Driver Documentation

The Programmer's Reference Manuals(PRM) describe the architectural behavior and programming environment of the chipset and graphics devices. The Graphics Controller (GC) contains an extensive set of registers and instructions for configuration, 2D, 3D, and Video systems. The PRM describes the register, instruction, and memory interfaces and the device behaviors as controlled and observed through those interfaces. The PRM also describes the registers and instructions and provides detailed bit/field descriptions. This information is critical to the development and maintenance of Intel graphics drivers for this hardware.

Intel® Open Source HD Graphics Programmer's Reference Manual (PRM) for 2011 Intel Core Processor Family (codenamed Sandy Bridge)

Intel® Open Source HD Graphics Programmer's Reference Manual (PRM) for 2010 Intel Core Processor Family

Intel® G45 Express Chipset [Graphics and Memory Controller Hub-GMCH] Programmer's Reference Manual (PRM)

Intel® 965 Express Chipset Family and Intel® G35 Express Chipset Graphics Controller PRM

Presentations

Jesse Barnes: Power Management (OSTS 2010), Graphics Architecture.

Eric Anholt: http://www.anholt.net/papers/

Gordon Jin: Intel Graphics Testing (XDS 2008).

Carl Worth: X acceleration (LCA 2008), Graphics Stack (LCA 2009), Making the GPU do its Job (LCA 2010).

Kristian H. Kristensen: MeeGo Tablet UX on Wayland (MeeGo Conference 2011), The Wayland Compositor Architecture (OSTS 2011).

Supported Hardware

The Linux graphics drivers from Intel support the following Intel® chipsets:

Short nameFull name
Sandybridge Intel® HD Graphics 2000/3000 (used in 2nd Generation Intel® Core™ i7/i5/i3 processor family)
HD Intel® HD Graphics (used in Intel® 2010 Core™ i7/i5/i3 processor family)
GMA3150 Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 3150 (used in Intel® Atom™ processor N450/D410/D450 family)
G45 Intel® G45 Express Chipset
Q45 Intel® Q45 Express Chipset
G43 Intel® G43 Express Chipset
Q43 Intel® Q43 Express Chipset
B43 Intel® B43 Express Chipset
G41 Intel® G41 Express Chipset
GM45 Mobile Intel® GM45/GS45/GL40 Express Chipset
G35 Intel® G35 Express Chipset
Q35 Intel® Q35 Express Chipset
Q33 Intel® Q33 Express Chipset
G33 Intel® G33/G31 Express Chipset
965GM Mobile Intel® GM965 Express Chipset
965G G965 Integrated Graphics Controller
965Q Q963/Q965 Integrated Graphics Controller
946GZ 946GZ/GL Integrated Graphics Controller
945G 945G Integrated Graphics Controller
945GM Mobile 945GM/GMS/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller
915G 82915G/GV/910GL Express Chipset Family Graphics Controller
915GM Mobile 915GM/GMS/910GML Express Graphics Controller
865G 82865G Integrated Graphics Controller
855GM 82852/855GM Integrated Graphics Device
845G 82845G/GL[Brookdale-G]/GE Chipset Integrated Graphics Device
i830M 82830 Chipset Graphics Controller
815 82815 Chipset Graphics Controller
810 82810 Chipset Graphics Controller
810-DC100 82810-M DC-100 System and Graphics Controller


Consistent with many Linux commands and drivers, there is a manual page with detailed information available for this driver. This is a good place to start to manually set up and trouble shoot the driver.
If you would like to build the driver from scratch, you can reference the user guide for driver build.
See the information in the Hardware Matrix where anyone can leave tips and tricks for configuring the hardware.

Frequently Asked Questions

Question: Is the BIOS still used for mode setting?

Answer

The Intel X.org driver version 2.0 now includes native mode setting code that no longer relies on the BIOS to configure the chip. Most Linux distributions continue to ship older versions of the driver which rely on the BIOS for mode setting.

Question: What is the difference between the GM965 and X3100?

Answer

The Mobile Intel® GM965 Express Chipset is the whole piece of silicon, including PCI Express, memory, and CPU interfaces along with the graphics accelerator. The Mobile Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator X3100 is just that part of the GM965 which is used for graphics.

Question: Where can I buy a notebook with the Mobile Intel® GM965 Express Chipset?

Answer

Many major vendors have announced products using this chipset as part of the Santa Rosa platform. Make sure the notebook is using the Mobile Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator X3100 for graphics instead of an external graphics processor.

Question: Does the i965 3D driver support vertex shaders and other advanced GL functionality?

Answer

Yes, the i965 hardware supports a fully programmable GL pipeline and the driver exposes it through the GL API.

Question: Does the driver support the Xv extensions?

Answer

To better support the Composite extension, the Intel graphics driver supports --for i915 and later-- textured video which uses the 3D hardware to paint the video directly to the frame buffer instead of using an overlay. This means there's no funny 'blue' image caused by the color key, and it means you can capture video frames with normal X tools.

Question: Where can I buy a motherboard with Intel graphics?

Answer

Many vendors produce motherboards with onboard Intel graphics, including Intel. Please click on this link to view a list of Intel motherboards.

Question: Since there is no PCI-E graphic from Intel, I have to buy a mainboard with onboard graphics. But there is only one mainboard in the Intel offering with DVI-D, and none with DVI-I support. Nor is there any dual head DVI-I support, and the remaining boards have only one VGA connector. I didn't figure out if the g965 supports dual head with different xsessions. (Btw, I'm talking about connectors - please leave the hands of these HDMI since I need no content protection on an open source system).

Answer

You can purchase (for around $20) an 'sDVO' card which plugs into the PCI-E slot and offers DVI support in various flavors. This is just an adapter board which connects the onboard graphics chip with a DVI connector using the sDVO portion of the PCI-E standard; it's not an external graphics adapter. You are right though, Intel doesn't offer a stand-alone PCI-E graphics adapter.

Question: As far as I see there are dual sDVO cards available for the 965g. Is it possible to build a dual head system, with dual independent X-servers? (For s.t. like a so called Hydra System? two Keyboards, two Monitors etc.)

Answer

Not easily; there is only one graphics adapter, and we've never built an X server that can share one adapter between two people.

Question: I am looking for a translation table between chipset names and commercial names.
For example, a Dell Inspiron 640M laptop uses the "Intel(r) Graphics Media Accelerator 950TM," according to the Dell website. But according to your page, the Dell Inspiron 640M laptop uses 945GM.
Are 945GM and GMA950 the same chipset?

Answer

GMA950 is the graphics core that is integrated into the 945GM and 945G chipsets.
So one is the graphics core name and one is the chipset name. The graphics core may be used across multiple chipsets. (Mobile and Desktop in this case.)
See: http://www.intel.com/products/chipsets/gma950/index.htm

Question: I heard Intel graphics driver supports dual head, but I don't know how to do it.

Answer

We wrote a user guide at http://www.intellinuxgraphics.org/dualhead.html

Question: With the mode setting moved to Linux kernel, how can I explicitly disable or enable the output via kernel option?

Answer

The format for kernel option "video=" is -:[d|e], e.g. if you want to force LVDS off, add a kernel boot option "video=LVDS-1:d".

Question: How to play media with VAAPI?

Answer

VAAPI is supported on G45/GM45 platforms and later. Make sure you have:
1. Intel video driver package. The latest stable release is recommended.
2. The media player supports VAAPI. e.g. if you want to use mplayer, you need compile and install the mplayer source package with the mplayer vaapi patches.
3. libva driver git://git.freedesktop.org/git/libva, need to compile and install.