Memory on graphics card

[kadambi]

OK, I got F11 which was released couple of days ago. It still says in dmesg that the accessible memory on card is 256MB.

I assume there is still some work to be done?

Would this fix the issue?

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pag...item&px=NzMxOA

[agd5f]

The logic for dealing with non-CPU accessible memory still needs to be added. It's on the todo list.

[Obscene_CNN]

LIM EMS lives again!!!!!

[nanonyme]

The logic for dealing with non-CPU accessible memory still needs to be added. It's on the todo list.

Hmm, does it happen often then that you have to access the memory directly with CPU instead of being able to deal with stuff through GPU? Got an example use case for the interested reader?

[Obscene_CNN]

I have a case that I have actually used once. I used the video mem as a swap file to speed up an 8GB process in a machine that had just 2GB of RAM. That used Vesa bios calls I believe though.

http://en.gentoo-wiki.com/wiki/Using...Memory_as_Swap

it was marginally faster

In the future with OpenCL fast access to all video card ram will become more important.

[agd5f]

Hmm, does it happen often then that you have to access the memory directly with CPU instead of being able to deal with stuff through GPU? Got an example use case for the interested reader?

Any time you want to use the CPU to read or write to something in vram; for example software rendering for unsupported operations.

[nightmorph]

Any time you want to use the CPU to read or write to something in vram; for example software rendering for unsupported operations.

But for normal usage, say for playing hardware-accelerated 3D games or desktop work etc., the graphics card does use all its available memory, right? For both the open-source drivers and Catalyst?

I've got a 512MB X1950 Pro (R500) and in a couple of days a 512MB HD 4550 (R700) will arrive. These are for normal desktop usage; no software-only stuff. I'm not limited to 256MB video RAM for these cards, am I? Doesn't the GPU use all available graphics memory unless you're trying to do something clever like any of the aforementioned scenarios?

[agd5f]

But for normal usage, say for playing hardware-accelerated 3D games or desktop work etc., the graphics card does use all its available memory, right? For both the open-source drivers and Catalyst?

Catalyst yes, open source not yet. The kernel memory manager work that's going on now is needed to address this.

I've got a 512MB X1950 Pro (R500) and in a couple of days a 512MB HD 4550 (R700) will arrive. These are for normal desktop usage; no software-only stuff. I'm not limited to 256MB video RAM for these cards, am I? Doesn't the GPU use all available graphics memory unless you're trying to do something clever like any of the aforementioned scenarios?

Lots of things are drawn with software under normal desktop usage.

[zika]

But for normal usage, say for playing hardware-accelerated 3D games or desktop work etc., the graphics card does use all its available memory, right? For both the open-source drivers and Catalyst?

I've got a 512MB X1950 Pro (R500) and in a couple of days a 512MB HD 4550 (R700) will arrive. These are for normal desktop usage; no software-only stuff. I'm not limited to 256MB video RAM for these cards, am I? Doesn't the GPU use all available graphics memory unless you're trying to do something clever like any of the aforementioned scenarios?

On my ATI HD 3650 I get (Xorg.0.log):

(II) RADEON(0): Detected total video RAM=524288K, accessible=262144K (PCI BAR=262144K)
(--) RADEON(0): Mapped VideoRAM: 262144 kByte (128 bit DDR SDRAM)

[nightmorph]

Catalyst yes, open source not yet. The kernel memory manager work that's going on now is needed to address this.

Hmm. Well, the work has been progressing rather rapidly; my understanding is that there's a branch or two of GEM/TTM-like stuff now available for checkout, though it's not stable. Besides, for normal 2D usage, including browsing, documents, watching videos, it's not like the full 512MB of the card would be needed.

I've no doubt that sometime soonish we'll have a memory manager that enables the rest of the video RAM. All ya'll upstream folks have been making fantastic progress. Thanks!