Intel news

• Mesa Just Got A Significant Performance Boost For Intel Tiger Lake Chips
  
  
  Intel's Kenneth Graunke has written a few patches for Intel Gen12+ graphics chips that boost graphics performance by one to twelve percent. Don't get too excited, it only applies to Intel Tigerlake and newer and they won't arrive in mainstream GNU/Linux distributions until Mesa 20.3 is released mid-December.
  
• Latest 20.41.18123 Intel NEO OpenCL Driver Claims "Production" OpenCL 3.0 Quality On All Intel CPUs Going Back To Broadwell
  
  
  Intel made their Neo Graphics Compute-Runtime OpenCL claim to have OpenCL 3.0 support on all chips going back to Broadwell in the v20.40.18075. The latest v20.41.18123 goes one step further by having that same claim in the release-notes. There's also a new clinfo warning regarding the supposed OpenCL 3.0 support.
  
• Linux 5.9 Is Released With New Drivers, Improved AMD GPU Support, And Support The x86-64 FSGSBASE CPU Instructions
  
  
  It was a bumpy release-cycle for Linux 5.9 with one release candidate refusing to show anything graphical on Intel GPUs. The final 5.9 release doesn't have that problem. It has have quite a lot of new features such as support for upcoming AMD graphics cards, support for the FSGSBASE x86-64 instructions, a Corsair RGB hub and a lot more.
  
• Intel's latest NEO OpenCL Driver Claims Support For OpenCL 3.0 On All Intel Chips Going Back To Broadwell
  
  
  Intel's latest NEO OpenCL driver, now going by the name Compute-Runtime since it has gained support for more than just OpenCL compute, claims to have OpenCL 3.0 support on all Intel chips going back to Broadwell. It doesn't actually support OpenCL 3.0 on anything other than Intel's latest Tiger Lake chips, but it does claim to.
  
• Linux 5.9-rc8 Is Out With PCIe IDs for AMDs Upcoming Sienna Cichlid GPUs
  
  
  We have examined the latest Linux 5.9 release candidate and found that it is actually possible to use it to boot and start X or Wayland on machines with Intel processors using Intel integrated graphics with this latest kernel release-candidate. That is an improvement since the total train-wreck disaster released as Linux 5.9-rc7.
  
• Vulkan Will Soon Have A Vendor-Neutral Cross-Platform Ray-Tracing API
  
  
  Two currently provisional Vulkan extensions, VK_KHR_ray_tracing and SPV_KHR_ray_tracing, are on their way to the core Vulkan API. These new Vulkan extensions will let developers write cross-platform device-independent ray-tracing code. The new Vulkan ray-tracing extensions are not yet set in stone but they are close to being finalized. Intel, of all GPU vendors, is leading the charge towards the new Vulkan ray-tracing paradigm. Intel-employed developer Jason Ekstrand gave a long and detailed overview of the upcoming Vulkan Ray-Tracing API at the X.Org Developers Conference 2020 held earlier this week.
  
• Linux AV1 Hardware Video Decoding Support Ready For Intel Tiger Lake
  
  
  The Intel Tiger Lake processors coming in September 2020 will be the first Intel processors with integrated graphics capable of decoding, but not encoding, AOMedia Video 1 (AV1) in hardware. Linux support for AV1 hardware decoding was merged into the libva VAAPI in March. Fei Wang submitted patches allowing ffmpeg to take advantage of that support yesterday. That makes it trivial to add AV1 hardware decoding support to end-user players like VLC and mpv.
  
• The Massive Intel Leak: The Files It Contains And Their Content
  
  
  The 16.92 GiB archive filled with internal and "confidential" Intel files leaked Thursday has a total of 240 files. Many of them are archives containing even more files. That's a lot to dig through, it is more than any one woman can hope to dig through in a few hours. We have listed the filenames and, with the help of our readers, given each file a brief description. The files identified so far contain roadmaps, block diagrams, schematics for motherboard partners, BIOS firmware source and binaries, management engine firmware, embarrassingly cringe training videos, various source code, debugging tools, testing tools, user guides, programming guides and a whole lot more.
  
• 20 GiB Internal Intel Document Motherload Is Now Available In Dark Corners Of The Internet
  
  
  Someone who is apparently sitting on a whole lot of internal Intel documents has released what is described as the first in a series of treasure-troves filled with internal Intel documents. We are not just talking about a document or three, the first part in the series is a whopping 20 GB. There's confidential code, documents, debugging tools, drivers, training videos and other technical material in the first part of what we expect will be a very interesting series of leaks. Many of the files are fairly recent, quite a few of them are from May 2020.
  
• Mesa 20.0.0-rc1 Is Released With Vulkan 1.2 Support and Iris As New Default Intel OpenGL Driver
  
  
  Linux machines with Intel graphics chips are currently using the aging i965 Mesa graphics driver for OpenGL. Intel has been working on a fancy new OpenGL driver called Iris for some time. That driver will be the new default driver for gen8+ Intel graphics chips in Mesa 20. Iris brings slightly better performances compared to the old i965 driver. There will also be full Vulkan 1.2 support in Mesa 20.
  
• It Never Ends: Two More Intel CPU Vulnerabilities Disclosed
  
  
  The list of security vulnerabilities due to hardware flaws in Intel processor products is very long and it just got longer. Intel has issued a "Data Leakage Advisory" where they admit two additional locally exploitable vulnerabilities which could be used to get secret information from processes running on a computer.
  
• Red Hat Recommends Disabling Hardware Acceleration on Intel Integrated Graphics Due To Hardware Flaw
  
  
  Red Hat has issued guidance for the latest Intel CPU hardware bug which, unlike Meltdown and other widely publicized hardware flaws in Intel CPU products, affects the GPU part of Intel chips (if they have one). The proposed "solution" is a bit dramatic: just disable hardware acceleration and you'll be fine - unless you would like to watch videos or play games or do anything else in a graphical environment for that matter.
  
• Latest Linux Kernels Fix Security Flaw In The Intel Processors With iGPUs
  
  
  Linux 5.4.12 as well as updates to the stable branch kernels released on Tuesday have a security patch for Intel processors with Gen9 graphics which addresses a vulnerability that could be used for "information disclosure via local access". Older Intel chips are also affected. The details for CVE-2019-14615 have not been made public.
  
• Linux Kernel 5.5 Will Not Fix The Frequent Intel GPU Hangs In Recent Kernels
  
  
  Linux users running machines with Intel integrated graphics have been struggling with frequent system hangs and other problems caused by a buggy i915 kernel module for Intel iGPUs for quite some time. 5.3 series kernels went from being completely useless to problematic as of 5.3.14 while 5.4 series kernels remain utterly broken. Several fixes attempting solve some of the more common problems with Intel graphics chips have been merged into the Linux Kernel mainline git tree the last few days. Problems with frequent hangs remain and it looks like Linux Kernel 5.5 will be as problematic as previous kernels for those using Intel integrated graphics.
  
• Intels 10th-gen Series CPUs Revealed: Up To 10 Cores and 5.3 GHz on 14nm++++
  
  
  Intel's 10th generation "Comet Lake" CPUs will have hyperthreading across the board. Clock speeds are 100-200 MHz higher and so are TDPs for the K-series chips. The platform will use a new socket LGA 1200 and have 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet as a standard feature. The new i9-10900K flagship will be capable of running at up to 5.3 GHz given adequate cooling.