A nice improvement was merged today to the X.Org Server for benefiting the GLAMOR 2D acceleration code when using the Zink OpenGL-on-Vulkan driver.
GLAMOR provides generic 2D acceleration for the X.Org Server using OpenGL. Zink provides generic OpenGL over Vulkan API support and is part of Mesa. Now with this newly-merged code, DMA-BUF buffer sharing is enabled when using Zink with GLAMOR for more efficient handling.
The merged code is simply white-listing the Zink driver and follows the Intel driver already being white-listed and optionally enabled as an experimental feature atop other drivers for allowing more efficient buffer object sharing with DMA-BUF.
Faith Ekstrand of Collabora authored the change three months ago and commented in the merge request:
“Zink badly needs dma-buf and modifiers as it can’t handle BO import of tiled buffers without modifiers.
…
Honestly, this is looking really stable. I’ve tested with both KDE and GNOME and neither ever allocates a linear image. Someone should probably test with some more X11ish things to make sure it doesn’t break non-composited environments, though.
…
I dropped the Draft. I’ve been running this for a bit on my desktop and a few other people have put it through its paces as well. I think it’s safe to flip the switch.”
As of this morning the code is now in X.Org Server Git for enabling Zink with DMA-BUF for GLAMOR.
