# Situation with Intel graphics Haswell, Broadwell



## doa379 (Mar 15, 2015)

Just wondering what the situation is with Haswell (4400/4600) graphics in FreeBSD 10.1 or Head?

According to this, should it be working or are people having any issues?

https://wiki.freebsd.org/Graphics/Update i915 GPU driver to Linux 3.8


----------



## lib13 (Mar 15, 2015)

I'm waiting for the P4600 Haswell support.  Hope it comes with 10.2-RELEASE.


----------



## Juanitou (Mar 16, 2015)

No, it’s not working yet. You should better follow the FreeBSD Graphics Wiki and the FreeBSD-x11 list.


----------



## doa379 (Mar 16, 2015)

Sad to know and to think that things are quite behind in terms of Intel display driver support.
This project aims to reach parity with Linux 3.8 but Linux has already made even greater strides in recent kernels (up to 3.19).

I read somewhere in this forum that Linux is becoming very much like Windows. That's not true.

Looks like I should get involved with this project.


----------



## Juanitou (Mar 17, 2015)

BSD--user said:


> Looks like I should get involved with this project.


The too small Graphics Team would certainly appreciate it!


----------



## Juanitou (Mar 18, 2015)

There is progress: Thread drm-3-8-update-committed.50891


----------



## lib13 (Mar 19, 2015)

Besides all other contributions, FreeBSD got a 10 million US dollars donation and still has no Haswell graphics support?  DragonflyBSD and OpenBSD seem to support it and these are much smaller compared to FreeBSD.  Is this a problem of leadership?  Leadership is clear in both of those two projects.


----------



## Juanitou (Mar 19, 2015)

Are you referring to this donation? That's not 10 million US dollars. The reasoning linking 'Haswell support' to 'project leadership' seems also approximative to me.


----------



## lib13 (Mar 19, 2015)

That was a memory trick, it's one million 
I mention leadership because I can think of two possibilities. Haswell graphics support is not anything similar to a priority for the FreeBSD project and if so, that's odd for me, as Intel is everywhere and it has been a 'friend' of free software.  Or, if it was some kind of prirority, how could other much smaller projects get Haswell support much sooner?  For what I've written, regarding DragonFlyBSD, their approach has been different from the one take by FreeBSD regarding this issue.  Any of these seem to me as leadership issues.


----------



## tingo (Mar 21, 2015)

Nah, its just that you are disappointed that the FreeBSD project has different priorities than what you think it should have. Your priorities are not my priorities - deal with it. (No, I'm not speaking for the FreeBSD project)


----------



## swirling_vortex (Apr 10, 2015)

No Haswell support yet. But you can keep track of what's happening on this blog: http://blogs.freebsdish.org/graphics/

The freebsd-x11 mailing list should also contain any updates. In the meantime, you might want to try using the vesa driver if you have any Haswell hardware.


----------



## nathank (Jun 25, 2015)

tingo said:


> Nah, its just that you are disappointed that the FreeBSD project has different priorities than what you think it should have. Your priorities are not my priorities - deal with it. (No, I'm not speaking for the FreeBSD project)



The FreeBSD team may not care how they are perceived by onlookers, but the lack of modern Intel graphics support certainly influences people's perception of FreeBSD. It keeps new users away, who in the future might have otherwise become experienced FreeBSD developers. This could have a long-term impact (especially with DragonFlyBSD touting Haswell graphics support; check out their website).


----------



## wblock@ (Jun 25, 2015)

It's not so much that people don't care, it's that the set of people who know FreeBSD and Linux graphics driver development and are willing to work on FreeBSD porting, usually by volunteers, is very small.  There was a pretty long time before KMS was available on FreeBSD, and that set us back.  (It's not a unique situation.  There are lots of things FreeBSD needs.  The opposite is also true, there are things that FreeBSD has that other systems do not, for similar reasons.)

Anyway, it is (still) being worked on.  Encouraging noises are starting to be made.


----------



## priyadarshan (Sep 16, 2015)

I can confirm that Intel HD Graphics 4600 is not supported yet as of FreeBSD 10.2.

Tested on Thinkpad w541 with i7-4810MQ.

It is a bummer, since the nvidia card on newer Thinkpad W540 and W541 can be used only through the docker (bios does not allow otherwise).

So, Intel HD 4600 has no working driver yet, and nvidia card is shut off by firmware. I am not sure what to do, vesa is too slow for my needs.


----------



## Juanitou (Sep 16, 2015)

In the meantime, you could try this: Thread xorg-vesa-driver-massive-speedup-using-mtrr-write-combine.46723/. Not that I tested it myself…


----------



## priyadarshan (Sep 17, 2015)

Thank you, I shall certainly try. I am ready to do anything to avoid going back to Linux.


----------



## Juanitou (Sep 17, 2015)

You shouldn’t wait for too long: Jean-Sébastien Pédron is actively working on it.


----------



## priyadarshan (Sep 17, 2015)

Juanitou said:


> You shouldn’t wait for too long: Jean-Sébastien Pédron is actively working on it.



Very good news, then. I was trying the VESA way, but I could not make it work on Broadwell graphics (that page was all about nvidia).

I would rather wait for the proper driver. Thank you for pointing that out.


----------



## swirling_vortex (Oct 1, 2015)

New update on the Wiki.



> *Current status (2015-09-17)*
> The updated i915 graphics driver now compiles. The next step is to test it on Intel hardware. Johannes Dieterich helps with this, as we are both in Toronto for the XDC 2015 and my laptop is Radeon-based.
> 
> The branch is on GitHub: https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd-base-graphics/tree/drm-i915-update-38
> ...



I'll have to try testing it. It might be worth grabbing a snapshot now before this and head become too out of sync.


----------



## dmtr (Feb 18, 2016)

Hi all!
I have notebook ASUS X555LJ Intel Core i3 4005U nVidia GeForce and etc.
Graphics Haswell - Intel HD 4400.
On FreeBSD 10.2R X.org not detect video adapter.
/usr/ports/x11-drivers/xf86-video-intel not detect adapter
Work with VESA /usr/ports/x11-drivers/xf86-video-vesa is bad - need reboot after run startx ..

*So I want to ask.*
Which version of this graphics adapter exactly work? Do I need to update the version of the operating system from 10.2 to 10.3 or 11.0? Just read and tried does not work on version 10.2 for FreeBSD.

On the forum a bunch of scattered information, and there are no precise instructions.


----------



## scottro (Feb 18, 2016)

As far as I understand it, the short answer is not working yet in 10.x.  Some people have had (some) success with 11-CURRENT, I wasn't one of them.   You can test it, and even though it doesn't work, your responses may help those trying to get it to work, following the wiki instructions. 
https://wiki.freebsd.org/Graphics/Update i915 GPU driver to Linux 3.8



User byuu has a post about how they speeded things up using  /usr/ports/x11-drivers/xf86-video-vesa, but the explanation was a bit over my head--that is, as the readings I was getting were different, I wasn't able to figure out what to change to get similar performance values.  I'm pretty dumb though, so maybe it will be of more use to you. 

https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/46723/#post-261274


----------



## dmtr (Feb 21, 2016)

Juanitou said:


> You shouldn’t wait for too long: Jean-Sébastien Pédron is actively working on it.


Yes, _actively_ working.
Only on the version that will be released in July 2016.
Branch 10-STABLE is not affected.
Don't know how the developers think, but why not implement it in the *two* branches 10-STABLE and 11-CURRENT?


----------



## dmtr (Feb 21, 2016)

Also there is a *discrepancy*.

In the driver x11-drivers/xf86-video-intel stated the following adapters:
(From /var/log/Xorg.0.log)

```
[  1243.135] (II) intel: Driver for Intel(R) Integrated Graphics Chipsets:
  i810, i810-dc100, i810e, i815, i830M, 845G, 854, 852GM/855GM, 865G,
  915G, E7221 (i915), 915GM, 945G, 945GM, 945GME, Pineview GM,
  Pineview G, 965G, G35, 965Q, 946GZ, 965GM, 965GME/GLE, G33, Q35, Q33,
  GM45, 4 Series, G45/G43, Q45/Q43, G41, B43, HD Graphics,
  HD Graphics 2000, HD Graphics 3000, HD Graphics 2500,
  HD Graphics 4000, HD Graphics P4000, HD Graphics 4600,
  HD Graphics 5000, HD Graphics P4600/P4700, Iris(TM) Graphics 5100,
  HD Graphics 4400, HD Graphics 4200, Iris(TM) Pro Graphics 5200
```

On page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_graphics_processing_units
may be find description about Core i3-4005U and find:
*Graphics HD Graphics 4400 *with Code name* Haswell *Launch On *2013* year.

*Why is it not the same?*

_Since September 2013 it has been a long time._

And You want to say that this is not the built-in graphics adapter which supports the driver?
I just don't understand anything anymore.
The Declaration of the same, and actually other.


----------



## wblock@ (Feb 21, 2016)

dmtr said:


> Don't know how the developers think, but why not implement it in the *two* branches 10-STABLE and 11-CURRENT?


As I understand it, kernel changes are necessary to fully support the drivers.  If those changes were made to 10-STABLE, it would break ABI compatibility with existing software, the whole reason there is a 10-STABLE.

As far as the rest, sorry, there are so many forms of emphasis in those posts that it is difficult to understand what point is being made.


----------



## FSG (Aug 9, 2016)

Hello guys!
As far as I can tell, the support for Haswell is nearly done! That's great news!
Is it reasonable to expect a new driver in (one of) the next update? 
Not that I don't like 1024*768 VESA (it reminds me of the good old days on Atari ST. I had 320*200 on the telly), but I could use some higher res.


----------



## wblock@ (Aug 9, 2016)

I've been running 11-stable on my Haswell notebook system since May or so (before it was 11-stable).  Works very well.  1920x1080 on that system.


----------



## tankist02 (Aug 9, 2016)

Can I use higher resolution than 1920x1080 with Intel graphics?


----------



## wblock@ (Aug 10, 2016)

If your monitor has it, yes.


----------



## FSG (Aug 10, 2016)

Really?? Could it be my PC-BSD setup that get on the way? I ran the display config tool a couple of weeks ago and nothing was working but VESA.
I suppose there's some config files I could modify manually... any pointers?


----------



## Atsuri (Aug 15, 2016)

FSG said:


> Hello guys!
> As far as I can tell, the support for Haswell is nearly done! That's great news!
> Is it reasonable to expect a new driver in (one of) the next update?
> Not that I don't like 1024*768 VESA (it reminds me of the good old days on Atari ST. I had 320*200 on the telly), but I could use some higher res.



The i915kms module is already part of the 11.0-* kernels, ready for release in September, I think. I'm using it on my Haswell Asus S301LA Vivobook as we speak . Despite minor glitches when the driver is being loaded, everything works fine. I'm using a resolution of 1366x768, switching ttys works, killing and calling X11 fully operative, etc. I think you're good to go, unless you have a Skylake.

EDIT: Got ninaj'd, heh.

I think the current PC-BSD release is based on FreeBSD 10.3-RELEASE, so no Haswell support there yet, I'm afraid.


----------



## FSG (Aug 17, 2016)

After (backing up my files and) reinstalling, I run on 1920*1080 now tough the system seems to think it is on VESA.
Looks more like a PC-BSD specific glitch, anyway I'm happy enough to not try and tinker further 

And while I'm at it, don't forget to promote the FreeBSD Foundation, you happy users, funding is lagging behind target.
I posted an update on LinkedIn, feel free to "like" it to spread the word! Here it is : www.linkedin.com/hp/update/6171372440652906496
Sorry for the digression.


----------



## scottro (Aug 17, 2016)

Still not working out of box for me with BETA2 on a Yoga2.  (Works with vesa).  <Homer Simpson voice> Stupid Yoga2.  I believe it's HD4400 (don't have the machine with me as I type.)

The wireless on it (an Intel 7260), does work on 11.0--I think it did from the time it was CURRENT.


----------



## FSG (Aug 17, 2016)

scottro said:


> Still not working out of box (Works with vesa).... HD4400



To be precise it wasn't working out of the box for me neither, but going through the installer I eventually got to the display setup screen, where you get to choose the driver and resolution.
I tried everything without success (Intel, Intel3D,..) until VESA 1920*1080. It just worked.
[Prior to reinstall I was limited to 1024*768 VESA]
Hope it can help someone else!


----------



## scottro (Aug 17, 2016)

Ah, I see. Yeah, Vesa works for me, just, with that card on that machine, it's painfully slow. But thank you for the additional information.


----------



## ScopeDog (Oct 19, 2016)

I have just installed FreeBSD 11 to my Haswell machine.
X seemed to be working first with 1920x1200 but blacks out my screen when I play a video at YouTube.
Anyway, does anyone know if special kernel modules or something are needed on boot with FreeBSD 11?
There is little information on it. Actually I want xorg.conf also.


----------



## ScopeDog (Oct 20, 2016)

ScopeDog said:


> I have just installed FreeBSD 11 to my Haswell machine.
> X seemed to be working first with 1920x1200 but blacks out my screen when I play a video at YouTube.
> Anyway, does anyone know if special kernel modules or something are needed on boot with FreeBSD 11?
> There is little information on it. Actually I want xorg.conf also.



I have noticed that the kernel modules like i915kms.ko, drm2.ko seem to be automatically loaded.
Anyway, playing a YouTube video with Firefox and SeaMonkey blacks out my screen and Chrome looks OK.
But Chrome sometimes stalls while loading a page, makes too many processes and eats much memory.
Well, I will check Xorg with a debug option some day.


----------

