Raspberry Pi 5 Graphics Continue With Open-Source Driver & Crazy Fast Compared To RPi 4

[QwertyChouskie]

Good news, the pi is getting more useful with this healthy boost in overall perf.

How about compute? Does it support OpenCL?

There's an open PR in Mesa from 5 days ago to support Rusticl on V3D: https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/mesa/...requests/25362

Lucky timing that it coincides with the launch of a newer, much more powerful Pi

[QwertyChouskie]

Finally something news worthy concerning the push for Raspberry Pi graphics driver becoming open source rather than proprietary blobbed drivers!

Granted, Broadcom driver support just is not very reliable.

I've been keeping an eye on Raspberry Pi for a garage computer; rather than purchasing another expensive laptop or building another desktop, only to be damaged by painting or dirtied by other garage related tasks. The big problem with Raspberry Pi, proprietary drivers, namely graphics driver.

When I install and maintain my Linux computers, I absolutely do not enjoy struggling with proprietary drivers for required computer hardware devices! (eg. video/graphics, sound/audio, keyboard, mouse, printers, ...)

The RPi graphics drivers have been fully FOSS and mainlined for years now, though there's often a bit of delay between new hardware launching and all the patches being merged upstream.

The Pi 4 didn't even support the proprietary Broadcom GPU drivers.

[coder]

Unless you wanna lay down another Ethernet cable across the whole house just to hook it up to your Raspberry Pi then you're stuck with Wi-Fi which and this new Raspberry Pi 5 still only have old shitty Wi-Fi 5, the same as in Raspberry Pi 4. 🥹

How much cost would that add? The price difference between routers supporting the two standards should give you a clue.

It only has 4 CPU cores, ... the Cortex-A76 core is quite old,

It's a good step up from A72, though. Yes, flagship phones first incorporated the A76 in 2019, but those SoCs cost several times the entire Pi!

Being cost-constrained means the Pi is limited to using older IP, both due to licensing and fabrication costs. Also, fewer in number. I'll grant you that it would've been nice to see them follow Rockchip's example and add 2x A55 cores, but it doesn't really bother me that they didn't.

the newer cores are more energy efficient, so that's good too if you want to run without a fan.

The heat/power issues have a lot more to do with what node the SoC was made on. You can easily see this by comparing it to other SoCs with the same cores.

I hope we get some interesting competitors that offer Wi-Fi 6 and more modern cores in a heterogeneous configuration.

The main competitor is probably the Orange Pi 5, and it doesn't even have built-in Wi-Fi. So, it's a cost vs. functionality tradeoff.

It sounds to me like what you really want is a x86 mini-PC. I'd suggest you shop for one on AliExpress.

[QwertyChouskie]

Unless you wanna lay down another Ethernet cable across the whole house just to hook it up to your Raspberry Pi then you're stuck with Wi-Fi which and this new Raspberry Pi 5 still only have old shitty Wi-Fi 5, the same as in Raspberry Pi 4. 🥹

Although both the Pi 4 and the Pi 5 use WiFi 802.11ac, the real-world maximum throughput of the Pi 5's WiFi is around double that of the Pi 4, due to the Pi 5's much better IO architecture.

[rogerx]

The RPi graphics drivers have been fully FOSS and mainlined for years now, though there's often a bit of delay between new hardware launching and all the patches being merged upstream.

The Pi 4 didn't even support the proprietary Broadcom GPU drivers.

Along with all other drivers for the Raspberry line of products?

I vividly recall running into this last year or two years ago. Could not simply install a generic Linux distribution onto Raspberry else some devices would not function without having the Linux binary drivers. Some talk, at the time, was promoting fully open sourcing the drivers.

[QwertyChouskie]

Along with all other drivers for the Raspberry line of products?

I vividly recall running into this last year or two years ago. Could not simply install a generic Linux distribution onto Raspberry else some devices would not function without having the Linux binary drivers. Some talk, at the time, was promoting fully open sourcing the drivers.

I ran mainline aarch64 Ubuntu on my Pi 3 for some years. Worked fine once it was properly set up (you need uboot as a "bootloader"/UEFI implementation).

[DanielG]

RPv5_RPv4_yQuake2.png

These results seem weird to me.
1) The game runs faster with AF:On and MSAA:On with the remaining settings being the same?
2) RPv5 is 3x faster in #1 than in #2, meanwhile RPv4 is 5.3x faster in #1 than in #2? Maybe the RPv5 is CPU limited in #1?


Edit: The forum does not let me upload in a reasonable size.
The screenshot is about yQuake2:

RPv4	RPv5	yQuake2 8.10
16.5	77.1	OpenGL ES 3.x - AF: Off - MSAA: Off - Resolution: 1920x1080
87.4	230	OpenGL 3.x - AF: On - MSAA: On - Resolution: 1920x1080
530%	300%

---

Edit2: just noticed, one says "OpenGL ES 3.x" and the other "OpenGL 3.x" - is this what is causing the performance difference?

Those results don't make sense to me either.
The YQ2 OpenGL 3 and OpenGL ES 3 renderers are almost identical (same code with a few #ifdefs to accomodate to the small differences), so with identical settings they should behave the same - and disabling AF and MSAA really shouldn't decrease performance..

[uid313]

How much cost would that add? The price difference between routers supporting the two standards should give you a clue.

There are no routers with Wi-Fi 5 being sold.
I am sure there is some price to pay for Wi-Fi 7 but Wi-Fi 6 should be cheap.

It sounds to me like what you really want is a x86 mini-PC. I'd suggest you shop for one on AliExpress.

No, those use too much power, are way too energy efficient, and require fans. They are also way too big.
I am looking for something really small, that uses as little energy as possible. Something like ARM or RISC-V.

[t.s.]

No, those use too much power, are way too energy efficient, and require fans. They are also way too big.
I am looking for something really small, that uses as little energy as possible. Something like ARM or RISC-V.

This alder lake N100 mini-pc here https://id.aliexpress.com/item/1005005234874016.html is quite small at 9x9x4.4cm, have m.2 slot, wifi, 3xhdmi, 2xGBLan, and use maybe around ~6 watt idle. Of course with already have case. 16GB/512GB for $129 is quite good a price.

If you want ARM, OrangePi5 your best bet.

[coder]

There are no routers with Wi-Fi 5 being sold.

Common sense should tell you that's not true. Search for 802.11ac and you'll find plenty.

No, those use too much power, are way too energy efficient, and require fans. They are also way too big.
I am looking for something really small, that uses as little energy as possible. Something like ARM or RISC-V.

You can get low-power x86 in a Pi form factor, but it will cost you.

https://up-board.org/up-7000/

For higher specs, you can look at the Up Squared:

https://up-board.org/up-squared-pro-7000/

If you want to stick with ARM, then your best bet is the Orange Pi 5. It has better specs but lacks some features. For instance, it has only one HDMI port and wi-fi requires a separate module. You can also step up to the Orange Pi 5 Plus, for a bit better specs.

• http://www.orangepi.org/html/hardWar...ange-Pi-5.html
• http://www.orangepi.org/html/hardWar...Pi-5-plus.html

In conclusion, the Raspberry Pi tries to optimize performance and features against price. If they would make it on a newer process node to please people like you, that would come at higher prices for everyone and compromise their core mission of being accessible. The Pi 5 starts at just $60 and is surely also designed to scale down to much cheaper, slimmed-down compute modules. That's a lot cheaper than the Orange Pi 5's entry price of $85 (AliExpress) - $100 (Amazon).