Intel Linux Graphics Driver Working Towards 5K+ Display Support With VESA DSC

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Intel Linux Graphics Driver Working Towards 5K+ Display Support With VESA DSC

While 4K displays are great for now, 5K displays are on the horizon and Intel is hard at work preparing their open-source Linux graphics driver for supporting 5K displays and beyond...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Intel-DSC-5K-Next-Gen-Work

[darkbasic]

DSC is not needed for 5K. It's needed for 8K or dual 5K.

[tildearrow]

DSC is not needed for 5K.

What about 10-bit?

[Guest]

Mostly unrelated, but Intel needs to require OEMs to use ports that actually support 4k (and ideally any other resolutions that require a modern port specification).

I have an Acer desktop (manufactured just last year/2017) with HD 630 graphics. The graphics chip by itself supports 4k@60Hz over HDMI, but Acer only included a HDMI 1.4 port on the motherboard (4k@60Hz requires HDMI 2.0), and the HDMI port type isn't advertised anywhere.

[numacross]

What about 10-bit?

Does that matter when DSC is a lossy compression scheme?

From VESA's own PR: All of the analyses showed that the DSC algorithm outperformed five other proprietary algorithms on these picture quality tests, and was either visually lossless or very nearly so for all tested images at 8 bits/pixel.

[numacross]

Mostly unrelated, but Intel needs to require OEMs to use ports that actually support 4k (and ideally any other resolutions that require a modern port specification).

I have an Acer desktop (manufactured just last year/2017) with HD 630 graphics. The graphics chip by itself supports 4k@60Hz over HDMI, but Acer only included a HDMI 1.4 port on the motherboard (4k@60Hz requires HDMI 2.0), and the HDMI port type isn't advertised anywhere.

I think it's Intel who limited HDMI to 1.4 on their processors or rather kept re-releasing the same GPUs. The only thing motherboard manufacturers could do to support HDMI 2.0 is to include a very expensive DP-HDMI chip[1]. After a quick search I found one for over 10$ a piece on Digikey, which seems like a lot just for that.

[1] - page 37 of the datasheet

[chithanh]

DSC will also save DisplayPort lanes in sub-5K resolutions. This can be important for USB Type-C Alternate Mode, as 4K@60 Hz would otherwise use the full 4 lanes. With DSC, more lanes will be available for USB 3.0.

Furthermore, the 4K@144 Hz displays cannot be used fully without DSC. They either use far worse compression (4:2:2 chroma subsampling) or limit refresh rate to 120 Hz (8 bpc) or even 98 Hz (10 bpc).

So DSC support in software and hardware cannot come soon enough.

[torsionbar28]

The 5K display resolution seems useful for those who are creating or editing 4K content. But what is the appeal for the average consumer?

[starshipeleven]

Tech hype appeals many average consumers. Remember VR glasses...

VR glasses don't appeal to average consumers. They appeal to tech enthusiasts.