Intel DG1 Graphics Card Support Lands In Mesa 20.2 For OpenGL / Vulkan

Intel has landed their Mesa OpenGL/Vulkan driver support for their "DG1" discrete graphics card!

With their kernel driver patches getting sorted out and most likely to be introduced with the Linux 5.9 kernel, the OpenGL and Vulkan driver side changes have now been merged into Mesa Git. These changes are in place for Mesa 20.2, due out around the end of August, but the Linux 5.9 kernel meanwhile won't see its stable release until around October with its development cycle not officially getting underway until around August following the current Linux 5.8 cycle.

The changes bringing Intel DG1 platform support to the Intel device code was merged on Monday for Mesa 20.2-devel. This is just the initial cut with follow on merge requests expected over the coming days/weeks/months for ironing out this "Gen12" dGPU. The sole device supported by this initial platform support is the 0x4905 PCI ID.

With Gen12 support already being in place for Tiger Lake and Rocket Lake, the DG1 enablement for Mesa isn't too big especially with the interesting bits tending to happen anyhow within the kernel. But in any case Mesa 20.2 has the initial OpenGL and Vulkan open-source support for the Intel DG1 that is intended as a developer vehicle ahead of more (and higher performing) Intel discrete graphics cards to ship next year. DG1 won't be the highest performing discrete graphics card but I am hopeful for evaluating it in the months to come on its Linux/open-source merits as well as being excited for seeing Gen12 / Tiger Lake in general.