Intel Enabling Linux Driver Display Support For Upcoming "Battlemage" GPUs

Intel's open-source Linux graphics driver engineers have been busy working to enable the display support for the upcoming Battlemage graphics cards as the successor to DG2/Alchemist.

Over the past number of months Intel's open-source Linux developers have been working to enable the Xe2 graphics engine as will be found in integrated form with Lunar Lake CPUs while also being the same architecture for the much anticipated Battlemage discrete GPUs. Since earlier this month they've also begun volleying patches for enabling display output handling specifically for Battlemage with their Linux kernel driver.

Sent out this morning was the latest iteration of those patches for enabling Battlemage display support.

The patches do confirm Battlemage graphics cards as supporting a maximum DisplayPort bandwidth of UHBR13.5 but besides that doesn't reveal much in the way of any exciting Battlemage graphics card details.

As with Lunar Lake being the first generation to focus entirely on the Intel Xe kernel graphics driver (Direct Rendering Manager) code rather than the aging "i915" driver, Battlemage will also be using that Xe driver by default rather than seeing i915 support although the display code continues to be shared between the i915 and Xe kernel drivers.

With the Linux v6.10 kernel merge window fast approaching along with the cut-off of new material to DRM-Next being imminent, it's looking like this Battlemage display support won't be ready until the Linux v6.11 kernel cycle at least. But that still gives time for premiering in an upstream kernel to be used by the autumn 2024 Linux distributions for hopefully having nice out-of-the-box open-source driver support for Battlemage graphics cards on Linux. We'll see how it ultimately plays out but in building off all the DG2/Alchemist work, the Linux driver experience this time around should be much smoother.