Request: sync new agpgart & drm modules for 50% DRI performance boost with Intel users

Aside from performance improvements, I believe that this update is genuinely necessary for proper 3D peformance. Using Feisty's latest packages, vertical sync doesn't function properly at all, with jerky movement and tearing still present.

Test yourself if you have an Intel card; run an opengl app that features 2D side-scrolling (in this case, I tried the emulator gens w/opengl, running Sonic), and compare normal output with "vblank_mode=3" output; vertical sync doesn't seem to work properly at all.

I have merged a new driver (1.6.5->1.7.4), maybe it is uploaded soon after herd5.

Thanks Timo! I'm already using 1.7.4 here, but mesa performance didn't improve until I updated the kernel modules too. The new linux-agp-compat module (and up-to-date drm kernel modules too) seems necessary to enable DRI properly.

Thanks for helping on that problem.
I can confirm that on my machine (intel i915, i810 driver) the update to xorg 7.2 made my beryl sluggish and jerky. Everything was running perfectly before that. Before people asks, my xorg.conf is fine and I've been messing with it has much as possible without any improvement.
Also, when using beryl, xorg memory consumption goes over the roof (taking over half of my 1gig without even accounting for beryl's comsumption). Updating Beryl from SVN changed nothing.

Right now, I'm considering going back to Edgy !

Hi,

Running latest Feisty, Dell Inspiron 510m laptop, Pentium M 1.5Ghz, 256mb ram, Intel 82855GM. I've upgraded to kernel version 2.6.20-13, and saw in the changelog the relevant commit:

  * drivers/char/{agp/drm}: Resync with 2.6.21-rc4.
    - GIT-SHA 1eae0b2972e215e9f13b99b7fb64b90db04cc556

However, I still cannot activate the new drm memory manager. I'm attaching dmesg, Xorg.0.log, and xorg.conf with '"Legacy3D" "false"' option added.

With this configuration, 3D performance is the same as with 'Legacy3D "true"' (or with this option omitted altogether).

Thanks,
Conn

Conn, I believe that the driver needs to be rebuilt. For instance the savage-dri is broken at the moment because of the update.

The thing is, current 2.6.21 as far as I am aware, STILL doesn't include the new intel DRM modules with the memory manager. See this novell bug for reference
https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=255290

Ben,

"Che" is correct; the newer drm module you synced is version 1.6.0 but the new memory manager needs version 1.7.0. Since we're so close to release, I'm not expecting this fix to be included in time, but the bug resolution status is wrong and perhaps should be relegated back to "Confirmed" or "In Progress".

This was incorrectly marked fix released; Feisty did not contain the new DRM kernel modules required for Mesa. Re-assigning for Gutsy release.

Considering that Mesa 7.0 has been released and will most likely enter Gutsy, it is more important than ever to provide the required versions of the drm and agpgart modules, or else the new DRI memory manager system will be rendered useless.

It seems that linux-image-2.6.22-7-generic has support for the latest TTM memory manager in the agpgart.ko module, which is a good thing; however, we still need to sync the new drm modules (drm.ko, i915.ko, etc.) in order for this to work. I fetched the latest mesa/drm from git, compiled the modules and copied them over, and the new TTM memory manager now works. With this, Planet Penguin racer now runs at ~40fps, whereas before it ran at ~30fps. The only problem is that compiz doesn't work, but perhaps we need to sync an older version of the drm modules than what exists in the latest git.

Please, try to have everything in sync in time for Gutsy's release - I believe the other drivers aside from intel will migrate to this new TTM memory manager in the future.

Since Gutsy seems to be aspiring for compiz-by-default in time for release, having the latest TTM support for Intel (and some ATI) cards is a high priority.

Michel Danzer (and others) introduced new "aiglx-zero-copy-tfp" patches into xf86-video-intel xf86-video-ati, xserver-xorg and mesa, designed to improve performance with compositing managers using EXA acceleration (especially with scrolling). While these patches are already included in Gutsy's packaged versions so far, until the new drm kernel modules are enabled, this new functionality will not work:

/var/log/Xorg.0.log:
(II) intel(0): Unable to use TTM-based memory manager with DRM version 1.6

Hi Conn,

It looks like this was never resolved for the Gutsy release. I'm retargeting this towards the upcoming Hardy kernel and have tagged it as "hardy-kernel-candidate". However against the linux-source-2.6.22 package this is being marked as "Won't Fix" as it does not meet the criteria for a stable release update. To learn more about the stable release update process please refer to https://wiki.ubuntu.com/StableReleaseUpdates . Thanks!

Leann,

Thanks for reassigning this bug. Having updated to the Hardy development release and custom compiling the requisite drm modules, it seems things things are working fine.

I noticed some interesting developments recently; as of version 2.2.0, the intel driver will default to EXA acceleration (which uses the new TTM memory manager, part of the new DRM kernel code) and it seems this new driver no longer differentiates between i915.dri and i915_tex.dri DRI modules, obsoleting the Legacy3D option. This means it's more important than ever to have up-to-date DRI functionality for Hardy's release, as running with older DRM kernel modules and libraries results in EXA being in a reduced-performance "compatibility mode", as warned in Xorg.0.log.

As for Gutsy, I'm aware it's too late to have this implemented, thanks. We should push this for consideration in linux-source-2.6.24, to be included with Hardy.

Hardy Heron Alpha2 was recently released. It contains an updated version of the kernel. You can download and try the new Hardy Heron Alpha2 release from http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/hardy/alpha-2/ . You should be able to then test the new kernel via the LiveCD. If you can, please verify if this bug still exists or not and report back your results. General information regarding the release can also be found here: http://www.ubuntu.com/testing/hardy/alpha2 . Thanks!

Over 4 months without a response. We are closing this "linux (Ubuntu)" package bug report because it lacks the information we need to investigate the problem, as described in the previous comments. Please reopen it if you can give us the missing information, and don't hesitate to submit bug reports in the future. To reopen the bug report you can click on the current status of the "linux (Ubuntu)" package, under the Status column, and change the Status back to "New". Thanks again!