Intel BattleMage news! NEW update! Thoughts after time with the B580--

General system Kernel, boot, graphics & hardware
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Gave it quick run on Arc again. It behaved very well on plasma 6.1 beta and mesa 24.1 during a few hours in a “normal workday”. Didn’t try something “crazy” like starting steam though.

There was some occasional microstutter, but no biggy. Intel-gpu-top still missing in action.

GLXGears gave a very eye-opening frame rate…averaged at: 1400FPS !!!

glxgears on i915 reports 6000+ fps here?

At the end of the day I would love to run Xe, but the big showstopper is still that Xe wont support video encoding - at least on Arc.

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I get a note that glxgears is synchronized to the vertical refresh…averaging 60~70…so I can’t see the numbers you are seeing…I’m not seeing any studdering or other problems…maybe due to running the A750. My plan is to get a BattleMage after the initial rush is over…
Screenshot from 2024-05-28 13-10-10

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I’m running vblank_mode=0 glxgears -info on plasma wayland.

I wouldn’t say there was stuttering, just occasionally, every few minutes, there was maybe a missing frame and I noticed a “little jump” that I’m not used to with i915.

Everything outright broken aside - like maybe games - the experience was totally fine.

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Interesting…I do it that way & see 3000 FPS average…Running Gnome + Wayland. Wonder why the difference…A750 “should” be “better”… Must be the way Plasma renders vs Gnome.

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And here is the best news I’ve had all day… https://www.phoronix.com/news/Intel-Battlemage-Goes-Mesa-24.2

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The current news is looking good! https://www.phoronix.com/news/Intel-Xe-More-Last-Minute-6.11 & https://www.phoronix.com/news/DRM-Xe-Next-BMG-PCI-IDs

And I have been using the driver on & off since the last Intel update…works nice, but still no detection with Steam & BOINC…so I get to wait another month for the next update.

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Just am update about Battlemage: https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/intel-battlemage-everything-we-know-so-far/

Phoronix Info: https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-6.12-Intel-Xe2-Stable & https://www.phoronix.com/news/Intel-Ends-Linux-612-Feature-Xe

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More good news: https://www.phoronix.com/news/Intel-oneVPL-2.13-Released

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Everyone get ready—it’s almost here!!! https://www.phoronix.com/news/Intel-Mesa-ANV-Xe2-Warning

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Intel Graphics driver will finally report fan speeds on 6.12

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More GOOD news!!!

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Well, the rumor mill is in overdrive about BattleMage. We may be looking at the new cards for Black Friday or around Dec 1st or just after Christmas (I think that would be a REAL missed opportunity!!). In any case, everyone just wait and see. I’m hopeful for Black Friday. That would be a golden opportunity for Intel to really sell mass quantities just before Christmas.

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I’m growing concerned over whether or not intel will even continue with their dedicated graphics cards.

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Me too…I’m getting conflicting info, but it does look like BattleMage will be happening…and “maybe” Celestial…Druid is really up in the air…I’m guessing if BattleMage really does well & the drivers are MUCH BETTER than the Arc launch…it will be better for the next generations…

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I have been seeing a large number of commits for the Xe2 driver, so I’m crossing my fingers that the launch will be without major bumps and that the sales for BattleMage exceed expectations. That would go far towards Intel cementing a spot in the low-to-upper-mid card area.

Again…I’m hoping for a Black Friday/Cyber Monday launch…that would go a long way towards good sales before Christmas…it would be a MAJOR mistake to do it after Christmas.

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And HERE WE GO!!! https://9meters.com/technology/graphics/intel-arc-b580-graphics-card-leaked

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And as of last night, the Xe driver completely works!!! I can do BOINC with Xe & Steam fires up normally and the games I tried had excellent FPS!!!

I’m going to test it more thoroughly today and give an update.

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More Info-----

[dean@ASUS-Z790 Desktop]$ sudo lshw -C video
  *-display                 
       description: VGA compatible controller
       product: DG2 [Arc A750]
       vendor: Intel Corporation
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:03:00.0
       logical name: /dev/fb0
       version: 08
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pciexpress msi pm vga_controller bus_master cap_list rom fb
       configuration: depth=32 driver=xe latency=0 resolution=3440,1440
       resources: iomemory:400-3ff irq:256 memory:82000000-82ffffff memory:4000000000-41ffffffff memory:83000000-831fffff
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Now with this update running in Gnome I get:

[dean@ASUS-Z790 Desktop]$ vblank_mode=0 glxgears
ATTENTION: default value of option vblank_mode overridden by environment.
MESA: warning: Support for this platform is experimental with Xe KMD, bug reports may be ignored.
18602 frames in 5.0 seconds = 3720.111 FPS
19574 frames in 5.0 seconds = 3914.799 FPS
19167 frames in 5.0 seconds = 3833.188 FPS
19918 frames in 5.0 seconds = 3983.461 FPS
18199 frames in 5.0 seconds = 3639.456 FPS
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For comparison, these are the results for my Sapphire Pulse Radeon RX6600 while being limited via lact to the lowest clock speeds (target clock speed of 800 MHz) and drawing ~7 Watts at ~60% GPU usage.

75627 frames in 5.0 seconds = 15125.262 FPS
76341 frames in 5.0 seconds = 15268.130 FPS
77032 frames in 5.0 seconds = 15406.308 FPS
77172 frames in 5.0 seconds = 15434.369 FPS
75648 frames in 5.0 seconds = 15129.442 FPS

In that context, the results of your A750 are nothing to write home about. Especially given the circumstance that the budget RX6600 GPU was released a year earlier and currently retails for the same price as the A750 does, at least where I live.

Don’t understand me wrong, it would be nice if Intel could get a foothold in the GPU market. But I don’t expect much out of the new Battlemage series of GPUs. They really have to catch up and given the current circumstances… I doubt that Intel is willing to invest the time & resources in the long run. Which would be required to establish themselves in the GPU market. For now, the question in the room is more or less: How far will they be behind with Battlemage ? And what are the technological lessons they’ve learned which they may adapt in the future for their iGPUs? They can’t compete with AMDs APUs at the moment.