[mythtv-users] Latest Intel Drivers and HD on G915 (works) and G965 (video tearing)

[Calin Brabandt]

I compiled the latest Intel graphics drivers from
www.intellinuxgraphics.org.  The modesetting is a
welcome addition to the drivers and my G915 board
seems to be working well on either my 720p DFP or
1440x900 LCD VGA monitor.  There's still no XvMC in
the drivers, however.

Unfortunately, my G965, unlike the G915,has a bad case
of video tearing.  Mythfrontend -v playback reports
that both boards are using DRM sync and OpenGL sync
doesn't appear to work with the drivers.  I think DRM
sync is close to working on the G965 but it's sync'ing
in the wrong place.  With 1080i video, the video tear
is always about 1/4 of the way down the screen and
with 720p playback, it's about 1/8 of the way down. 
Without DRM sync, Myth uses RTC sync and the tearing
is all over the place on either board.  Using the
G915, and DRM sync, the video is correctly
synchronized with vblank and a pleasure to watch.

I compiled Mesa, DRM, and the Intel much as described
on the intellinuxgraphics documentation page.  Does
anyone have any suggestions or maybe some hacks to the
mythtv or other source I might try?  I've tried Myth
builds using the latest -4 "fixes" as well as SVN
trunk.  

The main differences in Xorg.0.log between the G915
(working) and G965 (tearing) are these errors for the
G965:

(II) intel(0): I2C device "SDVOB DDC Bus:ddc2"
registered at address 0xA0.
(EE) intel(0): Unable to write to SDVOCTRL_E for SDVOB
Slave 0x70.
(EE) intel(0): Unable to write to SDVOCTRL_E for SDVOB
Slave 0x70.
(EE) intel(0): Unable to write to SDVOCTRL_E for SDVOB
Slave 0x70.
(EE) intel(0): Unable to write to SDVOCTRL_E for SDVOB
Slave 0x70.
(EE) intel(0): Unable to write to SDVOCTRL_E for SDVOB
Slave 0x70.
(II) intel(0): I2C device "SDVOB DDC Bus:ddc2"
removed.

The G915 has no similar errors:

(II) intel(0): I2C device "CRTDDC_A:ddc2" registered
at address 0xA0.
(II) intel(0): I2C device "CRTDDC_A:ddc2" removed.

Thanks for any ideas.  Below are a few notes for
anyone interested in building the Intel drivers and
pursuing an open source mythtv video solution.  I've
seen a lot of talk about Intel graphics on the list
but not many success stories with HD and Myth.  My
G915 board is working well.  Maybe some other users
will checkout the latest drivers too

-Cal

Download source:
http://intellinuxgraphics.org/download.html

Follow guide here:
http://intellinuxgraphics.org/install.html

I needed to install Xserver 1.3 from Fedora
development. I'm running FC6 on the 915 and Fedora
7-Test4 on the 965.  A recent distro probably already
has Agpgart in the kernel.

I installed over the old drivers (${XORG_DIR} ==
/usr).

For the G965 and G915, I needed to build Mesa for the
target i915tex too or nv would not work.  This seems
strange because the G965 only supports texture mode
and does not support the older legacy mode, despite
what "man intel" says.   At least that's what the
evidence indicates to me.

cd mesa
# edit linux-dri file to set build target: DRI_DIRS =
i915tex i965

or 

DRI_DIRS = i915tex i915 (for the G915)

Also, contrary to the Intel README, GLX and DRI are
loaded automatically by the driver and must not be
loaded in xorg.conf.  If you have 

Section "Module"
       Load  "glx"
       Load  "dri"
EndSection

comment them out or DRI won't work right (you won't
get nv or DRM).

As always,check configuration with:

export LIBGL_DEBUG=verbose 
glxinfo 
glxgears
===============================================



 
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