[Spice-devel] Windows QXL driver - low pixel depth, low resolution, laggard mouse

[Alon Levy]

On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 09:44:45AM -0400, John A. Sullivan III wrote:
> On Thu, 2011-06-16 at 15:50 +0200, Alon Levy wrote:
> > On Thu, Jun 16, 2011 at 01:42:07AM -0400, John A. Sullivan III wrote:
> > > On Thu, 2011-06-16 at 01:34 +0200, Alon Levy wrote:
> > > > On Wed, Jun 15, 2011 at 09:35:57PM +0100, Damien Churchill wrote:
> > > > > On 15 June 2011 21:11, --[ UxBoD ]-- <uxbod at splatnix.net> wrote:
> > > > > > ----- Original Message -----
> > > > > >> Hello, all.  We have recently jumped into SPICE with both hands and
> > > > > >> feet
> > > > > >> as we are intrigued with the possibilities.  But, we've hit a few
> > > > > >> rocks
> > > > > >> along the way!
> > > > > >>
> > > > > >> The immediate problems with our two test Windows installations
> > > > > >> (Windows7
> > > > > >> and Windows Server 2008 running as KVM guests in Fedora 15) using the
> > > > > >> QXL driver is that the pixel depth appears to be 4-bits, the only
> > > > > >> available resolutions are 640x480 and 800x600, and the mouse is
> > > > > >> unusably
> > > > > >> lagged.
> > > > <snip>> >
> > > > > > Alon (Redhat Dev) has a patch for QEMU which should hopefully fix the 4bpp issue but the binary and necessary libraries he sent me would not run successfully on our server. It was execute and then hang and eventually time out. Perhaps, as discussed, we could build from source though I wonder why that patch has not been fully committed yet?
> > > > > > --
> > > > > 
> > > > > Is the patch available to try anywhere? I'd like to give it a test and
> > > > > see what happens.
> > > > 
> > > > attached.
> > > <snip>
> > > 
> > > Argh!!! I recompiled the rpms from the srpms after applying the patch
> > > and thought for sure our woes would be ended! Alas, perhaps we have 8
> > > bit color now and we still have a maximum resolution of 800x600 :(
> > > 
> > > What next?
> > > 
> <snip>
> > I've installed yesterday on windows 2008 R2 successfully, the only real difference from win7/winxp is that the drivers have to be signed, and either cross signed by microsoft or you need to set the vm to accept self signed drivers.
> > 
> > You can easily tell the driver is not really loaded by looking at devmgmt.msc (device manager), the driver will have an exclamation mark overlayed on the icon.
> > 
> > I'm not sure if the self signed drivers are on the site, but I'm attaching self signed drivers (these are development only - based on unpushed patches).
> > 
> Strange, I wonder what is different between your environment and mine.

The only difference that should bother anything is the creation and signing of qxl.cat, signing of qxl.sys and signing of qxldd.dll. The
easiest route I thought was just to send you prebuilt and signed drivers, but you can do that yourself, the information is on the wiki (WinQXL page).

> I replaced the rpms on the Fedora host.  Was I supposed to do anything
> with the Windows drivers? The patched seemed only for qemu.  I'll give
> these a try and see if it changes anything.
> 
> I should mentioned that, before Windows presented its "Press Ctl Alt Del
> to login" screen, the color was brilliant for the Windows logo.  It
> changed when it got to the login screen.  Thanks - John

Yes, that's when the driver is loaded.

> 
>