This GLX Patch Can Really Boosts The FPS (~ +60%)

[phoronix]

Phoronix: This GLX Patch Can Really Boosts The FPS (~ +60%)

The past few months Chris Wilson has been on quite a coding spree with making many changes and improvements to the xf86-video-intel DDX driver, among other components. Today though he has put out a patch to the X.Org development list that will affect far more individuals than just those using the Intel graphics driver, which is his primary focus being an employee of the Intel Open-Source Technology Center. This GLX patch has boosted the in-game frame-rate for him in one of his tests by about sixty percent!..

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=OTA1MQ

[daniels]

This patch only affects heavy indirect-rendering users, hence why his mail noted him testing with a networked game. Anyone using DRI/DRI2 won't notice the difference.

[airlied]

/me wonders if Michael reads these commit msgs before going nuts.

Its only on indirect rendering, and I seriously doubt anyone uses that to play games.

[Yan0451]

Ouch!
That was bad.

[Plombo]

/me wonders if Michael reads these commit msgs before going nuts.

Its only on indirect rendering, and I seriously doubt anyone uses that to play games.

Don't composited windows use indirect rendering? If so, I use indirect rendering to play games quite often. Linux games, especially games using SDL, usually implement fullscreen in a way that changes the screen resolution and grab the input so that it's impossible to recover if something goes wrong.

Speaking of fullscreen, speed improvements for games in composited window managers could make it more practical to use the NetWM fullscreen request for games, which could lead to a much nicer fullscreen gaming experience with working Alt+Tab, volume control, desktop notifications, etc.

[rohcQaH]

Don't composited windows use indirect rendering?

Not anymore, applications can use direct rendering to render to an offscreen buffer.

[Plombo]

Not anymore, applications can use direct rendering to render to an offscreen buffer.

Ah, I thought I might have been missing something like that.

[jakubo]

he gets 30fps without direct rendering? what the hell!?
just to make sure im not lacking information. indirect rendering is softpipe right? if so, even llvm didnt get that on some freaking core i7 940. or would that be beneficial for wine maybe?

[daniels]

he gets 30fps without direct rendering? what the hell!?
just to make sure im not lacking information. indirect rendering is softpipe right? if so, even llvm didnt get that on some freaking core i7 940. or would that be beneficial for wine maybe?

accelerated indirect rendering has been available for the past five years or so.

generally though, lack of direct rendering means lack of gl acceleration too, unless you've either forced indirect rendering, have screwed up your permissions, or are on a remote machine.

[elanthis]

To those making fun of Michael... he did clearly state it was a GLX patch and not a general Mesa patch. GLX is the "GL over X11" protocol which is mainly just used for creating contexts in the direct rendering world. It's only actually used for everything else when doing indirect rendering.

While he probably should've clearly stated that it's for indirect/networked rendering in the title given how many readers of the site still don't seem to comprehend half the technology they're reading about daily, he certainly didn't claim this patch did more than it does.