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I'm getting poor video playback performance on Ubuntu 18.04, and wanted to update the drivers for my integrated Intel UHD Graphics 620 card. However, I'm not too sure how to do that. Looking at the output from apt show xserver-xorg-video-intel I get the following:

Package: xserver-xorg-video-intel
Version: 2:2.99.917+git20171229-1
Priority: optional
Section: x11
Origin: Ubuntu
Maintainer: Ubuntu Developers <ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com>
Original-Maintainer: Debian X Strike Force <debian-x@lists.debian.org>
Bugs: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+filebug
Installed-Size: 3,259 kB
Provides: xorg-driver-video
Depends: libc6 (>= 2.17), libdrm-intel1 (>= 2.4.38), libdrm2 (>= 2.4.25), libpciaccess0 (>= 0.8.0+git20071002), libpixman-1-0 (>= 0.30.0), libudev1 (>= 183), libx11-6, libx11-xcb1, libxcb-dri2-0, libxcb-dri3-0, libxcb-sync1, libxcb-util1 (>= 0.4.0), libxcb1, libxcursor1 (>> 1.1.2), libxdamage1 (>= 1:1.1), libxext6, libxfixes3, libxinerama1, libxrandr2 (>= 2:1.2.99.2), libxrender1, libxshmfence1, libxss1, libxtst6, libxv1, libxvmc1, xorg-video-abi-23, xserver-xorg-core (>= 2:1.18.99.901)
Homepage: https://www.x.org/
Task: ubuntu-desktop, kubuntu-desktop, xubuntu-core, xubuntu-desktop, core-share, lubuntu-gtk-core, lubuntu-desktop-share, lubuntu-core, lubuntu-qt-core, ubuntustudio-desktop-core, ubuntustudio-desktop, ubuntukylin-desktop, ubuntu-mate-core, ubuntu-mate-desktop, ubuntu-budgie-desktop
Supported: 5y
Download-Size: 728 kB
APT-Sources: http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic/main amd64 Packages
Description: X.Org X server -- Intel i8xx, i9xx display driver
 This package provides the driver for the Intel i8xx and i9xx family
 of chipsets, including i810, i815, i830, i845, i855, i865, i915, i945
 and i965 series chips.
 .
 This package also provides XvMC (XVideo Motion Compensation) drivers
 for i810/i815 and i9xx and newer chipsets.
 .
 This package is built from the X.org xf86-video-intel driver module.
 .
 The use of this driver is discouraged if your hw is new enough (ca.
 2007 and newer). You can try uninstalling this driver and let the
 server use it's builtin modesetting driver instead.

What confuses me is the last paragraph in the above output, which states

The use of this driver is discouraged if your hw is new enough (ca.
2007 and newer). You can try uninstalling this driver and let the
server use it's builtin modesetting driver instead.

As such, I wanted to ask the following questions:

  1. Why does Ubuntu 18.04 (an OS that is 3 years old) ship with Intel graphics drivers that are meant for graphics cards that are older than 14 years, and not seem to support newer graphics cards by default?
  2. Is there a way to safely install up-to-date Intel graphics drivers? Looking at the "Additional Drivers" tab in the Software & Updates application I don't seem to be able to update my Intel drivers.
  3. Reading the last paragraph from apt show xserver-xorg-video-intel output seems to imply that I can simply use sudo apt remove xserver-xorg-video-intel. Will this remove the old Intel graphics drivers and automatically install the most up-to-date drivers?
  4. As a final question, what exactly is a modesetting driver?

Thanks very much.

indigoblue
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  • Please stop right there! No user action needed regarding Intel Graphics drivers. An up-to-date version for ALL hardware is already installed and in use, period. The problem, whatever that is, is NOT related to Intel drivers. – ChanganAuto Apr 22 '21 at 21:04
  • I'm playing devil's advocate here, but since I don't have any video playback issues (i.e. frame drops) when using my Windows 10 partition, this feels like it could be a driver issue. If my drivers are up-to-date do you know why I get the warning to not use my current drivers when outputting driver information? I feel like I'm misunderstanding something. – indigoblue Apr 22 '21 at 21:11
  • A few things actually. What exactly is the problem? That should be the starting point. – ChanganAuto Apr 22 '21 at 21:32
  • @ChanganAuto tearing (admittedly / apparently, in Totem moreso than in VLC) – Levente Apr 22 '21 at 21:39
  • OH, it happens... Absolutely nothing to do with drivers. First try Wayland. If the symptom persists then you need to edit a file, but one thing at a time. – ChanganAuto Apr 22 '21 at 21:41
  • This -> https://askubuntu.com/a/1119262/1210606 (But try Wayland first) – ChanganAuto Apr 22 '21 at 21:45
  • @ChanganAuto Wayland seems a no-go for me (it's too complicated for this comment) but I find the x.org config approach promising, even if it introduces new, significant, other glitches that will need ironing out. In any case, I'm not OP and I would regret hijacking their question too much. (And thank you!) – Levente Apr 22 '21 at 22:07
  • @Levente Wayland is the default in 21.04 and very likely for good this time. Almost all the apps that didn't work in Wayland before now do just fine thanks mostly to great XWayland improvements. I think you'll have to get used to it, sooner than later. – ChanganAuto Apr 22 '21 at 22:10
  • My issue is that I get a large amount of frame drops and hanging when watching or streaming video (it's particularly bad with 4K 60fps video). Since hardware accelerated decoding is not supported in Chrome and Firefox, I'm using mpv with hardware acceleration. However, even with mpv I unfortunately still get a large amount of frame drops at high resolutions. However, this does not happen in Windows 10, where I can watch and stream 4K 60fps videos with no frame drops or hanging. This is essentially what I'm trying to sort out, and have turned to my video drivers to try and solve this issue :) – indigoblue Apr 22 '21 at 22:12
  • @indigoblue In afraid nothing can be done. Several benchmarks over the years showed that Intel Graphics in entry-level CPUs (e.g. Celeron) perform better in Windows for UHD video. No notable differences for the same graphics in more robust CPUs and no differences at all in medium to high-end AMD or Nvidia graphics. – ChanganAuto Apr 23 '21 at 10:05
  • Damn, that's a pity, could you link me to some of these benchmarks? My laptop has an i7-8550U CPU (so not top of the line for gaming, but definitely not entry level), so I would think I would see results under the "no notable differences" category. However, I'm getting 30-40% of frames dropped in Linux and close to 0% of frames dropped in Windows 10 when viewing the same video with the same power settings. – indigoblue Apr 24 '21 at 00:52
  • @indigoblue since the Meltdown / Spectre processor vulnerabilities we have a hard time estimating the actual performance of our processors. Yours is in this list: https://software.intel.com/security-software-guidance/processors-affected-transient-execution-attack-mitigation-product-cpu-model On Ubuntu, you should automatically get updated firmware / microcode that mitigate the vulnerability present in the processor. I guess it's hard to know what it exactly does and how. But it's definitely costly performance-wise. You can either go fast with a vulnerable processor or slower with a safe one. – Levente Apr 24 '21 at 01:39
  • Look at this, specific benchmarks with your processor in the title: https://www.techspot.com/article/1563-laptop-performance-meltdown-and-spectre/ – Levente Apr 24 '21 at 01:45
  • @Levente thanks for those links. However, the Meltdown and Spectre flaws seem tangential to my current issue, as each OS would have required appropriate patches (i.e. Linux was not the only OS that had to bottleneck CPU performance in order to fix the security vulnerabilities). Is it simply the case that Intel graphics drivers for Linux were poorly written? Since it seems like these drivers are constrained to ship with the kernel, would it possibly help if I move from Ubuntu 18.04 to 20.04, or will I still expect to see large amounts of frame drops? – indigoblue Apr 24 '21 at 05:20
  • @indigoblue "Intel graphics drivers for Linux were poorly written" — I don't know. "would it possibly help if I move from Ubuntu 18.04 to 20.04" — get an USB stick, put on it the iso image of the newer version - why not go for 21.04 then, it's even more recent - and use it in "Try Ubuntu without installing" mode. I would think the fact it's running off of a USB should not interfere with the graphics driver performance; meaning, you could evaluate yourself, with this little effort of fussing about with an USB. – Levente Apr 24 '21 at 12:58

0 Answers0