Re: [PATCH] virtio-gpu: Respect graphics update interval for EDID

[Akihiko Odaki <akihiko.odaki@gmail.com>]

2021年2月25日(木) 20:46 Gerd Hoffmann <kraxel@redhat.com>:
>
>   Hi,
>
> > > Because of the wasted frames I'd like this to be an option you can
> > > enable when needed.  For the majority of use cases this seems to be
> > > no problem ...
> >
> > I see blinks with GNOME on Wayland on Ubuntu 20.04 and virtio-gpu with
> > the EDID change included in this patch.
>
> /me looks closely at the patch again.
>
> So you update the edid dynamically, each time the refresh rate changes.
> Problem with that approach is software doesn't expect edid to change
> dynamically because on physical hardware it is static information about
> the connected monitor.
>
> So what the virtio-gpu guest driver does is emulate a monitor hotplug
> event to notify userspace.  If you resize the qemu window on the host
> it'll look like the monitor with the old window size was unplugged and
> a new monitor with the new window size got plugged instead, so gnome
> shell goes adapt the display resolution to the new virtual monitor size.
>
> The blink you are seeing probably comes from gnome-shell processing the
> monitor hotplug event.
>
> We could try to skip generating a monitor hotplug event in case only the
> refresh rate did change.  That would fix the blink, but it would also
> have the effect that nobody will notice the update.
>
> Bottom line:  I think making the edid refresh rate configurable might be
> useful, but changing it dynamically most likely isn't.
>
> take care,
>   Gerd
>

The "hotplug" implementation is probably what other combinations of
devices and guests will do if they want to respond to the changes of
the refresh rate, or display mode in general. That makes telling the
dynamic refresh rate to guests infeasible.

As you wrote, making the refresh rate configurable should be still
useful, and I think matching it to the backend physical display is
even better. GTK, the sole implementer of gfx_update_interval in my
patch reports the refresh rate of the physical display the window
resides in. It means the value may change when the physical display
changes its refresh rate, which should be rare if it does, or the
window moves to another physical display.

In the former case, there is nothing different from implementing a
physical display driver for guests so there should be no problem. The
latter case is similar to how the changes of the window size, which is
also part of display mode, is delivered to guests and they should be
consistent. The only inconsistency I see in my patch is that the
refresh rate change has no throttling while the window size change
has. I don't think it is problematic because it should be rare to move
the window across physical displays, but I can implement one if you
don't agree or know other cases the refresh rate frequently changes.

Regards,
Akihiko Odaki