On Thu, 2 Apr 2009 01:49:21 +0200, Pierre Schmitz <pierre@archlinux.de> wrote:

Hi all,

I am a proud user of an Intel 855GM chipset. Some time ago when the i810 xorg dirver was replaced by the xf86-viedo-intel performance were decreased from version to version and in the end it was unusable due to too many bugs an problems.

* support for tv-out was dropped (ok, not that important for me) * xv does not work. You either get a green or blue square or your whole X

crashes. * all kinds of false rendering * extremly slow 2D performance. Even with UXA I can watch the single elements redrwaing if I switch tabs in konqueror for example * too slow to watch videos on youtube or even a DVD * overall instability * suspend/resume is just a matter of luck

When I was just seeing garbage on my screen (=unusable) with the new 2.6.29 kernel I started looking for alternatives:

* xorg vesa driver: faster than intel and stable; bu still performance was not that great (of course, there is no hw acceleration) * vesafb+fbdev: similar performance; fast switching to vc and back is nice :-)

Finally I got intelfb working. Togehter with the xorg fbdev driver this seems to solve all my problems. It is really fast and stable. Suspend/Resume works fine and as a bonus I get fast vc switching (who needs kms for this? ;) Well, there is no support for xv, but I can watch DVDs with x11 output driver without issues. Using mplayer with fbdev output it is even possible to watch 720p videos.

The problem is: you have to compile your own kernel. The stock kernel provides the intelfb module but you cannot use it because vesafb is compiled in. I did not find a way to work around this. As soon as you start the kernel with a vga=XXX parameter vesafb gets loaded and other fb

drivers cannot work.

So, here is a patch and a precompiled kernel for those who want to try it: http://users.archlinux.de/~pierre/packages/src/intelfb.patch

http://users.archlinux.de/~pierre/packages/i686/kernel26-intelfb-2.6.29-4-

i686.pkg.tar.gz

It is also possible to build intelfb as a module; just add intel_agp and intelfb to your modules list in mkinitcpio.conf.

I hope this is helpful for some of you,

Pierre

Do you have any type of 3D rendering with the framebuffer X server? If so what do you get in glxgears (yes I realize this is not a benchmark tool)? pyther

Pierre Schmitz wrote:

The problem is: you have to compile your own kernel. The stock kernel provides the intelfb module but you cannot use it because vesafb is compiled in. I did not find a way to work around this. As soon as you start the kernel with a vga=XXX parameter vesafb gets loaded and other fb drivers cannot work.

Hi Pierre, I don't have a Intel VGA for test, but... Do you try with kernel option "video=intelfb:mode=NNxNN" (important! without vga= option) don't work for you? Or vesafb is always loaded first, then when intelfb is loaded and it fails? -- Gerardo Exequiel Pozzi ( djgera ) http://www.djgera.com.ar KeyID: 0x1B8C330D Key fingerprint = 0CAA D5D4 CD85 4434 A219 76ED 39AB 221B 1B8C 330D