AMDGPU Linux Driver Preparing To Enable DSC-Over-eDP For More Power-Savings

While the AMD Radeon "AMDGPU" Linux kernel graphics driver has supported VESA Display Stream Compression (DSC) over DisplayPort connections, until now it hasn't supported the power-savings feature for eDP panels.

Since Display Stream Compression 1.1 the specification has supported Embedded DisplayPort for reducing the amount of data transferred and in turn reducing system power consumption and helping battery life on laptops.

Finally the AMDGPU Linux kernel driver is preparing to enable Display Stream Compression for the eDP interface.

The enablement was posted in patch form today as part of the latest batch of AMDGPU DC changes. The focus of the Linux driver support for DSC-over-eDP is indeed about optimizing bandwidth usage to save on power consumption. This obviously depends as well on the eDP panel supporting DSC too.

More details for those interested via this patch. Due to the timing this round of AMDGPU DC patches won't be mainlined until Linux 5.17.

It's great seeing the continued optimizations from AMD this year focused on enhancing the Radeon/Ryzen Linux laptop support.