[Intel-gfx] [ANNOUNCE] xf86-video-intel 2.8.0

[Alan W. Irwin]

Carl said:
>> However, Intel is getting its worth of bad publicity because of all
>> the stability problems (now addressed) and performance problems (only
>> getting worse). Could there be at least some blog post analysis about
>> what's going to be done about performance?
>
>I did recently make a blog post about performance measurement at least:
>
>        http://cworth.org/intel/performance_measurement/
> 
>The point I make there is that microbenchmarks like gtkperf don't really
>tell us what happens with real applications.
>
>> Newest Phoronix numbers just in:
>> http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=intel_q309_flakes&num=2
>> - Ubuntu 9.10 (2.6.31, 2.8.0, 7.5) is much slower, even double in some
>> tests, than Ubuntu 9.04 (2.6.28, 2.6.x (EXA), 7.4). And Ubuntu 9.04,
>> where GEM was introduced, was already 2x slower than Ubuntu 8.10/8.04
>> (intel 2.2-2.4 / EXA / no GEM) in many important areas.
>
>What I see there is lots of gtkperf microbenchmarks, which as I put
>forth in the blog report, don't capture realistic application behavior.
>So there may or may not be any real performance problem based on those
>numbers. It's really hard to know.

Carl, it's a shame to see this disconnect between the Phoronix test suite
results and what you would like to see tested for 2D graphics.  Blogging
about the issue is too easily ignored. Thus, my opinion is it is long past
time for you or someone else from Intel (since Intel's graphics reputation
is on the line) to directly contact Michael Larabel to help him put together
some more realistic 2D tests.  I believe headlines like today's from
Phoronix, "Intel Linux Graphics On Ubuntu Still Flaky" are completely
legitimate (and not snarky or overly negative) based on Michael Larabel's
results with PTS. However, if there is an obvious way to change PTS (which
is open source after all) to give more realistic 2D testing, then that would
do Intel's graphics reputation a lot of much-needed good (assuming your
hypothesis is correct).

Also, for another way to turn around the recent bad publicity, why doesn't
Intel run PTS results of their own and publish the 2D and 3D results
(including the exact graphics software stack you used which might well
differ from Ubuntu's) for each of your quarterly releases for your fastest
graphical chipset?  That would give a good test of the stability of your
recommended graphics stack and also give a good indication (assuming you
make the appropriate 2D PTS changes) of how you are doing with regard to the
speed issues.  It would also let users try out exactly the same PTS test
themselves for their particular Intel chipset and graphical software stack
to see how they are doing (stability and speed) relative to your fastest
graphical chipset with preferred graphics software stack.

Alan
__________________________
Alan W. Irwin

Astronomical research affiliation with Department of Physics and Astronomy,
University of Victoria (astrowww.phys.uvic.ca).

Programming affiliations with the FreeEOS equation-of-state implementation
for stellar interiors (freeeos.sf.net); PLplot scientific plotting software
package (plplot.org); the libLASi project (unifont.org/lasi); the Loads of
Linux Links project (loll.sf.net); and the Linux Brochure Project
(lbproject.sf.net).
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