Intel X.Org, Mesa Performance In Ubuntu

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Intel X.Org, Mesa Performance In Ubuntu

Earlier this week we had published ATI benchmarks of the open-source Mesa stack and X.Org in the Ubuntu releases going back to Ubuntu 7.04. While the open-source graphics drivers have matured a lot over the past eighteen months and many new features have been added, the ATI performance with an R430 GPU really hadn't improved in the newer releases. To see if the open-source Intel situation is any different, we have carried out similar tests with an Intel 945G Chipset across the past four Ubuntu releases.

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=13096

[Yfrwlf]

I wouldn't call end of 2009 "just around the corner". However, I am very happy to hear that they are making a GPU that will compete with Nvidia and AMD, because that duopoly has grown tiresome. Intel and AMD certainly seem to feel Linux and other open source OSes are the way of the future with how they've actually made some efforts toward establishing the OSS business model. Makes you wonder how long Nvidia can hold out developing all their drivers in-house only.

[zoomblab]

Intel and AMD certainly seem to feel Linux and other open source OSes are the way of the future with how they've actually made some efforts toward establishing the OSS business model. Makes you wonder how long Nvidia can hold out developing all their drivers in-house only.

I certainly hope they keep developing their drivers in-house. Drivers are the software half of the complete thing and I wouldn't trust anyone else to provide them but the very same company/people that made the hardware in the first place.

I don't care if they are open or closed source. It is up to them to distribute them in the way they think it is best for their business. I just want them to be the best

[drag]

I don't care if they are open or closed source. It is up to them to distribute them in the way they think it is best for their business. I just want them to be the best

Well I certainly do care.

I don't care about Intel's business one wit. What I care about is having a stable and open operating system that I can use in any manner I see fit. I'll purchase any hardware that can provide what I desire.

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I wouldn't call end of 2009 "just around the corner". However, I am very happy to hear that they are making a GPU that will compete with Nvidia and AMD, because that duopoly has grown tiresome. Intel and AMD certainly seem to feel Linux and other open source OSes are the way of the future with how they've actually made some efforts toward establishing the OSS business model. Makes you wonder how long Nvidia can hold out developing all their drivers in-house only.

Well I have mixed feelings about the Larrabee stuff. It seems somewhat obvious that Intel is going to keep some things about it closed and whatnot.

What I would like to see is a stable ISA for programming graphics. Like how you have a stable ISA for programming x86 applications. I don't care about having backward compatability for 30 years or anything like that, but not having to program new drivers and whatnot for each new video card is something that I would love to see.

Also having the GPU supporting other programming languages and more APIs would be nice. Currently GPUs are essentially just a co-processor. A processor that is optimized for the sort of workloads you see for graphics. It would be nice to have it just be 'open' for optimizing any sort of application and GCC and whatnot can utilize it just 'naturally'.

That way instead of having to program special DRI drivers for a video card, you just take the Mesa software stack (which DRI drivers are derived from) and compile it with '-march=larrabee' and get to take advantage of the "3D acceleration". Then let the Linux take care of optimizing which applications use which segments of memory (the main memory, l3 cache, or video memory).

No fuss, no mess and transparent to application developers and end users. Of course Larrabee probably won't do that. But maybe it'll get closer to that ideal.

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Btw, phoronix, thanks for the benchmarks. For the Quake3/RTCW-based games it looks like there is a software fallback being kicked in for some aspect of the game, which means broken OpenGL support in some aspect.

[zoomblab]

Well I certainly do care.

I don't care about Intel's business one wit. What I care about is having a stable and open operating system that I can use in any manner I see fit. I'll purchase any hardware that can provide what I desire.

That comment was about Nvidia not Intel, but anyway the point is that it is their code, their hardware and their investment and as such they are perfectly justified to distribute it in any way they wish.

I am all for open source too but I hate egotistical whining.

[Svartalf]

Well I have mixed feelings about the Larrabee stuff. It seems somewhat obvious that Intel is going to keep some things about it closed and whatnot.

If it's going to be akin to what everyone indicates, an iteration of x86 designed for stream processing, they're going to probably give most of what's needed to drive it out as open docs...have to, really, much like they've done with every other CPU arch out there they've done.

[drag]

That comment was about Nvidia not Intel, but anyway the point is that it is their code, their hardware and their investment and as such they are perfectly justified to distribute it in any way they wish.

I am all for open source too but I hate egotistical whining.

Well they can do whatever they want, I don't have a problem with that. Also I can happily ignore them and not purchase their hardware and not recommend it to anybody else. I don't care if it's Nvidia or ATI or anybody else.

As it stands I am happy about Intel and I am getting happier about ATI the more their open source drivers mature.


Except of course, when I buy their hardware it becomes _my_ hardware. Whatever they invest in it is their problem; it's not my job to worry about them and their profits.

[Yfrwlf]

That comment was about Nvidia not Intel, but anyway the point is that it is their code, their hardware and their investment and as such they are perfectly justified to distribute it in any way they wish.

I am all for open source too but I hate egotistical whining.

Zoomblab, you certainly have a good point that we want them to be the best drivers they can be regardless (though we also want features, and openness is a feature too), but as for the relationship between whether or not they are open and with the driver quality:

A) They can still be in charge. Just because they open their drivers in no way means that just anyone's code is going to be put into their driver unless it is scrutinized for performance and other things, because it's still their driver. Do you think any old code is whimsically put into the Linux kernel? No, they either don't accept it or they throw it out or replace it with something better later on if it's not the greatest code, they'd be morons for accepting horrible code and even if they did, someone else could replace it. You can of course accept crappy code, but that would be their fault.

B) If it's open, that means it's possible in a hundred different ways to avoid any problems. For example, even if the Nvidia driver maintainers did accept crappy code and for whatever reason made a crappy driver, you wouldn't have to just live with it like you do now for their closed driver. You could fork it and make a better one, or prove to them that your code is faster than the code they are using, or whatever. The fact that it allows the problems to be fixed and addressed though means that open drivers, if they get the developer power behind them, can greatly be better than closed ones. It's simple, would you like a tiny development team working on a driver, or would you like several others working on it with you, looking over your shoulder, giving you feedback and showing you improvements? I know I would. Certainly they don't have to and shouldn't listen to everyone and shouldn't accept bad advice, but with the help of others it can make learning and advancing a lot easier.

Quite simply, it's an increase in collaboration, and that's a good thing. The entire Internet is built on the concept of collaboration. Many is better than a few, just as long as it's structured and organized well, is the key.