Clock Gating & Powersave

[Vighy]

Since nobody answers me in the Catalyst 8.6 thread I'm going to ask it in a dedicated thread.

Has been clock gating enabled for all chips with the last catalyst release!? even for M76? by default?
or there are options to set it on?

and is it somehow related to POWERplay?
because powerplay was not enabled for my M76, and I cannot find anywhere that clock gating was enabled....

and finally: what are the plans for implementing POWERplay on mobile chips when the manufacturer is not ATi itself?

This is a contradiction: Mobile users need powersave more than desktop users... but laptops usually have chips on a 3rt party board, which means most of the time lack of powersave support.

Bye :)

[bridgman]

Powerplay mostly refers to the proprietary software which monitors system activity and makes intelligent decisions about speed/power/heat tradeoffs. As to whether "PowerPlay" includes all of the power management capabilities, only our marketing department knows for sure :D

From an engineering POV I would guess that clock geting is probably independent of powerplay.

Not sure what you mean by "when the manufacturer is not ATI itself" since we don't make laptops. Some of the power management functionality is proprietary to the laptop vendor and implemented in the system BIOS, typically in a way which is only designed for use with Windows, so I expect every laptop will have its own unique challenges and I don't know how far we will be able to go.

What we're hoping is that as Linux preloads start to become more common the laptop vendors will be able to finish integration and testing with Linux before locking down their BIOS images -- typically today all the pre-launch testing is done with Windows and Linux is only tacked on after the platform has locked down and launched.

I'll know more in a month or two after we have time to look more closely at power management for the open source drivers.

[Vighy]

From an engineering POV I would guess that clock geting is probably independent of powerplay.


Mh ok, but how could I understand if it works, or to put it on? (through amdcccle or some config in xorg.conf)


Not sure what you mean by "when the manufacturer is not ATI itself" since we don't make laptops. Some of the power management functionality is proprietary to the laptop vendor and implemented in the system BIOS, typically in a way which is only designed for use with Windows, so I expect every laptop will have its own unique challenges and I don't know how far we will be able to go.

I mean exactly that, I wrote "when" but I meant "where" :D sorry :D

But here come all my fears... it's possible that I will never see powerplay for my laptop... ain't it true?


What we're hoping is that as Linux preloads start to become more common the laptop vendors will be able to finish integration and testing with Linux before locking down their BIOS images -- typically today all the pre-launch testing is done with Windows and Linux is only tacked on after the platform has locked down and launched.

What a Bad attitude.


I'll know more in a month or two after we have time to look more closely at power management for the open source drivers.
Ok so in future I may ask some "update" XD :P :D

... and Thanks!! :)

[mits]

Mh ok, but how could I understand if it works, or to put it on? (through amdcccle or some config in xorg.conf)
On my laptop (with an M76) it's enabled automatically...grep Xorg.0.log, it should be there :)

Powerstates don't seem to be supported though... I get just one line of output (frequencies IIRC) from aticonfig --lsp...
Are there any plans to support them on M76 and such? Or is this part of the proprietary to the laptop vendor stuff? :(

[Vighy]

On my laptop (with an M76) it's enabled automatically...grep Xorg.0.log, it should be there :)

uh! yep it's there!
ben@Santa^s_lil^_helper ~ $ grep -e gating /var/log/Xorg.0.log -n -C 5
774-(II) Loading /usr/lib64/xorg/modules/extensions//libGLcore.so
775-(II) Module GLcore: vendor="X.Org Foundation"
776- compiled for 1.3.0, module version = 1.0.0
777- ABI class: X.Org Server Extension, version 0.3
778-(II) GLX: Initialized MESA-PROXY GL provider for screen 0
779:(II) fglrx(0): Enable the clock gating!
780-(**) Option "Protocol" "Auto"
781-(**) Mouse1: Device: "/dev/input/mice"
782-(**) Mouse1: Protocol: "Auto"
783-(**) Option "CorePointer"
784-(**) Mouse1: Core Pointer

Thanks for the hint :D: in the middle of the log I couldn't distinguish it! :D


Powerstates don't seem to be supported though... I get just one line of output (frequencies IIRC) from aticonfig --lsp...
Are there any plans to support them on M76 and such? Or is this part of the proprietary to the laptop vendor stuff? :(

well the line I get is:
ben@Santa^s_lil^_helper ~ $ aticonfig --lsp
Error: POWERplay is not supported on your hardware.

[mtippett]

uh! yep it's there!
well the line I get is:
ben@Santa^s_lil^_helper ~ $ aticonfig --lsp
Error: POWERplay is not supported on your hardware.

This is expected, the --lsp commands are associated with pre-HD2400 class hardware. Most of the powerplay work is now automaticly handled within the hardware.

We will be improving the wording for --lsp in subsequent releases.

You should still get the PowerPlay tab in CCC-LE.

Regards,

Matthew

[Vighy]

This is expected, the --lsp commands are associated with pre-HD2400 class hardware. Most of the powerplay work is now automaticly handled within the hardware.

We will be improving the wording for --lsp in subsequent releases.

You should still get the PowerPlay tab in CCC-LE.

Regards,

Matthew

Yep! I get the tab! but I thought it was a fake, since the --lsp command told me it was not supported on my HW.

You mean that powerplay works for me?