https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=38800
--- Comment #22 from Alex Deucher agd5f@yahoo.com 2011-07-06 14:13:27 PDT --- FWIW, the pageflip interrupts weren't too reliable at least on 6xx, but they seemed to work ok on 7xx+. Also, I can see problems where you might not get interrupts for some flips if a later base update write comes in via the CP before the irq handler has acked the interrupt from the frame before it. FWIW, I asked internally and the closed driver uses vblanks.
Also for reference, Simon's new patch: http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/dri-devel/2011-July/012807.html