[Intel-gfx] artefacts on 855 graphic

[Alan W. Irwin]

On 2010-11-27 15:49+0100 Daniel Vetter wrote:

> On Sat, Nov 27, 2010 at 10:07:24AM +0100, Alexey Fisher wrote:
>> Hallo all,
>>
>> i know it is known issue that 855 is not really working with current
>> driver. But i wont to know if there is work in progress or any interest
>> of back reports?
>
> Well, it's i8xx in general that's in a very sorry state with gem.
> Unfortunately there's no easy fix available, even within intel no one
> knows anymore how to work-around these problems (hw people designed these
> chips approx 8 years ago and moved on). I have ideas that might fix these
> problems. Unfortunately this requires rather massive code rewriting. But
> I've been (very) slowly moving towards this in the past few months. Don't
> hold your breath, though.
>
> Meanwhile Chris Wilson's shadowfb support should give you Xv accel +
> reasonable fast 2d (cpu-rendered, but the gpu was never really faster for
> 2d on these chips, anyway).

Frankly, it harms Intel's Linux reputation that this regression in 3D
support for old chips has been allowed to develop.  Shuttle was kind
enough back in 2004 to donate two of their shuttle boxes to the LUG I
happened to belong to at that time.  Those boxes had Intel Extreme
Graphics 2 chipsets (I assume 855GM's), and low-end 3D games worked
well with the Intel driver then according to my own experience as well
as the wonderful Linux reviews that particular shuttle box (the
SB62G2) was getting at the time.  I have felt positive about Shuttle
and Intel ever since that good experience, but this regression in 3D
support for old hardware is giving me second thoughts about Intel.

I realize it would probably take some modest additional personnel
resources from Intel to support those old devices (probably with a
completely separate and minimally maintained driver that was forked
from the last edition of the Intel driver that worked properly for
those devices since that old hardware appears not to be compatible
with GEM). The allocation of such personnel resources from Intel would
give their Linux reputation a much-needed boost since extended
software support times are a big selling point for hardware that is
run with open-source device drivers.

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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Linux-powered Science
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