OpenSUSE 11.4 and Intel GMA 950 - poor performances

Hello there,
I’ve installed OpenSUSE 11.4 / KDE on a self assembled PC based on the ASRock P4i945GC motherboard that hosts the Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950 which is inside the 945G Express Chipset.

The graphics performance seems not so good, in fact:

  • at KDE start, a message appears saying that desktop effects are slow and are being switched off;
  • switching from a window to another is not fast;
  • nexuiz (3D game) at 800x600 resolution with all effects turned off is orribly slow;
  • glxgears runs at 50 FPS;

I made a comparison with OpenSUSE 11.2 Live KDE where:

  • desktop effects are active and smooth;
  • tab switching is faster;
  • glxgears runs at 200 FPS;

I’m not so skilled in linux to understand which video driver is used in the two cases.
So I’m asking for help to find the best video driver and eventually install it in place of the current one in 11.4.

Here follows an excerpt from lspci on 11.4:

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 82945G/GZ Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 02) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
	Subsystem: ASRock Incorporation Device 2772
	Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 16
	Memory at fe980000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=512]
	I/O ports at cc00 [size=8]
	Memory at d0000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=256]
	Memory at fe940000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=256]
	Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled]
	Capabilities: [90] MSI: Enable- Count=1/1 Maskable- 64bit-
	Capabilities: [d0] Power Management version 2
	Kernel driver in use: i915

I also looked into Hardware Information, in both 11.2 and 11.4, searching for useful clues, but could not see anything meaningful to me; here are two excerpts:

OpenSUSE 11.2 Live KDE[/size][/size][/size]:

16: PCI 02.0: 0300 VGA compatible controller (VGA)
  [Created at pci.318]
  UDI: /org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/pci_8086_2772
  Unique ID: _Znp.IDOvJgnc5l5
  SysFS ID: /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:02.0
  SysFS BusID: 0000:00:02.0
  Hardware Class: graphics card
  Model: "Intel 945G"
  Vendor: pci 0x8086 "Intel Corporation"
  Device: pci 0x2772 "945G"
  SubVendor: pci 0x1849 "ASRock Incorporation"
  SubDevice: pci 0x2772 
  Revision: 0x02
  Memory Range: 0xfe980000-0xfe9fffff (rw,non-prefetchable)
  I/O Ports: 0xcc00-0xcc07 (rw)
  Memory Range: 0xd0000000-0xdfffffff (rw,prefetchable)
  Memory Range: 0xfe940000-0xfe97ffff (rw,non-prefetchable)
  IRQ: 16 (21231 events)
  I/O Ports: 0x3c0-0x3df (rw)
  Module Alias: "pci:v00008086d00002772sv00001849sd00002772bc03sc00i00"
  Driver Info #0:
    XFree86 v4 Server Module: intel
  Driver Info #1:
    XFree86 v4 Server Module: intel
    3D Support: yes
    Extensions: dri
  Config Status: cfg=no, avail=yes, need=no, active=unknown

OpenSUSE 11.4

16: PCI 02.0: 0300 VGA compatible controller (VGA)
  [Created at pci.318]
  Unique ID: _Znp.IDOvJgnc5l5
  SysFS ID: /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:02.0
  SysFS BusID: 0000:00:02.0
  Hardware Class: graphics card
  Model: "Intel 945G"
  Vendor: pci 0x8086 "Intel Corporation"
  Device: pci 0x2772 "945G"
  SubVendor: pci 0x1849 "ASRock Incorporation"
  SubDevice: pci 0x2772 
  Revision: 0x02
  Driver: "i915"
  Driver Modules: "drm"
  Memory Range: 0xfe980000-0xfe9fffff (rw,non-prefetchable)
  I/O Ports: 0xcc00-0xcc07 (rw)
  Memory Range: 0xd0000000-0xdfffffff (ro,non-prefetchable)
  Memory Range: 0xfe940000-0xfe97ffff (rw,non-prefetchable)
  IRQ: 16 (22179 events)
  I/O Ports: 0x3c0-0x3df (rw)
  Module Alias: "pci:v00008086d00002772sv00001849sd00002772bc03sc00i00"
  Driver Info #0:
    XFree86 v4 Server Module: intel
  Driver Info #1:
    XFree86 v4 Server Module: intel
    3D Support: yes
    Extensions: dri
  Config Status: cfg=no, avail=yes, need=no, active=unknown

Thank you for any help,
Max[/size]

I’ve just discovered this thread: Multiple problems with ‘Intel’ graphics driver in 11.4 talking about the same problem.
Maybe it’s better to continue over there.

Hello, i am having problems too with the Intel 950, in opensuse 11.4. But i think that is a problem of drivers and kernel because i install ubuntu 11.04 beta 2, and the intel 950 run succesfull, with all desktop efects

On 04/18/2011 06:06 PM, jacg wrote:
>
> Hello, i am having problems too with the Intel 950, in opensuse 11.4.
> But i think that is a problem of drivers and kernel because i install
> ubuntu 11.04 beta 2, and the intel 950 run succesfull, with all desktop
> efects

What are the respective kernels? As I recall, Ubuntu is using 2.6.38. If that is
true, you would get the same result by updating to the 2.6.38 kernel for openSUSE.

i upgraded to 2.6.38 and the performance continue to be poor

Just turn off the Blur effect. Apparently the corresponding shader suddenly compiles now, but is by no means fast enough to really be used.