AMDGPU Open-Source Driver Code Continues Maturing

[phoronix]

Phoronix: AMDGPU Open-Source Driver Code Continues Maturing

Nearly one month ago AMD published the open-source code to their new "AMDGPU" kernel driver and the necessary user-space driver changes too. That code is continuing to mature for the Linux 4.2 kernel and for supporting the RadeonSI Gallium3D driver that code is continuing to be polished...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=AMDGPU-Open-Source-Maturing

[ShFil]

Is it posible to add support for hd 7xxx and Rx 2xx in future?

[dungeon]

Links are a bit incorrect, if anyone wants to try there are new locations:

http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/dri-devel/2015-May/082432.html

[schmidtbag]

Is it posible to add support for hd 7xxx and Rx 2xx in future?

I too would like this but I don't think that'll ever happen. If the HD7000 and Rx 200 series get pushed over then that leaves just the HD6000 and I think HD8000 series to radeonSI, which doesn't quite make sense to have a driver series focus on basically just 1 architecture. The interesting thing about the name "radeonSI" is the SI is supposed to stand for "Southern Islands" but the R9 29x cards are actually "Sea Islands", which still fits the abbreviation.

Personally, I think the AMD devs should have divided their drivers based on hardware or API compatibility. So for example:
* Everything pre-HD2000 could have been grouped together as a "legacy" driver.
* The HD 2000-4000 series could have been grouped together, since those are DX10/OGL3 compatible. That could just be called "R400" to signify the oldest architecture supported.
* Then group the HD 5000-6000/8000 together, since those are DX11/OGL4 compatible, and call those "R600".
* Lastly, all GPUs based on the GCN architecture could have been grouped and just simply called "GCN".

Of course, this still isn't that simple due to AMD's tendency to rebrand things so often. But the current driver arrangement doesn't make this any easier.

[Imroy]

* Then group the HD 5000-6000/8000 together, since those are DX11/OGL4 compatible, and call those "R600".
* Lastly, all GPUs based on the GCN architecture could have been grouped and just simply called "GCN".

But GCN 1.0 hardware started in the HD 7000 series. The drivers are divided based on major changes to the hardware, not simply what APIs they support.

[CrystalGamma]

Is it posible to add support for hd 7xxx and Rx 2xx in future?

Why do you people care about this? That hardware (except 285 which is AMDGPU) is already supported by radeon.ko ... porting it would introduce bugs, stability, maintainability and compatibility issues more than anything else.

[schmidtbag]

But GCN 1.0 hardware started in the HD 7000 series. The drivers are divided based on major changes to the hardware, not simply what APIs they support.

Right, and GCN 1.0 was a major change compared to the HD 6000 series. In fact, if you look at the wikipedia article for radeon, you'll find that, aside from what I called "legacy" and "r400", each of the sections I proposed were separated by major architectural changes.

[seijikun]

I'm a bit confused.
Michael was talking about "this new AMDGPU driver stack designed to primarily support the Radeon R9 285 Tonga, Carrizo APUs, and the upcoming Radeon Rx 300 series." But the 300 series seems to mainly consist of rebranded 200 series cards. So is the amdgpu driver actually driving the older < GCN-1.2 cards, or am I misinterpreting something here?

[Ericg]

I'm a bit confused.
Michael was talking about "this new AMDGPU driver stack designed to primarily support the Radeon R9 285 Tonga, Carrizo APUs, and the upcoming Radeon Rx 300 series." But the 300 series seems to mainly consist of rebranded 200 series cards. So is the amdgpu driver actually driving the older < GCN-1.2 cards, or am I misinterpreting something here?

Depends on what the detection code says. Each card has a unique identifier, even rebrands, so if the unique ID's for 300 series only get added to AMDGPU then only AMDGPU will officially support the 300 series. Currently RadeonSI supports everything from Southern Islands up to 280(290?) except for the 285. They could say that 285 and 3xx are AMDGPU and everything older is RadeonSI, or they could add the UID's for 2xx into AMDGPU, or something else entirely. Won't know till the code lands and gets settled.

[Serafean]

Is it posible to add support for hd 7xxx and Rx 2xx in future?

And the point of that would be?

Personally, I think the AMD devs should have divided their drivers based on hardware or API compatibility.

That's exactly what AMD did.
pre HD2000 : r300
HD2XXX - HD 6XXX : r600 - terascale architecture
HD7XXX - r200 : radeonSi - GCN 1.0
r300 - .... : amdgpu - GCN 1.2

But the 300 series seems to mainly consist of rebranded 200 series cards. So is the amdgpu driver actually driving the older < GCN-1.2 cards, or am I misinterpreting something here?

AFAIK the driver doesn't really care what your card is called. What is important is the PCI ID, based on which it knows exactly what model it is. AMDGPU will be driving cards based on the GCN 1.2 architecture. Rebrands will be driven by radeonsi.