OpenGL/WebGL on i915: glxgears works, uses sw rendering

jeffk · l33t Joined: 13 Sep 2003 Posts: 671

I'd like to get OpenGL and WebGL (Firefox 4, newer webkit based browser) working on my ~amd64 Lenovo Thinpad x201 with integrated Intel i915 graphics. Firefox 4 from Mozilla Overlay and Webkit browsers e.g. Luakit at any WebGL demo page will simply display "WebGL could not be initialized, sorry!". I know that I got http://playtankworld.com working (probably with sw rendering) one time in the last 3 days, but it doesn't work today.

I know this hardware won't be fast for OpenGL, but I'd like to have something better than the current software rendering for OpenGL and nonworking WebGL. Any help with configuration tips would be greatly appreciated.

Here is the output from glxgears, which runs, but not fast. The output seems to indicate a software renderer in use. Is it significant that VMWare shows up as GL_VENDOR (I don't have VMWare products installed), or is Mesa Gallium code provided by that company?

Gusar · Posted: Sun Apr 03, 2011 9:49 pm Post subject:

First thing: remove your xorg.conf. Second, are you in the video group? Third, Firefox blacklists everything for WebGL except the nvidia blob. With good reason, there's lots of crashes with other drivers. It's possible to bypass the blacklist, but like I said, it's there for a reason.

jeffk · l33t Joined: 13 Sep 2003 Posts: 671

Thank you. I have removed xorg.conf, X11 seems to work perfectly, I'm glad to be config-less. I was not in group video, I added my user, and restarted X. These have not had any effect on glxinfo output or glxgears -info, etc.

Your point is well taken about WebGL blacklists. I don't have any ambitions to run WebGL on a daily basis, but I do need to test it out a bit with average non-gaming laptop hardware like this i915, so I can evaluate whether to target WebGL in application development.

Now that I have no xorg.conf, Do I need to do anything to tell X that it should load OpenGL extensions if it can find them?

Thanks.

Gusar · Posted: Mon Apr 04, 2011 9:54 am Post subject:

Did you log out after adding yourself to the video group? Just restarting X is not enough. Or you go the overkill, but effective route - reboot.

chithanh · Posted: Mon Apr 04, 2011 2:27 pm Post subject:

jeffk · l33t Joined: 13 Sep 2003 Posts: 671

Sorry to be a squeaky wheel, I'm up on xorg-x11 1.10.0.902 now, have all mesa and X components rebuilt, have rebooted, and have glxgears running accelerated. Is there any reason I shouldn't be able to get WebGL force-enabled on any of Firefox 4, Chromium-9999, Webkit-gtk luakit, etc? As mentioned previously, I don't expect fast, nor necessarily stable WebGL on this hardware. But I'd like to be able to try it at least, to evaluate as a web application target.