AMD Linux Graphics Driver To Better Handle Power Savings During Compute Workloads

Over the past week have been two patch series in working to enable BACO (Bus Active, Chip Off) support and in turn power management capabilities when using AMDKFD (Kernel Fusion Driver) for compute workloads.

AMD's Rajneesh Bhardwaj explained with the latest patch series, "This series aims to enable BACO by default on supported AMD platforms and ensures that the AMD Kernel Fusion Driver can co-exist with this feature when the GPU devices are runtime suspended and firmware pushes the envelop to save more power with BACO entry sequence. Current approach makes sure that if KFD is using GPU services for compute, it won't let AMDGPU driver suspend and if the AMDGPU driver is already runtime suspended with GPUs in deep power saving mode with BACO, the KFD driver wakes up the AMDGPU and then starts the compute workload execution."

This should be working for both single and multi-GPU setups and obviously benefits compute-focused systems in particular. Hopefully this BACO for KFD support will get buttoned up in time for the AMD Radeon changes for Linux 5.7.