was that during long and fast downloads (like transferring my home directory over the network) the system become pretty unusable: web pages would time out, windows would take more than few seconds to load, etc. I solved this by recompiling the kernel for the Atom. (The compile time wasn't that bad actually because the system is pretty simple and it was easy to isolate only the drivers I needed).

My next issue is that certain GUI-related things seem a little sluggish. For example, when the GDM loads it's not smooth like on other computers. When I log in, my background doesn't fade in gradually, it does so in about 1-2 frames. I was thinking this might be an issue with the GPU. It uses the i915 kernel module. Is there some tweaking I can do?

Code:

00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Pineview Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 02)
	Subsystem: Intel Corporation Device a001
	Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B- DisINTx-
	Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR- INTx-
	Latency: 0
	Region 0: Memory at fe780000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=512K]
	Capabilities: [d0] Power Management version 2
		Flags: PMEClk- DSI+ D1- D2- AuxCurrent=0mA PME(D0-,D1-,D2-,D3hot-,D3cold-)
		Status: D0 NoSoftRst- PME-Enable- DSel=0 DScale=0 PME-

I was expecting to see a memory region of prefetchable memory around 128M here. Is this a problem?

What are you atom users doing to speed up your systems? I'm on Archlinux and I'm using a BFS patched kernel.

business_kid · 05-03-2010, 03:21 AM

I915 is not regarded as a good (= fast) video setup.
The steps are simple when your cpu is cycle challenged: Plenty of ram, set up dri, remove all possible bloatware (Kde, gnome, & probably firefox) Use opera or chrome, xfce, or another low cholesterol window manager.

Trim fat from the kernel wherever possible, and put it in modules. Compile in your required disk module, and filesystem modules. The right disk module (Not necessarily 'general support') can speed disk access. If your'e seeing something in bootup about 'system not 100% native - will probe irqs later' it's probable you have the wrong chipset support, and 'general' support is taking the reins, and not liking your (other) chipset.