Added today to the Mesa documentation for the open-source Intel OpenGL/Vulkan drivers used on Linux systems is a set of “performance tips” for ensuring an optimal Intel Linux graphics 3D accelerated experience.
Intel graphics driver engineer Caleb Callaway landed the set of recommendations for those using Intel GPUs on Linux systems. The just-added documentation notes:
Performance Tips for Intel GPUs
– Keep the system updated with the latest kernel and Mesa versions.
– Ensure SoC firmware is up-to-date. These firmware updates currently require installing the Windows graphics driver; firmware updates via `fwupd` are in progress.
– Use Wayland where possible, as it supports additional modifiers for better performance.
– For [Meteor Lake] and newer integrated GPUs, disable VT-d if virtualization is not needed.
– For discrete GPUs:
+ Enable `ReBAR`
+ Enable `ASPM`
The Intel performance tips aren’t particularly surprising for experienced Linux users… Generally most important is just ensuring you are running the very latest Linux kernel and Mesa code. Plus nice seeing them recommend Wayland for best performance. For those with Intel discrete graphics cards, ReBAR and Active State Power Management (ASPM) remain very important across both Windows and Linux.
From the Intel performance tips documentation, the exciting tid-bit I learned from it was:
“firmware updates via `fwupd` are in progress.”
Great to see Intel working on graphics firmware updates via Fwupd/LVFS. In the past I’ve heard of Intel working on Fwupd support for their graphics cards but hadn’t heard anything recently so nice to see this is still being pursued and will hopefully come sooner rather than later.
The Intel GPU performance tips for their Linux driver were added to Mesa today via this merge.
