[i945gm] (Needs kernel 2.6.32) DRI2 swapbuffers and page flipping

Binary package hint: xserver-xorg-video-intel

I'm not really sure how to best describe this bug, so I think it would be best to invoke the wisdom of the person working on it: http://virtuousgeek.org/blog/index.php/jbarnes/2009/05/07/pageflipping_blocking_etc

Jesse Barnes and others are hard at work at this moment to deliver tear-free output (read vsync) over DRI2. Unfortunately, only 95% of the requisite code may make it into Karmic if 2.6.30 is the chosen kernel for the release.

Short of a backport of the needed kernel modifications and a merging of the dri2-swapbuffers branches into certain packages, Ubuntu may find itself lacking proper vsync in an DRI2+UXA+KMS setup until at least next April.

(Btw, use the 'Also affects distribution' link to add tasks to other source packages in ubuntu, rather than the 'Also affects project' link, which just adds an upstream watch.)

This bug is a request for a backport of the DRI2 swapbuffer kernel patches that jbarnes is working on. There is no work to be done for -intel; but we're keeping this bug open simply for tracking purposes.

[Setting a milestone on this since we'll want to make a decision on this one once the kernel version for karmic is determined.]

The other day, Jesse mentioned that the dri2-swapbuffers branch would be merged with the master for intel, I'm not sure about the other git trees though.

*would be merged within a few days

Hi llstarks,

Please attach the output of `lspci -vvnn`, and attach your /var/log/Xorg.0.log (and maybe Xorg.0.log.old) file from after reproducing this issue. If you've made any customizations to your /etc/X11/xorg.conf please attach that as well.

[This is an automated message. Apologies if it has reached you inappropriately; please just reply to this message indicating so.]

[Unnecessary to have this filed against the xorg meta package as well]

FYI, at UDS it was decided that the Karmic kernel would target 2.6.31.

Taking off the miestone list, 2.6.31 might not land in time for a3.

While I understand that Karmic is pretty much guaranteed to ship with 2.6.31, there needs to be a focus right now on making sure the other components (mesa, xorg, drm, intel, etc.) have necessary code merges in order to take advantage of the new kernel.

Here's a rather fascinating workaround(?) that can guarantee (on my laptop at the very least) tear-free playback in MPlayer without the need for any further tricks:

gconftool-2 --type bool --set /apps/metacity/general/compositing_manager false

Kernel: 2.6.30 (2.6.31-rc1 works too!)
Driver: Intel git master
Mesa: git master
DRM: git master
DRI: git master
Xorg: 1.6.1

Now that the kernel is at 2.6.31 (pre) in karmic, is there more to be done here on the userspace packages?

Can people who affected by this please upgrade to latest karmic, reboot (to get Linux 2.6.31) and check if this is fixed, or the behavior changed? Thanks!

This was fixed in the kernel, closing the other tasks (just confirmed with Bryce).

2.6.31rc1 has the upstream patch mentioned in the upstream bug report, so this should be fixed. Please yell here if you still have the problem in current Karmic. Thank you!

As far as I've heard, this bug, as a whole, is still far from being fixed.

Sure, the needed changes have been implemented at the kernel level, but the dri2 branches for dri2proto, mesa, xserver and xf86-video-intel are still not fully merged.

Eric, indeed. These will trickle into Ubuntu when they are merged to upstream trunk. Reopening, but not as release critical.

This bug was fixed in the package xserver-xorg-video-intel - 2:2.7.99.902+git20090720.bb300738-0ubuntu1

---------------
xserver-xorg-video-intel (2:2.7.99.902+git20090720.bb300738-0ubuntu1) karmic; urgency=low

  * Update to git 20090720 (master branch) up to commit bb300738
    - Fix intel driver reports Couldn't find PLL settings on i915
      (LP: #312133)
    - Fix X freezing on intel 855GM
      (LP: #370292)
    - Implement vblank sync'd GL buffer swap
      (LP: #377090)

 -- Bryce Harrington <email address hidden> Mon, 20 Jul 2009 22:05:31 -0700

dri2proto 2.1 is in karmic now.

sorry, I noticed that the swapbuffers-branch isn't merged to 2.1..

This bug was fixed in the package mesa - 7.6.0~git20090817.7c422387-0ubuntu1

---------------
mesa (7.6.0~git20090817.7c422387-0ubuntu1) karmic; urgency=low

  [Bryce Harrington]
  * Checkout from git 20090817 (master branch) up to commit
    7c4223876b4f8a78335687c7fcd7448b5a83ad10
    + Add DRI2 support to -ati
      (LP: #329654, #404428, #327698, #321108)
    + Fix portion of MythTV Frontend does not work with RADEON DRI
      (LP: #341898)
    + Fix selection mode on RS482
      (LP: #273329)
    + Fix issue running 3D acceleration games on ATI chipsets
      (LP: #374590)
    + Provide DRI2 swap buffers
      (LP: #377090)
    + Fix blender unusable with UXA when DRI2 enabled
      (LP: #353763)
  * Drop 108_bo_assertion.patch (applied upstream)

  [Robert Hooker]
  * Only added debian/ tree from origin/ubuntu
  * Enable r600 driver. Note that it requires seperate drm modules
    not provided in this PPA or in ubuntu, and also does not work with
    KMS.

 -- Bryce Harrington <email address hidden> Fri, 21 Aug 2009 16:13:50 -0700

Bryce, are the remaining components fixed upstream in the xorg-edgers or Sarvatt/xorg-testing PPA?

Bryce, this is interesting to me too. Could you check with Jesse Barnes about the state of the dri2-swapbuffer branch, and whether it's suitable for merging into our DRI2? And if there are any other bits required to make it all happy?

The kernel portion of this work is targeted at kernel 2.6.32 (Kristian Hogsberg has been posting the patches most recently). There are also libdrm, mesa, xserver and driver changes required, which should land in the Intel gfx Q3 release, and in the next stable X server release.

Hi Mark,

Sure thing. I checked with jesse; he posted the status in the previous comment, and in regards to the suitability, he said, "I wouldn't recommend it for karmic. It would be good to have in edgers though, but I'd just wait until it lands. Shouldn't be long now before those branches are merged into master of the various repos."

So it sounds like a good thing to look at for karmic+1, and would be worthwhile for us to integrate into xorg-edgers so people can begin testing on it.

Thanks Bryce, Jesse, looking forward to this in K+1.

BWU is wrong.

The intel driver will require additional patching. A lot has changed since this component of the bug was originally declared "fixed".

Bug remains in Karmic...

Please fix it! It is critical!

Jaunty & Karmic sucks because of this!

Again have slow rendering on Intel 945GM.

I install Kernel 2.6.32 and now have good performance.

Jesse / Eric,

Has anyone been able to verify if this fix has been released in the .32 kernel? I have added this to my list.

Thanks,

-JFo

Francisco,
     Are you able to definitively determine that this fix has solved your issue in the .32 kernel?

-JFo

Cannot confirm or deny. All I know is that Flash and fullscreen games stil tear regardless of whether vsync is activated or not.

This bug was fixed in the package x11proto-dri2 - 2.2-1

---------------
x11proto-dri2 (2.2-1) unstable; urgency=low

  [ Timo Aaltonen ]
  * New upstream release. (LP: #377090, closes: #569259)

  [ Julien Cristau ]
  * Rename the build directory to not include DEB_BUILD_GNU_TYPE for no
    good reason. Thanks, Colin Watson!
  * Remove myself from Uploaders

  [ Brice Goglin ]
  * Add myself to Uploaders.
 -- Robert Hooker <email address hidden> Wed, 10 Mar 2010 11:51:54 +0000

For clarity - is this fixed in Lucid's kernel? Or is there still farther to go? I'd like to help you keep a lid on Intel-driver-bashing in the forum when Lucid is out, but can't figure out if you're expecting this to work or not.

No, doesn't work yet. You need at least xserver 1.8 and Mesa7.8.

Everything for this is now available in maverick.