Intel Working On DP 2.0 Panel Replay Power Savings For Linux

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Intel Working On DP 2.0 Panel Replay Power Savings For Linux

Last month Intel's open-source Linux graphics driver engineers began posting patches working on DisplayPort 2.0 support for their driver with DG2/Alchemist now set to be Intel's first GPU supporting the newest DP standard. DP 2.0 enablement work continues with Panel Replay being the latest feature being worked on for their Linux driver...

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Intel-DP-2.0-Panel-Replay

[Mathias]

While I support these features for power savings, I wonder when the Window Manager will move into the display. Like X11 over DP3.0 or similar.

[iskra32]

While I support these features for power savings, I wonder when the Window Manager will move into the display. Like X11 over DP3.0 or similar.

Likely and hopefully never. A modern display server(i.e Wayland, idk about X that whole ecosystem is a mess) will only repaint the stuff that has changed on each frame, making the above pointless, overcomplicated, and unlikely to give any advantages. The only thing that has changed here is that the GPU will also tell the display where it has repainted, rather than repainting every frame anyway.

[Mathias]

Likely and hopefully never.

I agree. It was half a joke. But the next step would be signaling moved rectangles, like moving windows or scrolling events. That would also reduce data transfers. And with that functionality you could already implement a basic window manager...

[chuckula]

While I support these features for power savings, I wonder when the Window Manager will move into the display. Like X11 over DP3.0 or similar.

This isn't about taking over what a window manager does but it does have some conceptual similarities to the "damage" concept you see in both Wayland and more modern X11 compositors where computation & energy is only expended on updating parts of the screen that actually change between frames. This extension just moves that concept up to the display itself, which saves bandwidth over the displayport cable and ultimately some power since fewer transmitted bits means less power consumed.

[darkbasic]

AMD please, *please* support both DP 2.0 and USB4 w/ Thunderbolt in your next mobile APU. Thanks.