Intel graphics benchmarked by Phoronix

[Devin Heitmueller]

On Tue, Dec 23, 2008 at 11:22 AM, Nikos Chantziaras <realnc at arcor.de> wrote:
> Devin Heitmueller wrote:
>> I don't know if you guys have seen this yet, but Phoronix did an
>> evaluation of the more recent Intel changes, and it was less than
>> favorable:
>>
>> http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=intel_graphics_q408&num=1
>
> That test is wrong.  You don't compare different drivers on different
> distros.  You compare them on the same distro.  Now I get to say that
> it's not the driver that is slower, but it's the newer Ubuntu version
> that slows it down.
>
> They should learn to benchmark :P  And they should learn to also name
> the benchmarks appropriately (that it compares performance of two Ubuntu
> versions rather than Intel driver versions.)

I don't dispute that the methodology could have been better in terms
of evaluating *just* the Intel driver.  However, what this does say
that Intel graphics *at least on Jaunty* are slower.  That could be
some bug in the distro, it could be a bug in GTK or some other
library.  But it could *also* very possibly be a bug in the Intel
driver or xorg stack, and it is probably worth somebody investigating
where the slowdown is coming from.

All the end user is going to do is hear that "I hear Intel has done
alot of work and I should be able to see those changes in the latest
release".  And then he/she upgrades to Jaunty and find that things are
actually much slower in certain areas.

Is it the Xorg team's perspective that, "we'll only look into huge
performance regressions if you first do all the work to prove that the
huge slowdown cannot be anything but the Xorg stack?"

I'm not trying to be confrontational, but I think burying your head in
the sand until you are given 100% proof that it's the Intel driver may
not be the best approach here.

Devin

-- 
Devin J. Heitmueller
http://www.devinheitmueller.com
AIM: devinheitmueller