[vbox-dev] VirtualBox without 3D acceleration enabled vs self compiled Mesa

[Divick Kishore]

Hi,
    I am seeing considerable difference in performance of Mesa
installed in VirtualBox without 3D Acceleration enabled vs self
compiled Mesa.

I am trying to compile mesa with software only rendering path. The
configure options passed are:

./configure --enable-gles1 --enable-gles2  --with-gallium-drivers=''
--with-dri-drivers='swrast'

Could someone please help me understand why there is huge difference
in s/w only rendering path with self compiled mesa vs mesa installed
on system? Moreover the mesa renderer shown with self compiled mesa vs
the one installed on system show different renderer. Could someone
please explain if the Gallium on LLVM renderer is a s/w only path or
does it utilize the GPU as well?

Running glxinfo I get the following (when run with installed mesa and
without 3D acceleration enabled in VirtualBox settings for VM):

direct rendering: Yes
server glx vendor string: SGI
server glx version string: 1.4
server glx extensions:
    GLX_ARB_multisample, GLX_EXT_import_context, GLX_EXT_texture_from_pixmap,
    GLX_EXT_visual_info, GLX_EXT_visual_rating, GLX_MESA_copy_sub_buffer,
    GLX_OML_swap_method, GLX_SGIS_multisample, GLX_SGIX_fbconfig,
    GLX_SGIX_pbuffer, GLX_SGI_make_current_read
client glx vendor string: Mesa Project and SGI
client glx version string: 1.4
client glx extensions:
    GLX_ARB_create_context, GLX_ARB_create_context_profile,
    GLX_ARB_create_context_robustness, GLX_ARB_get_proc_address,
    GLX_ARB_multisample, GLX_EXT_create_context_es2_profile,
    GLX_EXT_framebuffer_sRGB, GLX_EXT_import_context,
    GLX_EXT_texture_from_pixmap, GLX_EXT_visual_info, GLX_EXT_visual_rating,
    GLX_INTEL_swap_event, GLX_MESA_copy_sub_buffer,
    GLX_MESA_multithread_makecurrent, GLX_MESA_swap_control,
    GLX_OML_swap_method, GLX_OML_sync_control, GLX_SGIS_multisample,
    GLX_SGIX_fbconfig, GLX_SGIX_pbuffer, GLX_SGIX_visual_select_group,
    GLX_SGI_make_current_read, GLX_SGI_swap_control, GLX_SGI_video_sync
GLX version: 1.4
GLX extensions:
    GLX_ARB_get_proc_address, GLX_ARB_multisample, GLX_EXT_import_context,
    GLX_EXT_texture_from_pixmap, GLX_EXT_visual_info, GLX_EXT_visual_rating,
    GLX_MESA_multithread_makecurrent, GLX_OML_swap_method,
    GLX_SGIS_multisample, GLX_SGIX_fbconfig, GLX_SGIX_pbuffer,
    GLX_SGI_make_current_read
OpenGL vendor string: VMware, Inc.
OpenGL renderer string: Gallium 0.4 on llvmpipe (LLVM 0x301)
OpenGL version string: 2.1 Mesa 9.0.3
OpenGL shading language version string: 1.20


The output with 3D Acceleration enabled is:

direct rendering: Yes
server glx vendor string: Chromium
server glx version string: 1.3 Chromium
server glx extensions:
    GLX_ARB_get_proc_address, GLX_ARB_multisample,
    GLX_EXT_texture_from_pixmap, GLX_SGIX_fbconfig
client glx vendor string: Chromium
client glx version string: 1.3 Chromium
client glx extensions:
    GLX_ARB_get_proc_address, GLX_ARB_multisample,
    GLX_EXT_texture_from_pixmap, GLX_SGIX_fbconfig
GLX version: 1.3
GLX extensions:
    GLX_ARB_get_proc_address, GLX_ARB_multisample,
    GLX_EXT_texture_from_pixmap, GLX_SGIX_fbconfig
OpenGL vendor string: Humper
OpenGL renderer string: Chromium
OpenGL version string: 2.1 Chromium 1.9
OpenGL shading language version string: 4.00 - Build 9.17.10.2843
...


And when run with self compiled mesa the output has:

direct rendering: Yes
server glx vendor string: SGI
server glx version string: 1.4
server glx extensions:
    GLX_ARB_multisample, GLX_EXT_import_context, GLX_EXT_texture_from_pixmap,
    GLX_EXT_visual_info, GLX_EXT_visual_rating, GLX_MESA_copy_sub_buffer,
    GLX_OML_swap_method, GLX_SGIS_multisample, GLX_SGIX_fbconfig,
    GLX_SGIX_pbuffer, GLX_SGI_make_current_read
client glx vendor string: Mesa Project and SGI
client glx version string: 1.4
client glx extensions:
    GLX_ARB_create_context, GLX_ARB_create_context_profile,
    GLX_ARB_create_context_robustness, GLX_ARB_framebuffer_sRGB,
    GLX_ARB_get_proc_address, GLX_ARB_multisample,
    GLX_EXT_create_context_es2_profile, GLX_EXT_framebuffer_sRGB,
    GLX_EXT_import_context, GLX_EXT_texture_from_pixmap, GLX_EXT_visual_info,
    GLX_EXT_visual_rating, GLX_INTEL_swap_event, GLX_MESA_copy_sub_buffer,
    GLX_MESA_multithread_makecurrent, GLX_MESA_swap_control,
    GLX_OML_swap_method, GLX_OML_sync_control, GLX_SGIS_multisample,
    GLX_SGIX_fbconfig, GLX_SGIX_pbuffer, GLX_SGIX_visual_select_group,
    GLX_SGI_make_current_read, GLX_SGI_swap_control, GLX_SGI_video_sync
GLX version: 1.4
GLX extensions:
    GLX_ARB_get_proc_address, GLX_ARB_multisample, GLX_EXT_import_context,
    GLX_EXT_texture_from_pixmap, GLX_EXT_visual_info, GLX_EXT_visual_rating,
    GLX_MESA_multithread_makecurrent, GLX_OML_swap_method,
    GLX_SGIS_multisample, GLX_SGIX_fbconfig, GLX_SGIX_pbuffer,
    GLX_SGI_make_current_read
OpenGL vendor string: Mesa Project
OpenGL renderer string: Software Rasterizer
OpenGL version string: 2.1 Mesa 9.1.1
OpenGL shading language version string: 1.20
....



Any help is appreciated and I hope it is a right forum to ask this
question. I believe virtualbox-users mailing list would not be ideal
to ask this question?
Thanks in advance,
Divick