AMD Renoir On Linux Could Soon See Lower Power Consumption During Video Playback
Sent out on Wednesday were the latest set of AMD DC patches for their "display core" code shared between Windows and Linux. Of the patches, catching our eye was a DCN 2.1 power optimization for video playback.
That change amounts to enabling ODM Combine and fullscreen MPO on DCN2.1 hardware, which is most notably Renoir. The full-screen MPO support is regarding multi-plane overlays.
The new code notes that the ODM Combine and Fullscreen MPO should result in "lower power consumption in video use cases." But the comments fail to note any details beyond that, so we'll be left exploring that power optimization when the time comes and the code is mainlined. The rest of the DC patches sent out yesterday amount to seemingly mundane fixes.
As DRM-Next is past its window ahead of the forthcoming Linux 5.10 cycle beginning next week, these AMDGPU DC patches won't see the mainline kernel until Linux 5.11 as we get ready to ring in the new year.
Given more AMD-powered Chromebooks coming to market is why we've seen the likes of HDCP content protection and TMZ support while it wouldn't be surprising if it's also providing motivation for the Linux driver developers to pursue greater power optimizations and other tuning.
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