PowerXpress Runtime Power Management Added

[phoronix]

Phoronix: PowerXpress Runtime Power Management Added

Open-source developers are adding run-time power management support to the open-source Radeon DRM graphics driver for supporting ATI/AMD PowerXpress laptops...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=MTQ2NjI

[fritzls]

Tears in my face..
DRI_PRIME + RADEON = CHECK
POWER MANAGEMENT = CHECK

Now my amd 6850m DGPU just need to be useful under linux... Because don't be useful already = check

[dffx]

what can PXP users expect from this? better battery life on their laptops? any increase in performance?

[agd5f]

The dGPU will get powered down automatically when it's not in use. So it should save some power if you weren't manually powering up/down the dGPU before. Perfornance shouldn't be affected.

[Ericg]

The dGPU will get powered down automatically when it's not in use. So it should save some power if you weren't manually powering up/down the dGPU before. Perfornance shouldn't be affected.

Hey Alex 2 questions for ya.

How is PowerXPress / Optimus handled in Windows? Is it a window hint or does the driver just decide based on load of the integrated which to use? Or something else? (And can we use the same idea on Linux?)

I know you're more kernel side.. but do you have any idea how letting X load multiple GPU drivers is coming along?

[agd5f]

Hey Alex 2 questions for ya.

How is PowerXPress / Optimus handled in Windows? Is it a window hint or does the driver just decide based on load of the integrated which to use? Or something else? (And can we use the same idea on Linux?)

I know you're more kernel side.. but do you have any idea how letting X load multiple GPU drivers is coming along?

AFAIK, it works similarly on windows (i.e., user can select which GPU to use for a specific app, although there may be some default profiles for more common apps). X handles multiple GPUs in PX-like configurations just fine starting with xserver 1.14 or newer. See this page for how to use the GPUs in PX/Optimus laptops with X:
http://nouveau.freedesktop.org/wiki/Optimus/

[Adarion]

*does the Ballmer-dance*
I have four words for ya:
"Aaiiiih laaaaaaaaaaahhvv diss commpaniiiiiieeeeeeee... yeaaaaaaaaahhh!"
Actually it's 5 words but I wanted to stay true to Steve.

Now we just need things like this on classic mainboards in real computers. Y'know, having a nice APU with small graphics for KDE and console work and "on demand" a big dedicated GPU on a card in a PCIe slot for gaming or other hungry applications.
Probably needs cooperation from mainboard vendors, also to get some kind of VGA out multiplexing done so you can use 2 chips on one interface of HDMI/DVI/VGA/DP/LVDS.

[thirtythreeforty]

Enduro

Does this mean good things for those of us with PXP 4.0, "Enduro"? Even AMD's proprietary drivers don't work most of the time on my laptop.

[dffx]

Does this mean good things for those of us with PXP 4.0, "Enduro"? Even AMD's proprietary drivers don't work most of the time on my laptop.

Yes, this is precisely what it's for, but for use with the open source radeon module, not proprietary Catalyst.

By the by, if you're interested in getting Catalyst to work (decently) with a muxless PXP setup, consider looking into the AMD branch of Bumblebee.

[Rakot]

AFAIK, it works similarly on windows (i.e., user can select which GPU to use for a specific app, although there may be some default profiles for more common apps). X handles multiple GPUs in PX-like configurations just fine starting with xserver 1.14 or newer. See this page for how to use the GPUs in PX/Optimus laptops with X:
http://nouveau.freedesktop.org/wiki/Optimus/

Hello, Alex,

I tried your patches on top of kernel 3.11.1+drm-next.
My hardware is intel hd 4000 + mobility radeon 7750M.
Here is my dmesg . So I didn't do anything on my dGPU after I booted my laptop. However it looks like dGPU was turned off and then turned on again. Could you explain please what exactly can trigger dGPU to turn off and turn on (DRI_PRIME only?) ?
Also cat /sys/kernel/debug/vgaswitcheroo/switch shows following:

0:DIS: :DynPwr:0000:01:00.0
1:IGD:+:Pwr:0000:00:02.0

How can I check whether my dGPU is active?

Thank you in advance for your answers! And many thanks for a great work!