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AMD applies make-up to the face of its Linux Control Centre (the Inquirer)AMD applies make-up to the face of its Linux Control Centre (the Inquirer)Posted Jul 3, 2007 7:32 UTC (Tue) by Los__D (subscriber, #15263)In reply to: AMD applies make-up to the face of its Linux Control Centre (the Inquirer) by ernstp Parent article: AMD applies make-up to the face of its Linux Control Centre (the Inquirer)
This is not entirely true, Intel drivers has to go through AIGLX, while nVidia has their own layer directly.
The funny part is that, unless you have a ton of video memory, this isn't going to help you at all, because the nVidia drivers can't use system memory to store the windows contents, so after a while (= a few windows opened), new (or resized) windows will just be black boxes... UNLESS you force the driver to use *tadaaaa* AIGLX.
- Now, I'm not 100% technically sure about the cause, but the effect is very common among most laptop cards, and low-end desktop cards.
The really sad part is that Beryl/Compiz is SO much quicker (2-3 times on my hardware) with nVidia's own layer...
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AMD applies make-up to the face of its Linux Control Centre (the Inquirer) Posted Jul 3, 2007 7:48 UTC (Tue) by rsidd (subscriber, #2582) [Link] Why not go through AIGLX? It's now a core part of Xorg, it makes sense to use it.
And, as you say, even with nvidia you end up forcing AIGLX: using the nvidia driver "directly" isn't an option unless you only use a couple of windows at a time -- in which case, why bother with Beryl? Things like the multi-desktop cube and the scale plugin only make sense for people who have lots of windows open at a time.
beryl/compiz work great on a low-end laptop with Intel graphics that I have. In fact, beryl even works reasonably well with a rather old laptop I have with an ATI IGP345M card. Neither of these come close to being "Vista-ready".
AMD applies make-up to the face of its Linux Control Centre (the Inquirer) Posted Jul 3, 2007 7:57 UTC (Tue) by Los__D (subscriber, #15263) [Link] I DO think that it works fine on top of the line hardware, with lots of video memory, but I have never seen a laptop where it does.
And I agree, a common layer is better, but, at least for nVidia's drivers, their way is MUCH faster. Now this could easily just be because they have extra overhead when wrapping AIGLX.
AMD applies make-up to the face of its Linux Control Centre (the Inquirer) Posted Jul 3, 2007 8:29 UTC (Tue) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link] How the hell is Nvidia NOT using AIGLX?
If your talking about using the now-fairly-old-fasioned XGL stuff then that blows and sucks. If your saying that is somehow better then using AIGLX then I know your insane.
But there is no 'extra layer' that the Intel stuff has to go through or any silly BS like that.
AIGLX is built into the X Server. It's aviable to you on any recent release of X.org's X server. There is no extra layer or anything like that besides the fact that your getting the 3D acceleration from the X server and not from direct rendering. AIGLX provides indirect 3D hardware acceleration. In order to do this your video drivers need to support "texture_from_pixmap" OpenGL extension.
This is one of the updates that Nvidia provided with their 9xxx drivers. Without it it would require you to use XGL, which pretty much sucks in comparision to the built-in AIGLX support.
The reason why Nvidia's stuff would perform better is because:
* Their video cards are just plain faster then the integrated Intel stuff with more features. Stuff like being able to use hardware texture and lighting acceleration or being able to use shader languages.
It's not until the release of the G965 hardware, which is desktop-only, were Intel has come close to Nvidia's feature set and performance.
* Their proprietary OpenGL stack is better then the open source Mesa OpenGL stack. Both form the basis for their respective drivers.
If you care about having a composited desktop with special effects then any Intel video card from the 8xx chipset series and newer is capable enough to deliver it to you.
The rule of thumb goes like this:
If you want a modern desktop with the BEST stability and BEST ease of use in Linux then you want Intel. It will 'just work' on any modern distribution.
If you need high performance 3D graphics for whatever reason, for professional or newer games, then your stuck using Nvidia's proprietary drivers. They are the only ones that have the compatability and performance to run more demanding applications.
Avoid anything with the ATI label. Motherboards or video cards.
AMD applies make-up to the face of its Linux Control Centre (the Inquirer) Posted Jul 3, 2007 8:42 UTC (Tue) by Los__D (subscriber, #15263) [Link] If you look at the Beryl Manager "Advanced Beryl options" settings, you can either use AIGLX, XGL or nVidia.
Now, I have no idea what it is that "nVidia" does, you can still run a nVidia card when setting it to "Force AIGLX", this makes the graphics 2-3 times slower (on my hw), but you avoid the black windows. The 2-3 times slower graphics is tolerable without some of the prettier effects like blur and reflection.
Maybe "nVidia" is just another way of driving AIGLX, but it sure is faster on nVidia hardware. I have no idea if it's more "direct", or if it's better, I just know that "Force AIGLX" is very slow on nVidia's hardware.
AMD applies make-up to the face of its Linux Control Centre (the Inquirer) Posted Jul 3, 2007 9:05 UTC (Tue) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link] Oh..
And this may not remain true for ever. There is chances that ATI may decide to help open source driver developers (which I doubt)
A much more likely scenerio Intel is going to release new discrete video cards that will compete head to head with Nvidia's high-end offerings.
This is just hearsay and you know how stuff changes as time goes on.. But this is suppose to happen late 2008 or into 2009.
Described as x86-like in terms of programming API they will sport up to 16 GPU cores and have a gig or more of very high speed memory.
One of the more expensive things that happen in CPU making is that when you move to a new manufacturing technology, which is required for each new generation of CPUs being made, is that you have to pretty much abandon your old manufacturing lines. It's cheaper for AMD or Intel to simply build whole new assembly lines then to try to upgrade their existing facilities.
So I figure what Intel will do is when they upgrade to the next generation of state-of-the-art CPUs instead of using the old line to build Celerons or embedded stuff they will use it to build video card cores.
Seems like Intel's previous generation cpu making technology outclasses Nvidia's current generation stuff.
And the sky is the limit. Intel currently a 80 core cpu that they are using for testing and evaluation purposes... http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2925
The future is to have the GPU integrated directly into the CPU. When you have 80 cores I can't imagine that you'd want all of them to be general purpose stuff like we use now. Many of them would be for graphics proccessing and general floating point acceleration. Most of things that use that sort of stuff should be able to scale nicely with cores.
AMD/ATI and Nvidia seem to be heading towards making the GPU designs they have now and making them more CPU-like. Intel seems to be aiming at taking their CPU designs and making them more specialized, like IBM is doing with their Cell proccessor.
This may end up putting Linux in a unique position. It's more able to adapt to changes in hardware platforms compared to Windows.
AMD applies make-up to the face of its Linux Control Centre (the Inquirer) Posted Jul 3, 2007 22:02 UTC (Tue) by k8to (subscriber, #15413) [Link] Oh how I wish Intel could compete head to head with nvidia. We're a year now into the GMA X3000 chip being on the market, advertised as their foray into "Hardware T&L", and still they have shipped only "beta" drivers which actually enable this feature.
Maybe transformation and lighting is working great on Linux already. I wouldn't know. When I run an intensive OpenGL application on the current linux kernel's intel DRM with GMA X3000, my box locks up. No network even.
When I want to do some OpenGL wankery (play games), I have to boot Windows. It doesn't lock up.
AMD applies make-up to the face of its Linux Control Centre (the Inquirer) Posted Jul 3, 2007 23:52 UTC (Tue) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link] It's suppose to be working in the Linux drivers I beleive. I think they are a bit more advanced then the equivelent Windows drivers.
I am curious.
What versions of everything are you using? X.org, Kernel, distro, motherboard etc etc.
I would like to get a X3000 motherboard to replace my perfectly stable GMA 950, but it's hard for me to justify spending another hundred bucks to replace a already working motherboard.
I am curious about the actual performance of the thing. The only benchmarks that I've seen were only for the GMA 3000 which lack the extra hardware features.
AMD applies make-up to the face of its Linux Control Centre (the Inquirer) Posted Jul 6, 2007 12:55 UTC (Fri) by k8to (subscriber, #15413) [Link] X.org 7.2, Kernel 2.6.21.IForget. The motherboard is an asus job but it's really irrelevant. It's an Intel G965 chipset and video, and the only variations here are things IDE controllers.
The problem could well be debian's build of X.org, or the dri component, or perhaps the fact that I've an amd 64 box and kernel, but the dri in this question is 32 bit x86 (wine games), which is all supposed to work fine, but might not be as well tested.
I'm sure I could be helping the developers more with detailed and tenacious reports but I'm losing interest in that sort of thing over the years. The specs for the hardware are open, the company behind the hardware wants to make Linux stuff work well and is paying developers to do so. I really don't see why it doesn't just work already. Sure I understand development takes time but this is no longer new hardware.
AMD applies make-up to the face of its Linux Control Centre (the Inquirer) Posted Jul 4, 2007 4:36 UTC (Wed) by einstein (subscriber, #2052) [Link] > When I want to do some OpenGL wankery (play games), I have to boot Windows. It doesn't lock up.
LOL that's ironic. In any case, linux has never locked up on me no matter how much OpenGL gaming I do with the proprietry nvidia drivers. Sorry to hear the intel drivers are still so bad.
AMD applies make-up to the face of its Linux Control Centre (the Inquirer) Posted Jul 10, 2007 9:47 UTC (Tue) by daenzer (✭ supporter ✭, #7050) [Link] > How the hell is Nvidia NOT using AIGLX?
They have their own GLX implementation, top to bottom. It also supports
> AIGLX provides indirect 3D hardware acceleration. In order to do this your
Actually, the traditional AIGLX implementation of GLX_EXT_texture_from_pixmap
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