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[bridgman]

GSP seems like a bit of a special case in the sense that (a) it replaces functionality that previously ran on the CPU as part of the driver for the same...

[bridgman]

We have closed source microcode inside the hardware, not inside the drivers.

The drivers make OS calls to load microcode images from initramfs...

[bridgman]

I don't know for sure but my impression was that the range of refresh rates was much narrower than that, maybe 25 Hz on the low end....

[bridgman]

I don't understand your point. The logic that allows you to run a CPU without a cooler is closed source firmware, and PMF is about extending the behaviour...

[bridgman]

I don't think the analogy works - there's a big difference between "burning what you are cooking" and "killing the stove"....

[bridgman]

If it helps, I don't think the PMF blobs are needed for generic systems, just for OEM-customized systems. My guess is primarily laptops and AIO's but...

[bridgman]

Me too... but the question became "if you could get 90% of the perceived performance with half the weight and lower cost, at the expense of more...

[bridgman]

It's on the CPU side so not sure, but extrapolating from the GPU world I can make some guesses. If you go back 15 years the peak power usage of GPUs was...

[bridgman]

One of the challenges with supporting older hardware is the "fat binary" model we use, where compiling an application generates GPU code for...

[bridgman]

You could post the dmesg output somewhere to be 100% sure but yeah, without the firmware the kernel driver load will fail (and report to the kernel log...

[bridgman]

I believe all of the tests in today's article used upstream open source drivers.

AMD developers provide most of the new hardware support...

[bridgman]

Yep... I believe Red Hat does something like that today, albeit only across specific ranges of distro versions. I *think* those ranges are normally "major...

[bridgman]

Not sure if I am disagreeing with you or just nitpicking about wording, but our KCL is distro-agnostic and only cares about what functions are available...