[Mesa-users] mesa driver with cad apps (solid edge, solidworks)

[Rob Conde]

Couple of things:

1) With feature parity, llvmpipe will most likely perform better. But llvmpipe supports a much higher version of opengl (MS Driver is at 1.1). So if the application has multiple code paths for different driver capabilities, then llvmpipe might not perform better (at least in the speed sense).
2) We had a crash when using llvmpipe on windows 8 that we didn't see on windows 7. It was fixed by updating to mesa 10.6.4. I'm not sure the exact version of Mesa you're using, but you might consider trying a newer version.

Rob

________________________________________
From: mesa-users <mesa-users-bounces at lists.freedesktop.org> on behalf of Brian Paul <brianp at vmware.com>
Sent: Wednesday, January 13, 2016 12:15 PM
To: Jared Conway
Cc: mesa-users at lists.freedesktop.org
Subject: Re: [Mesa-users] mesa driver with cad apps (solid edge, solidworks)

Yes, llvmpipe should provide much better performance than the MS
software driver.  But llvmpipe in a Windows guest isn't a configuration
that anyone really tests (including VMware), AFAIK.

Sounds like solidworks is testing the OpenGL driver in some way during
installation after all.  The only hope of diagnosing that would probably
be with 'apitrace' (on github).  But it might be tricky to do.

As for the rendering artifacts, it would require some general debugging
effort to narrow it down.

I'm afraid I can't help much more than that.  I don't have any spare
time and the higher-ups would probably frown on me spending time on a
competing platform.

-Brian


On 01/13/2016 09:46 AM, Jared Conway wrote:
> Hi Brian, thanks for the feedback.
>
> We are using the mesa driver because our understanding was that it would
> provide better performance than a standard software opengl driver for
> the amazon t2 systems that we have the driver installed on.
>
> Regarding the apps, the behaviors we have seen:
> 1. solidworks, stalls at around 75% during installation with this
> driver. removing it, install goes through without issue. when the driver
> is installed, you are able to open a model but then the app will crash
> after several rotations of a model. without the driver, the app works
> fine, just slow.
> 2. solidedge, install is ok if i remember correctly. but with the driver
> installed, graphics window generally has artifacts that remain and when
> clicking tabs in the application, they do not highlight unless the whole
> app is moved around on the screen.
>
> Let me know if that adds more clarity to the situation and if you have
> any suggestions. Thanks!
>
>
>
> Jared Conway | Product Manager | 650.918.0324
> 318 South B St., #6 | San Mateo | CA | 94401
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>
> On Wed, Jan 13, 2016 at 8:07 AM, Brian Paul <brianp at vmware.com
> <mailto:brianp at vmware.com>> wrote:
>
>
>     According to the screenshot, you're using the llvmpipe driver on
>     Windows.  The Mesa version is 10.something (you'd have to click on
>     the "See details..." link to get the specific version.)
>
>     The first question is, why are you using Mesa instead of a regular
>     GPU driver?  What kind of GPU do you have?
>
>     Your original question/problem was:
>
>     "Has anyone used the mesa drivers with CAD apps like solid edge or
>     solidworks? We have been using them and find that the apps don't
>     install or have issues displaying graphics properly."
>
>     I guess I'd need more details.  When an app doesn't install, what
>     exactly is the installer complaining about?  Some CAD apps refuse to
>     run with "non-certified" OpenGL drivers.  But that's usually an
>     issue when the app is started, not at install time.
>
>     As for display problems, again, what exactly is the issue?  A few
>     months ago, I fixed a few issues related to drawing long
>     GL_LINE_LOOP primitives and Roland recently fixed some issues with
>     glEdgeFlag in llvmpipe that fixes at least one CAD app (Spazio3D).
>     I don't know of any other outstanding llvmpipe rendering issues.  If
>     something is mis-rendered, perhaps you can file a Mesa bug report
>     with as much detail as possible.
>
>     -Brian
>
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