Intel's 2D Performance With X.Org Server 1.9

While the 500px PutImage Square test performance was unchanged between the tested X Servers, with the "Char in 80-char aa line" test the performance was up by 11% with the 1.9.0 RC5 release.

With Render Bench, another X Render test, the performance was unchanged between xorg-server 1.8 and 1.9.

Lastly, we ran MPlayer using our 1080p H.264 video playback test of "Big Buck Bunny" and monitored the CPU usage when using the X-Video adapter for seeing if any of the changed X Server code-paths had an impact here. However, there were no changes in at least regards to the CPU efficiency between X Server 1.8.2 RC2 and X Server 1.9.0 RC5. X-Video is not even the best video playback method for Intel's driver but rather XvMC is supported and on their newest generation hardware when paired with a more recent kernel DRM there is support for using VA-API, which offloads more of the video decoding process to the Intel GMA hardware.

Intel's 2D performance has not changed a whole lot when upgrading to X.Org Server 1.9, at least with the Intel 945 IGP found in most netbooks. There were though a few performance improvements in a couple of the tests. However, with the UXA acceleration code living in the Intel driver, the EXA Radeon X.Org Server 1.9 results next week should perhaps be more interesting.