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Coreboot's Flashrom Moves On To Flashing AMD GPUs Up Through Polaris

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  • #11
    Originally posted by agd5f View Post

    The images are very vendor specific other then providing an interface for standard pre-OS environments (vesa or UEFI). The flash memory stores a vga/vesa legacy bios interface and/or a GOP driver for UEFI along with a set of data and command tables. The driver only uses the data and command tables. The data tables store board specific configuration details (e.g., number and type of display connectors, memory vendor and timing info, boards specific clock and voltage info, etc.). All of the data tables structures are described in that atom headers in the driver. The driver uses these data tables to understand the card specific information. The command tables are written in a small interpreted language. The command tables take structures as inputs and either perform a task (e.g., initialize a cold GPU, set a PLL, etc.) or provide data back to the driver (e.g., calculate some voltage parameters given a set of inputs) as a structure. The driver contains the the interpreter and you can use that to see that or other tools to see what the command tables are doing. The whole idea is to keep board specific information (configuration details and programming sequences) with the board.
    That's all well and good as long as it is only used to those ends, however if at any point you can no longer modify the flash yourself as is now the case on Vega.... then it sucks.

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    • #12
      Originally posted by cb88 View Post

      That's all well and good as long as it is only used to those ends, however if at any point you can no longer modify the flash yourself as is now the case on Vega.... then it sucks.
      I guess it sucks of you want to make changes to affect other operating systems, but the Linux driver is open source, so you can do pretty much whatever you want regardless of what is in the vbios.

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      • #13
        Originally posted by artivision View Post
        Lets say that a studio programs a game's AI Antialising FX with MS DirectML
        lets say there are tens of thousands of other games, so you will be busy playing until you upgrade your card

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        • #14
          In first Place many thanks to Luc Verhaegen, for his work, and for the Open Source Vision.
          I do remember some historic moments, and I do love history..love to read about all aspects of it.
          Thanks also for that..

          Originally posted by cb88 View Post
          The vega graphics in 2200G doesn't have 2xFP16... or INT8 AFAIK its more similar to Polaris actually due to it being a low low power mobile design first and foremost.
          Polaris a low Power Design?
          A low power in the APUs maybe...
          Because desktop parts in Low Power mode suck ~32 Watts of power...more than several cpus at full throtle..

          If that is true, that 2200G are Polaris based...
          That would explain the HUGE power consumption of the 2200G in idle mode...
          Last edited by tuxd3v; 22 October 2018, 11:31 PM.

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          • #15
            Originally posted by tuxd3v View Post
            In first Place many thanks to Luc Verhaegen, for his work, and for the Open Source Vision.
            I do remember some historic moments, and I do love history..love to read about all aspects of it.
            Thanks also for that..



            Polaris a low Power Design?
            A low power in the APUs maybe...
            Because desktop parts in Low Power mode suck ~32 Watts of power...more than several cpus at full throtle..

            If that is true, that 2200G are Polaris based...
            That would explain the HUGE power consumption of the 2200G in idle mode...
            Just stop, you haven't even read any of this thread. Firstly we already covered that I was wrong and Vega in raven ridge does have FP16, and is not like Polaris. And secondly the huge power consumption... never heard of such? It's the same chip as my 35W CPU in my laptop... that idles fine, I suspect you have youtube open and it is clocking up the GPU.

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            • #16
              Originally posted by agd5f View Post
              The images are very vendor specific other then providing an interface for standard pre-OS environments (vesa or UEFI). ...
              However AMD does provide images, e.g. Radeon R9 Fury & Nano UEFI Firmware, which I guess applies to all reference cards. Also there are plenty of VBIOS available online: Video BIOS Collection and for specific purposes as well: https://mining.help/bios-mods/

              Originally posted by agd5f View Post
              ... The data tables store board specific configuration details (e.g., number and type of display connectors, memory vendor and timing info, boards specific clock and voltage info, etc.). ...
              Hence by BIOS modding linux users would FINALLY be able to proper overclock (OC) and/or undervolt (UV) under linux!

              The current driver approach for OC is joke (only +3%) and for UV it is broken / not working.


              Thanks to Luc libv for making a first step here in the right direction.

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              • #17
                Originally posted by faph View Post
                Hence by BIOS modding linux users would FINALLY be able to proper overclock (OC) and/or undervolt (UV) under linux!
                As I said before, you don't need the vbios since the driver is open source. The driver just reads the values out of the vbios data tables. You can make any changes you want in the driver directly.

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                • #18
                  Originally posted by Adarion View Post
                  That is very welcome. The question seems though, what kind of image do we have to flash? Are there any permanent updates to these cards? Are these images very vendor specific?
                  .
                  On the pre-gcn cards it's useful for changing voltages, timings, clocks for under/over clocking. I never tried it on a newer card tho, so I have no recent experience.

                  EDIT: Then of course there is this too....

                  Originally posted by agd5f View Post

                  As I said before, you don't need the vbios since the driver is open source. The driver just reads the values out of the vbios data tables. You can make any changes you want in the driver directly.
                  Last edited by duby229; 23 October 2018, 01:13 PM.

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                  • #19
                    agd5f So the lack of proper over/underclocing (including voltages) is due to open source driver not supporting it (yet)?

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                    • #20
                      Originally posted by agd5f View Post
                      As I said before, you don't need the vbios since the driver is open source. The driver just reads the values out of the vbios data tables. You can make any changes you want in the driver directly.
                      That means that you can make available mostly 0xFFFFFFFFed BIOS images for VEGA hw that are signed so that the respective security processors will accept them. Such action would both prove your statement(s) and abate some security concerns.

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