Right now I am using the fbdev driver and I am only able to get good framerates around 320x240 resolution.
I have compiled fbturbo driver from the Github page without any problem but when Xorg starts I either get a black screen or error: “Undefined Symbol: xf86DisableRandR” depending on which framebuffer device I choose.
I have Odroid C0 devices using this fbturbo driver and their performance is a little better than what I am seeing right now with the fbdev driver.
Really I don’t even know what the best or recommended driver even is for Debian Buster with a 4.9 kernel. I think the only other driver available on this system right now is vesa.
edit:
This running error is caused by the repository not having merged a recent pull request.
This has a fixed version:
edit 2:
Do not bother going down this rabbit hole. The fbturbo driver on this hardware at least is no faster than the fbdev driver. 24 hours kind of down the drain on this project.
Why do you need fbturbo when there is good support on Panfrost driver in mesa?
What are you trying to achieve by using fbturbo?
Fbturbo uses cpu for graphical acceleration so we shouldnt expect much from it.
Use latest panfrost with latest mainline kernel. If you’re using legacy kernel then there must be arm proprietary driver for gpu acceleration.
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I don’t know anything about that Panfrost or Mesa stuff. It was hard enough to get these systems working as it is. I don’t know about changing kernels either. This SBC is a nightmare when something goes wrong because you have to use krescue. On an x86 SBC you have the grub menu and USB booting to help you when something goes wrong. On something like the Raspberry Pi you can edit the micro SD externally when something goes wrong. This SBC is hard mode.
I am using this fbturbo driver to begin with because the default driver that came with this Debian dsitribution - armsoc I think - did not allow for portrait orientation. fbdev and fbturbo have no problem with being configured for a fixed orientation in any direction.
fbturbo claims to have some speed boosts over fbdev which is what I was using before. I am trying to get better performance with Playstation emulation through Retroarch.
Really I am not sure if there is a speed boost or not because I have found out that the CPU is overheating on my VIM 3 because of the tight place it is in. I have installed a fan on it and I am going to limit the CPU speeds further.
Another way to boost speed which I have used in the past and is still an option here is to use Retroarch’s framebuffer output. I am currently using the SDL output in Xorg.
Hopefully I can get the overheating under control and not have to mess with graphics drivers, the kernel, or recompiling Retroarch again. The performance is good under Retroarch for a while until the VIM 3 gets hot.
edit:
Fixed.
Adding the fan and underclocking the BIG cores helped tremendously. The thermal zones are not going above about 40C and they were about 70C after gaming and charging before. The framerate in Retroarch is good and stays good. Just one or the other fixes would have probably worked fine. It seems the 4 BIG cores at just 667 mhz are faster than the 2 LITTLE cores at 1.8 ghz.
Interestingly, they were about the same speed at 500 mhz. That is instructions per clock and more cores advantage for you.
I have the fan hooked up to the GPIO pins and it goes off when the VIM 3 goes to sleep. “Poetry in Motion”.
This means I will not bother with testing fbturbo performance for now but it is good to know that it is there and it works. I certainly will not bother testing any kernels or further graphics drivers and will not need to compile and setup Retroarch for framebuffer output.