[PATCH] randr: add provider object (v7)

[Alex Deucher]

On Tue, Jul 3, 2012 at 10:10 AM, Dave Airlie <airlied at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Jul 3, 2012 at 2:57 PM, Alex Deucher <alexdeucher at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Tue, Jul 3, 2012 at 7:57 AM, Dave Airlie <airlied at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> (forgot list first time I sent this).
>>>
>>> On Mon, Jul 2, 2012 at 10:03 PM, Keith Packard <keithp at keithp.com> wrote:
>>>> Dave Airlie <airlied at gmail.com> writes:
>>>>
>>>>> On Mon, Jul 2, 2012 at 8:54 PM, Keith Packard <keithp at keithp.com> wrote:
>>>>>> Dave Airlie <airlied at gmail.com> writes:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Yes thats going to be the standard on switchable GPU machines, two masters
>>>>>>> and the ability to jump between them. In that case max master is one, and you'd
>>>>>>> have to set the provider roles. If maxmaster > 1 then xinerama
>>>>>>> emulation is available.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> In those machines, isn't the limitation that only one of them can drive
>>>>>> the LVDS panel at a time? Can't you have the internal GPU driving the
>>>>>> LVDS while the external GPU drives other outputs?
>>>>>
>>>>> Yes but you don't configure it in xinerama mode for that, there are
>>>>> mux and muxless configurations.
>>>>
>>>> I think I understand what the hardware does now, just trying to figure
>>>> out how to provide a reasonable description of that to applications
>>>> while not just providing a big 'muxless/muxed' switch, which seems
>>>> restricted to precisely how the hardware that we have works today.
>>>>
>>>>> In mux configuration, you switch the mux between GPUs when the master
>>>>> is switched.
>>>>
>>>> Right, the mux just rewires things so that the other GPU is hooked up to
>>>> the LVDS. I'd expect the LVDS outputs to reflect a suitable connection
>>>> status for these changes.
>>>>
>>>> The only question is how you drive the mux switch. Is this switch
>>>> selectable per-output? Or is is global? And, how do we label which
>>>> outputs are affected by a global switch?
>>>
>>> We don't really know with 100% certainty since the specs for all these
>>> things are closed. We've done a lot of RE work, and it mostly appears
>>> to be a single global switch that turns any connected outputs. There is
>>> a table in the intel bios which can tell you about which outputs are muxed
>>> etc, but this isn't always present. Again we also have laptops that have
>>> a mux but don't expose this table, as they only have the MUX so the
>>> BIOS can pick IGP/discrete for Vista, and Windows 7 operates in
>>> muxless mode.
>>>
>>> The current problem is I'm not sure any OS exposes muxless and mux
>>> in one OS. Mac OSX always uses muxed, Vista the same, and I think
>>> Windows 7 always exposes muxless if the bios reports optimus support
>>> or the AMD equivalent.
>>
>> All new AMD systems are muxless and I suspect most other vendors are
>> doing the same.  I'm wondering if there is any reason to bother with
>> proper muxed support at all?  We should be able to treat muxed systems
>> as muxless just fine.
>>
>
> Apple hw is the only one I know off persisting with a muxed design,
>
> Whether it buys us much supporting the mux on it I'm not sure, I've no
> idea to what degree they power down the intel hardware on it.

I doubt they can do anything more than on the PC side otherwise the PC
side probably would have done it too.

Alex