Nouveau's Gallium3D Driver Gets Video Boost

[Louise]

Intel does DRI2. KMS too, but it's still in heavy development, so you need stuff from git. Don't know about Gallium.

Thanks

But isn't GEM suppose to replace DRI2 for all drivers?

[whizse]

No, I don't think that's the right way to think about it, there's a good explanation by bridgman in this thread.

Anyway, according to this blog entry, it seems Intel is doing quite well when it comes to Gallium3D too:

Early 2008 the state was that the first real world driver, an older Intel one, was working quite well. It might take a while until Gallium3D really enters the stage.

[TechMage89]

GEM is a requirement for both KMS and Gallium.

Intel has all three, although their Gallium driver is still experimental.

ATI has working GEM and KMS in experimental branches (neither is a function of the Xorg driver, so radeon vs radeonhd doesn't matter.) Experimental DRI2 Also exists in radeon branches, I believe. Work has started on Gallium, but it doesn't yet produce any useful result.

Nouveau has experimental GEM, KMS, and Gallium, although all of it is still very incomplete and not really ready for end-users yet.

[Louise]

No, I don't think that's the right way to think about it, there's a good explanation by bridgman in this thread.

Anyway, according to this blog entry, it seems Intel is doing quite well when it comes to Gallium3D too:

okay, I gor it all mixed up a bit =)

So Gallium3D should replace Mesa?

GEM replace TTM (for gfx cards without dedicated gfx ram) ?

And there is no replacement for DRI2?

[some-guy]

It should be more like

                  | KMS       | Memory Manager | DRI2   | Gallium3D |
+-----------------+-----------+----------------+--------+-----------+
| RadeonHD/Radeon | DEV       | GEM/TTM        | DEV    | DEV       |
+-----------------+-----------+----------------+--------+-----------+
| Openchrome      | NO        | TTM            | NO     | NO        |
+-----------------+-----------+----------------+--------+-----------+
| Nouveau         | DEV(NV50) | GEM/TTM        | NO     | DEV       |
+-----------------+-----------+----------------+--------+-----------+
| Intel           | MERGED    | GEM            | MERGED | DEV       |
+-----------------+-----------+----------------+--------+-----------+

Radeon/RadeonHD are just separate DDX drivers they share dri/drm code

Also GEM or TTM is a requirement for KMS/DRI2/G3D, however TTM isn't in the kernel so GEM is required to have it merged

[Louise]

GEM is a requirement for both KMS and Gallium.

Intel has all three, although their Gallium driver is still experimental.

ATI has working GEM and KMS in experimental branches (neither is a function of the Xorg driver, so radeon vs radeonhd doesn't matter.) Experimental DRI2 Also exists in radeon branches, I believe. Work has started on Gallium, but it doesn't yet produce any useful result.

Nouveau has experimental GEM, KMS, and Gallium, although all of it is still very incomplete and not really ready for end-users yet.

Wow. This is a lot of keep track up =)

There should be a page like http://www.x.org/wiki/RadeonFeature for these things =)

[Louise]

It should be more like

                  | KMS       | Memory Manager | DRI2   | Gallium3D |
+-----------------+-----------+----------------+--------+-----------+
| RadeonHD/Radeon | DEV       | GEM/TTM        | DEV    | DEV       |
+-----------------+-----------+----------------+--------+-----------+
| Openchrome      | NO        | TTM            | NO     | NO        |
+-----------------+-----------+----------------+--------+-----------+
| Nouveau         | DEV(NV50) | GEM/TTM        | NO     | DEV       |
+-----------------+-----------+----------------+--------+-----------+
| Intel           | MERGED    | GEM            | MERGED | DEV       |
+-----------------+-----------+----------------+--------+-----------+

Radeon/RadeonHD are just separate DDX drivers they share dri/drm code

Also GEM or TTM is a requirement for KMS/DRI2/G3D, however TTM isn't in the kernel so GEM is required to have it merged

This one cool break down! Thanks a lot =)

[bridgman]

So Gallium3D should replace Mesa?

Gallium3D plus its drivers replaces the current HW drivers in Mesa. The rest of Mesa stays. Gallium3D is also probably going to be useful without Mesa, eg the recent article about implementing XvMC over Gallium3D.

GEM replace TTM (for gfx cards without dedicated gfx ram) ?

The GEM API is replacing the TTM API everywhere... but part of the GEM API is defined as "driver specific" so each driver will probably have different calls there. So far the initial implementation of GEM is not being used on cards with dedicated video memory, and instead the devs are using their existing TTM implementations.

It's best to think about the API part of GEM, or things will get very confusing very quickly

And there is no replacement for DRI2?

Right, but DRI2 replaces DRI.

The other new thing is Redirected Direct Rendering, which needs DRI2 and GEM (DRI2 used to need TTM rather than GEM, but it was pulled back and reimplemented over GEM). RDR combines the speed of direct rendering with the compositer compatibility of AIGLX (indirect rendering), in other words all your apps still work but don't flicker under Compiz. It's possible that RDR work is being bundled in with DRI2 but I'm not sure.

It's mostly RDR and KMS that will make users' lives better; everything else is critical infrastructure to get there. Mesa-over-Gallium3D is hard to categorize; it'll do the same as Mesa did before, but hopefully will be faster and easier to optimize & enhance over time.

[Dieter]

The GEM, Gallium, etc. chart is fine for graphics developers.
End users need a chart more like:

                   +-----------+----------------+--------+-----------+---------+
                   | Xv        | XvMC           | mpeg4  | H.264     | theora  |
 +-----------------+-----------+----------------+--------+-----------+---------+
 | RadeonHD/Radeon |           |                |        |           |         |
 +-----------------+-----------+----------------+--------+-----------+---------+
 | Openchrome      |   Yes     |  Yes           |   ?    |    ?      |    ?    |
 +-----------------+-----------+----------------+--------+-----------+---------+
 | Nouveau         |           |                |        |           |         |
 +-----------------+-----------+----------------+--------+-----------+---------+
 | Intel           |           |                |        |           |         |
 +-----------------+-----------+----------------+--------+-----------+---------+

And we need to know what resolution and bitrate the driver/chip combo can handle.

I'd like to see a chart like http://www.x.org/wiki/RadeonFeature
for Chrome, Rage, Fire*, ...