20:58 greg904: Hello Lyude, I don't know if you remember me but I came here to ask about an issue where I couldn't set the backlight's brightness on my laptop with nouveau. You said you were working on something related, and to come back in a week. Sorry, it was several weeks ago but do you have some news?
21:00 Lyude: greg904: it's np, I have made a bunch of progress but have been stuck on some issues with the x1extreme I've got here. I have another sample though that should support this kind of backlight control though, so I'm probably going to check next week to see if it works on there (as hopefully that sample won't be hitting the same panel power issues I'm seeing on the X1 Extreme)
21:00 Lyude: greg904: could you PM me your email? I can send you an email when I've got something ready for testing
21:06 ccr: my junk laptop uses nouveau .. not sure how the backlight works on it tho, but I can do testing on ye olde hardware if needed :P
21:36 karolherbst: ccr: you might have to switch to discrete mode for it though
21:36 ccr: karolherbst, discrete mode?
21:36 karolherbst: yeah, except your laptop only has nvidia GPUs
21:37 ccr:still feels confused.
21:38 karolherbst: ccr: the driver driving your main GPU is in control of the backlight
21:38 karolherbst: and in laptops that's usually intel
21:38 karolherbst: but some laptops allow you to switch to the discrete GPU
21:39 ccr: ah. in my case it's a Very Old laptop, so there's only ZUUL .. I mean GeForce Go. but since in my experience there are many (legacy etc.) ways for backlight control, it is possible that my case would not help Lyude's work.
21:39 ccr: but offering anyway
23:25 imirkin: ccr: NV28M or something? that's pretty ancient
23:29 ccr: "NVIDIA Corporation C51 [GeForce Go 6150]", so I guess it's NV4something
23:30 imirkin: ah yeah. that's nv4x
23:30 imirkin: NV4B maybe? i forget.
23:31 imirkin: aha, NV4E. i was close.
23:31 ccr: works fine thanks to nouveau, I'd probably have to run some ye ancient kernel if I used the blobs :P
23:32 imirkin: ccr: as you've probably noticed, 3d support for nv4x is shit. if you're interested in improving the 3d driver, lmk
23:33 ccr: heh. I'd suspect there's not much water to be squeezed from that stone though .. ?
23:33 imirkin: there is
23:33 imirkin: when i say it's shit, i mean the support of the hardware is shit, not that the hardware itself is shit
23:33 imirkin: (although that too is true)
23:34 imirkin: basically the issue is that the hardware is good at handling some things, but not others. and the driver doesn't really "cover" for the hardware the way it's supposed to
23:34 ccr: I've no idea how performant or not this ever was and I mainly use the laptop rarely when I'm on the move or when main desktop PC is undermaintenance or so.
23:34 imirkin: this was fine back in the olden days
23:34 imirkin: since games knew what the hardware could do
23:34 imirkin: and would only do that
23:34 imirkin: but in the modern age where there's an expectation that the driver is conformant to the spec, that doesn't fly quite as well
23:35 ccr: I see. what could be done, though?
23:35 imirkin: and simple GUI components end up using complex GL to draw themselves
23:35 imirkin: well, you could cover for the hw :)
23:35 imirkin: basically implement some fallbacks
23:35 imirkin: that are necessary for the proper functioning of things
23:36 ccr: that'd probably involve benchmarking or at least some kind of roadmap to see what would be good targets .. unless it's somehow blatantly obvious
23:38 ccr: (along with understanding how to do any of this :D)
23:38 imirkin: it's blatantly obvious
23:39 imirkin: i can tell you the things that aren't supported
23:39 imirkin: there are also reasoanble test suites nowadays which can help you find issues
23:39 imirkin: (and isolate them to "basic" concepts)
23:39 imirkin: but this isn't like a 5-minute thing, it'd be a more substantial investment
23:39 imirkin: i never had the heart to undertake it
23:39 ccr: "a lifetime of servitude to the dark open source gods."
23:39 imirkin: i shored up some stuff, make it better, but never did the larger stuff
23:39 imirkin: pretty much.
23:42 ccr: wouldn't probably help any newer hardware, I suppose?
23:43 imirkin: nope
23:43 imirkin: (i know, i should have been in marketing...)
23:43 imirkin: (the way i'm selling you on this ... masterful)
23:43 ccr: :D
23:45 ccr: I have had a tendency to work on obsolete things and lost causes .. but tackling something like this would be entering unfamiliar territory. also, already have stuff to do.