[Intel-gfx] i965 / i915 and what else?

[Chris Wilson]

On Thu, 9 Dec 2010 21:53:22 +0900, Journeyer Hum <journeyerhum at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I am now investigating the rendering capability of Android-x86.
> As you might know, android-x86 currently uses i915 for the frame buffer
> driver.
> So it supports GMA earlier than X3100(965GM).

If you are only interested in the rendering capabilities, then the Intel
chipsets are basically broken down into their generations.

i810 is gen1.

i8xx is gen2 (830G, 845, 855GM, 865G). Fixed function texture combiners.

i915 is gen3. This covers 915G[M], 945G[M][E], PineView, i.e. the chips
currently used in Atom netbooks (apart from the PVR derivatives). This is
predominantly a fixed-function chip with a small pixel shader engine.

i965 is gen4. We include g[m]45 since it is an enhanced gen4 and not a
full successor. This is the first of the new fully programmable
architecture.

Ironlake is gen5.

Sandybridge is gen6, which will be released soon, is the first IGP where
the GPU shares the same cache as the CPUs.

We use the term i965 loosely to mean anything after gen3 (i.e. gen4-6) as
that marks a big transition in execution architecture (essentially
fixed-function to "fully" programmable). Only the documentation for i965+
is available. Getting retrospective approval for releasing gen3 and earlier
is "in progress".

In terms of display engines, the latest transition point was in Ironlake
which introduced the FDI as link between the CPU and the display engine.
But otherwise there is a large amount of overlap in the KMS capabilities
of each generation.

A vague answer to a vague question. Wikipedia can provide lots of details
on the various specs of each generation and you can find the Programmers
Reference Manuals at intellinuxgraphics.org.
-Chris

-- 
Chris Wilson, Intel Open Source Technology Centre