LLVMpipe's Geometry Processing Pipeline Kicks

[phoronix]

Phoronix: LLVMpipe's Geometry Processing Pipeline Kicks

A month ago we talked about Gallium3D's LLVMpipe performing well and providing a much better software rasterizer than what is available with classic Mesa. Using LLVMpipe and a modest CPU for acceleration, the OpenArena was just about playable without any GPU assistance. Now a month later LLVMpipe is becoming a even more serious performer. LLVMpipe now is able to tap into the new geometry processing pipeline and it's causing some major performance gains...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=ODE5Mw

[HokTar]

I can't pretend to understand much of what this actually does, but it is certainly good news.

Can other drivers leverage this? So, will r300g be faster thanks to this?

[rohcQaH]

Can other drivers leverage this? So, will r300g be faster thanks to this?

Only software drawing (the softpipe driver) has been improved, r300g shouldn't use the CPU for rendering.

As I understand it, softpipe is written mainly for debugging, to compare rendering results (thus finding driver bugs) and to temporarily fill in unfinished functionality on new drivers. I don't think the end user is supposed to use it.

[entropy]

Afaik LLVM won't be used for r300g.

[Pfanne]

how well does this scale on multicore cpus?
is llvm used as a backend for the gallium layer, which is a backend for mesa?
cpu -> llvm -> gallium3d -> mesa

[Michael]

Thinking about running some LLVMpipe tests this week or next.

[Drago]

Thinking about running some LLVMpipe tests this week or next.

This would be great

[netkas]

The good thing is ability to compile llvmpipe with dri state tracker, so this produces swrastg_dri.so, and replacing swrast_dri.so with this file gives u good boost on software rendering.

[timofonic]

Typo...

LVMpipe leverages the Low-Level Virtal...

[Stebs]

Could perhaps be handy for things like WebGL on Netbooks (without Ion, Poulsbo etc.)?