New Engine Reset Capability Being Worked On For Intel DRM Linux Driver

With Broadwell "Gen 8" graphics and newer, there is better engine reset support in case of problems or hangs. The Intel DRM driver is still being wired up to take advantage of this better support under Linux.

Intel's Michael Thierry published the fifth version of these patches on Friday. While there has been GPU reset support within the Intel DRM driver in case of hangs, this new engine-reset support is superior as it can reset a particular engine rather than performing a full GPU reset.

Thierry explained the benefit in the patch series, "This is also referred to as Timeout detection and recovery (TDR). This complements to the full gpu reset feature available in i915 but it only allows to reset a particular engine instead of all engines thus providing a light weight engine reset and recovery mechanism. Thanks to recent changes merged, this implementation is now not only for execlists, but for GuC based submission too; it is still limited from Gen8 onwards...If engine reset fails to recover engine correctly then we fallback to full gpu reset."

It's 18 patches implementing this partial GPU reset support for Broadwell hardware and newer. More details via the patch series.