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Nouveau NVC0 Adds ETC2/ASTC Texture Compression For Newer GPUs

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  • Nouveau NVC0 Adds ETC2/ASTC Texture Compression For Newer GPUs

    Phoronix: Nouveau NVC0 Adds ETC2/ASTC Texture Compression For Newer GPUs

    Back in December a patch rolled out for supporting ETC2 and ASTC texture compression by the Nouveau NVC0 Gallium3D driver. Today that patch was finally merged for benefiting newer NVIDIA GPUs...

    Phoronix, Linux Hardware Reviews, Linux hardware benchmarks, Linux server benchmarks, Linux benchmarking, Desktop Linux, Linux performance, Open Source graphics, Linux How To, Ubuntu benchmarks, Ubuntu hardware, Phoronix Test Suite

  • #2
    Nope, just GK20A. GM107 doesn't support it, or I'm doing something wrong. Someone needs to test GM20x at some point to see if perhaps newer HW has it, or if it's only on Tegra's.

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    • #3
      Do these GPUs support ETC2 and ASTC fully in hardware?
      I'm asking because mobile GPUs do not always support ETC2 in hardware and the driver decode it and uploads an uncompressed texture. Also these drivers only support ETC2 because it is mandatory for OpenGL ES 3.x.

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      • #4
        Originally posted by blubbaer View Post
        Do these GPUs support ETC2 and ASTC fully in hardware?
        I'm asking because mobile GPUs do not always support ETC2 in hardware and the driver decode it and uploads an uncompressed texture. Also these drivers only support ETC2 because it is mandatory for OpenGL ES 3.x.
        Many (most) mobile (i.e. cell phone/android-targeted) GPU's support ETC2 and ASTC in hardware nowadays. Adreno A3xx supports ETC2, A4xx supports both ETC2 and ASTC, Intel gen8 has ETC2, gen9 has both ETC2 and ASTC (in desktop chips too - I think there's a deal where some mobile gen8 chips have some ASTC support). And I believe AMD Stoney chips also have support for at least ETC2.

        Tegra K1 (and from what I understand, Tegra X1 but haven't personally tested) support both ETC2 and ASTC in hardware. TBD whether the newer desktop maxwell chips (GM20x) also have support for these, but at least desktop (and laptop) Kepler and Maxwell gen1 (GM10x) do not appear to.

        As you say, ETC2 is mandatory in GL ES 3.0, and ASTC is mandatory for AEP as well as GL ES 3.2. This provides incentives for hw vendors that target those specs to stick the support into hardware.

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        • #5
          Originally posted by imirkin View Post
          TBD whether the newer desktop maxwell chips (GM20x) also have support for these, but at least desktop (and laptop) Kepler and Maxwell gen1 (GM10x) do not appear to.
          AFAIK, no one has reported ASTC hardware support for GM20x chips until now. IMHO there is just a tiny tiny hope left they do support it and it is just not exposed by the drivers (see VP9 accel. herited from the mobile parts suddenly appearing with newer drivers).
          Hopefully the next generation of (desktop) GPUs are supporting ASTC (in hardware), so we could see wide adoption in the next years.

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          • #6
            ASTC is also technically better at compressing, avoiding artefacts under compression than S3TC (S3 Texture Compression).
            Not to mention flexibility in formats supported by ASTC.
            Together with the patent issue I say moving to ASTC will be a great improvement.
            Can't happen soon enough.
            Last edited by plonoma; 05 April 2016, 04:38 PM.

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