Radeon KMS, New TTM Code Works But Needs Testing

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Radeon KMS, New TTM Code Works But Needs Testing

It has been a while since Jerome Glisse last had any major public announcements, but this morning he is calling for those using the open-source ATI Linux graphics stack to checkout the latest code. Kernel mode-setting for ATI Radeon hardware should now be working atop the new TTM-based memory management code. Jerome along with Alex Deucher, David Airlie, and other X.Org developers have been busy getting ATI kernel mode-setting ready for mainline inclusion hopefully at some point this year (perhaps 2.6.31 or 2.6.32)...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=NzIzOA

[aaaantoine]

Makes me wish I had the drive space to set up a direct-to-hardware testing environment.

[Pfanne]

Makes me wish I had the knowledge to set up a direct-to-hardware testing environment.

[cb88]

UUhhh.. does he mean just not running in a VM? seriously you can get a 250Gb drive for $50

[Nille]

Work the new Code with R600 and higher ? in the past the version are only work with r100-r500

[PuckPoltergeist]

Work the new Code with R600 and higher ? in the past the version are only work with r100-r500

not yet, AFAIK

[sundown]

Makes me wish I had the knowledge to set up a direct-to-hardware testing environment.

It's kind of explained here: http://jglisse.livejournal.com/1822.html

[tball]

Would I get any improvement over the radeon included in Fedora 11, with a kernel r600 gpu? In another words, has there been any changes with the r600 code since the fedora 11 driver? 3D support?

[bugmenot]

Yes, can I expect KMS to work on R600/700?

Apart from that: Awesome, great, awesome...! Thanks so much guys!

[TechMage89]

3d support for r600+ still isn't really in a usable state. I think some people can get glxgears to work, but even that's spotty. It will probably be another few months before these cards have really useful 3d support in the open-source driver.

The Fedora 11 driver is relatively current, I believe, and supports EXA and Xv on r600+, so that's the best stuff that's end-user ready right now. That said, once the DRM code stabilizes, GEM-ified EXA and Xv, as well as KMS and DRI2 should have significant benefits for end-users (potentially better 2d performance, KMS (of course), and Xv working properly with compiz, etc.)

@bugmenot Yup, the KMS code is based on ATOMBIOS, and therefore (theoretically) should work on recent ATI cards. There are still bugs, though. (note for inevitable question: yes the KMS also has register banging code that works with older ATI cards that don't have ATOMBIOS. However for new cards, it turns out ATOMBIOS is by far the easiest/fastest way to do things.)