Re: Supported graphics (in HEAD)

[Robert Elz <kre%munnari.OZ.AU@localhost>]

    Date:        Sun, 08 May 2022 22:03:29 +0200
    From:        Tom Ivar Helbekkmo <tih%hamartun.priv.no@localhost>
    Message-ID:  <m24k1zn65q.fsf%thuvia.hamartun.priv.no@localhost>

  | Well, in my experience, nvidia is probably something you only want if
  | you have lots of RAM in your workstation.

Depending upon your definition of lots, I might.  But:

  | In HEAD, there's a lot of memory leaking going on

That would not stop me.  I know nothing about graphics, or graphics
cards, so cannot contribute to X drivers, etc - but something as
simple as a memory leak I should be able to find, if I can
reproduce it.  Whether I could fix it is a whole different question,
depending upon the nature of the problem, but once located, one
of the people who have a better idea what is going on will probably
be able to supply a fix.

Of course the issue might be specific to yiur specific GPU, you
did not say what that is.  It is unlikely I will end up with
the same one.

While I am here, I'd like to thank Matthew, nia, RVP, and you
for your replies.

With help from Matt's 2nd reply, I found the lists of supported
pci ids (some of which I had seen before, and just did not
really interpret or follow up on properky, but never mind).

Since my dream of using just the integrated graphics as dumb
frame buffer and driving 3 monitors from it has been heartlessly
crushed, I am going to get 4 GPUs, and the use whichever one
works best (these are all quite old, and so not expensive,
the 4 together are a tiny fraction of the system cost).
The other 3 I will store in a cupboard for later...

The 4 are:
	Radeon RX 550 (HDMI, DP, and DVI with a DVI to HTML converter)
	Nvidia GT 730 (4x HTML)
	Nvidia GTX 1660 (3x DP, HTML)
	Nvidia Quadro T400 (3x mDP)
(various vendors implementations of those)

All 3 monitors accept HTML and DP, so connectivity will work for
any of those (I will end up with some unused cables as well) and
all support the required resolutions.   (The RX 550 also has
analog output, which does not, but that is irrelevant, none of
the monitors support that anyway).

I could not find any other Radeon old enough to be supported,
and which could drive the monitors (and is available here).

It will likely take a couple more weeks (at least) for all
the bits to be delivered, then put together and tested (I
have done that before, now I prefer to get it done for me...)
and then get delivered to me.  Once that has happened, I
will report on what worked, and what did not, and if possible
(that is, if someone else has time to suggest changes)
see if I can assist in making things better by testing stuff.

All those GPUs are in the "should be supported" list(s).

So thanks all.

But, to conclude, one final question (for those who know,
or have at least looked at this stuff) - how good are Intel
at backwards compat with their graphics engines?  With their
CPU designs (though the architecture is hideous, even the
8 bit version was the worst of the contemporary rivals)
one thing to their credit is the way they have always kept
old code (even ancient code) runnable on even the latest
systems.  Is that true of their graphics engines as well,
or has the "just install a new driver" mentality taken over,
allowing each new version to be incompat with the previous?

kre