Testing Out AMD’s DRI2 Driver Stack

[ Thanks to Michael Larabel for
this link. ]

“Anyone who has read Phoronix at all within the last
year will have noticed several graphics related acronyms constantly
popping up such as DRM, DRI, Mesa, and Direct Rendering. More
recently, things like KMS, GEM, DRI2, and Gallium3D have become
ever more prevalent. These are all elements of the software stack
that makes video hardware work in Linux. This software is contained
in the kernel as well as across several different libraries and
drivers. Specifically they are:

The Kernel – provides low-level access to the hardware

libdrm – user-space component that provides hardware
acceleration via the kernel

Mesa – 3D rendering library

X Driver – Provides accelerated 2D and video

“You see the question posed on mailing lists and forums all the
time ‘is card XYZ supported?’ It is usually not a straightforward
answer. Firstly – any card in recent history will run with the vesa
X driver, so by default the answer is yes. Granted you get no
accelerated 2D or 3D and performance will be reminiscent of that
486 you still have in your garage. You may also end up mode-setting
to a lower resolution than your panel’s native mode. Secondly – Due
to the fact that the X driver and mesa are completely separate
pieces of software, it quite possible to have accelerated 2D
performance but no accelerated 3D. This is the current state of the
R600-R700 cards, 3D support will hopefully be coming in the near
future. Thirdly – usually what people mean by this question is will
Quake/Doom/whatever run, i.e. is 3D working. Assuming proper
support is in place at every level for your specific hardware then
your games will be blazing fast, otherwise you will be looking at a
CPU rendered slideshow.”

Complete
Story