AMD Working On New OverDrive GPU Overclocking Controls For Linux
AMD engineer Evan Quan explained of the new OverDrive interface:
"The existing OD interface `pp_od_clk_voltage` is unable to meet the growing demands for more OD functionalities. Since the buf used within it comes with size limit as one page. With more OD functionalities added, we will hit that limit soon.
To better meet the growing demands, a new set of OD interfaces are designed. With this new design, there will be multiple interfaces exposed with each representing a single OD functionality. And all those interfaces will be arranged in a tree liked hierarchy as below. Meanwhile all functionalities for the same component will be arranged under the same directory."
This is in reference to the kernel to user-space interface via sysfs, not to be confused with any GUI elements. AMD continues to not officially support any graphical user interface for managing AMD graphics driver settings and controls like overclocking under Linux. AMD leaves those GUI implementations up to individual desktop environments and open-source projects for coming up with any GUI utilities to appease Linux gamers and enthusiasts.
The new Linux OverDrive interfaces for each component will allow manipulating the fan curve, minimum PWM for the cooling fan(s), fan target temperature, and acoustic RPM threshold. These new interfaces are just for SMU13 / RDNA3 and newer with prior GPU hardware not allowing such controls. It was just earlier this summer that AMD implemented its basic OverDrive overclocking on the RDNA3 generation.
The latest AMD OverDrive Linux patches are currently out for review on the mailing list. Given the timing of these patches they won't be picked up by mainline until at least the v6.7 kernel cycle later in the year.
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