Macbook Pro 2015 mid llvmpipe in use (software rendering) on Wayland instead of Intel Iris Pro 5200 gpu

[sarahquartz]

Hello folks. I've recently out of curiosity tried to install FreeBSD 15.0-RELEASE on Macbook Pro 2015 mid (macbook 11,4 model, to be exact), it's the model with only one iGPU, not the dual variant.

So, graphics seem to be stuck using only software rendering. I've experienced a similar issue with Thinkpad x200, but the gpu inside macbook pro 2015 isn't nearly as old. pciconf -lv | grep -B4 VGA

vgapci0@pci0:0:2:0: class=0x030000 rev=0x08 hdr=0x00 vendor=0x8086 device=0x0d26 subvendor=0x106b subdevice=0x0147
vendor = 'Intel Corporation'
device = 'Crystal Well Integrated Graphics Controller'
class = display
subclass = VGA

Just in case it is needed, also posting the exact info on my CPU using dmesg | grep CPU:

CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4770HQ CPU @ 2.20GHz (2194.99-MHz K8-class CPU)

and the gpu seems to be supported by drm-kmod. It's a haswell generation iGPU as I understand, and anything above Sandylake is supposed to work IIRC, the freebsd wiki page for this machine seems to confirm this status as well https://wiki.freebsd.org/Laptops/Apple_MacBookPro11,4

Graphics: Runs Wayland just fine. Using i915kms driver.

So, I've installed drm-kmod, added i915kms to rc.conf, you know, the usual stuff, and when I booted into KDE Plasma using wayland session, the info center and vulkaninfo | less command shows the following:

Device Properties and Extensions:
=================================
GPU0:
VkPhysicalDeviceProperties:
---------------------------
apiVersion = 1.3.278 (4206870)
driverVersion = 0.0.1 (1)
vendorID = 0x10005
deviceID = 0x0000
deviceType = PHYSICAL_DEVICE_TYPE_CPU
deviceName = llvmpipe (LLVM 19.1.7, 256 bits)
pipelineCacheUUID = 32342e31-2e37-6161-6161-616161616161

So, it's using software rendering, and that is the only GPU that vulkaninfo detects, all of which makes the perfomance...not so bad, but also not so great. On the contrast, if I run the same using my main installation of Debian 13 Trixie, vulkaninfo shows this:

Device Properties and Extensions:
=================================
GPU0:
VkPhysicalDeviceProperties:
---------------------------
apiVersion = 1.2.305 (4202801)
driverVersion = 25.0.7 (104857607)
vendorID = 0x8086
deviceID = 0x0d26
deviceType = PHYSICAL_DEVICE_TYPE_INTEGRATED_GPU
deviceName = Intel(R) Iris(R) Pro Graphics P5200 (HSW GT3)
pipelineCacheUUID = 3d82cce3-9330-f39e-4020-8bd74244bd8c

And it is running quite smoothly, so I assume that this gpu is in fact supported by vulkan/mesa, etc. I'm comparing those two since drm-kmod, as far as gpu support goes, should in theory be on par with Linux, since the intel drivers are open-source.

I've also tried to follow the "graphics" section from the amazing deep-dive guide that Joshua made into installing FreeBSD on this exact Macbook model, where he suggests:

We’ll be using Xorg. We need to install Xorg, xf86-video-intel, and the meta-package drm-kmod:

pkg install xorg drm-kmod xf86-video-intel

Note: The older xf86-video-intel package is used because the GPU on this Macbook is fairly outdated, and significant screen tearing occurs with kernel modesetting (DRM).

So i've tried to install all of that, and removed i915kms from kld_list, and the results are pretty much the same, vulkaninfo still only detects llvmpipe as a gpu, there is massive screen tearing (compared to Wayland which didn't have any). Then I've decided to try to enable back i915kms in kld_list and, again, just to load X11 instead of Wayland - no luck, same result (I was able to disable screen tearing in xorg configuration file using TearFree option, but it was just as laggy after that).

Then, I've tried to use the older version of drm-kmod, that is on par with Linux 5.1 kernel:
pkg install drm-515-kmod
Same result. Then, just because I was running out of options, I've tried to install these packages:
pkg install libva-intel-driver libva-utils libva-vdpau-driver
Aaaand same result.

I'm not sure what else could I be missing, so the question is: is there anything I can do to make this iGPU work or is it also too old and the drivers for it are deprecated on FreeBSD, or maybe something is misconfigured, or I've installed the wrong drivers? It seems to be working just fine on Debian 13 Trixie, which, don't get me wrong, is also the OS I really love, but I would really like to try to daily drive FreeBSD on this thing too , thanks in advance!

Note: using Xorg is not really an option for me, as I personally prefer wayland, and scaling on Xorg is quite bad for this machine's resolution, and, besides, plasma plants to drop support for it soon, which is what I use primarily.

If any additional logs are required, feel free to request them too.