Regression in intel driver

[Tom Evans]

On Tue, 2008-09-23 at 12:52 +0200, Paul B. Mahol wrote:
> On 9/23/08, Tom Evans <tevans.uk at googlemail.com> wrote:
> > On Tue, 2008-09-23 at 10:30 +0100, Tom Evans wrote:
> >> Hi all
> >>
> >> I've been using the intel xorg driver for quite some time now, and
> >> recently upgraded Xorg server/drm/intel driver to the most current
> >> available in ports. This has caused a significant performance regression
> >> when running without direct rendering enabled, which is required with
> >> this driver to achieve Virtual desktop with a dimension greater than
> >> 2048 pixels. Xorg now chews through 30-35% CPU whilst tailing a log
> >> file, where as before this used 3-4%. The effect is visibly noticeable
> >> (and doesn't just apply to fast moving text!)
> >>
> >> I have an HP laptop with a 1400x1050 LVDS panel, with a 1280x1024 TFT
> >> attached to the VGA port. My preferred setup is:
> >>
> >> xrandr --output LVDS --mode 1400x1050 --output VGA --mode 1280x1024
> >> --left-of LVDS
> >>
> >> What I am running now, the only way to get sane performance:
> >>
> >> xrandr --output LVDS --mode 1024x768 --output VGA --mode 1280x1024 --above
> >> LVDS
> >>
> >> I've tried reverting back to an older driver, but it seems that changes
> >> to libdrm prevent that. I fear I may have to roll back drm, mesa,
> >> xorg-server et al just to use a different driver version.
> >>
> >> Any tips?
> >>
> >> Cheers
> >>
> >> Tom
> >
> > I've just re-read this, and it isn't clear at all, my bad!
> >
> > First off, I forgot to mention what fbsd version I am using:
> > FreeBSD zoot.mintel.co.uk 7.1-PRERELEASE FreeBSD 7.1-PRERELEASE #9: Mon
> > Sep 15 16:06:57 BST 2008
> > root at zoot.mintel.co.uk:/data2/FreeBSD/RELENG_7/obj/data2/FreeBSD/RELENG_7/src/sys/ZOOT
> >  i386
> >
> > What I really need help with is, if I want to rollback to and use an
> > earlier version of the intel driver, what other packages should I also
> > roll back? The compilation failure of xf86-video-intel-2.2.1_1 (and
> > earlier versions) is:
> >
> >   In file included from i810_driver.c:88:
> >   i830.h:74:20: error: xf86mm.h: No such file or directory
> >
> > Googling tells me that this is due to a libdrm change, so obviously that
> > must be downgraded, which probably will require an earlier version of
> > xorg-server as well. Any notable others that will need to be downgraded?
> >
> 
> It is known that new libdrm cause obsolete xf86-video-i810 to be
> marked as broken port.
>  For start just downgrade libdrm to 2.3.0 and try again.
> 

I rolled back libdrm, xorg-server and xf86-video-intel back to
2008.07.23 (having ports as a CVS checkout is handy!), which helped a
lot. There are still lots of slow downs due to indirect rendering that I
would swear were not there before.

This dual head limitation is really .. limiting .. I think the correct
solution may be to ditch this hardware and get something with a bit more
fancy hardware, probably nvidia. What graphics drivers do have good dual
head support (eg: Direct rendering on both screens, full xrandr 1.2
support)? 

Cheers

Tom
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