AMD Has Some Last Minute Updates For The AMDGPU Driver In Linux 5.11

The Linux 5.11 merge window is expected to open next week and while AMD has already queued several rounds of updates into DRM-Next ahead of that period, some last minute items were submitted overnight for this next Linux kernel version and what will be the first major kernel release of 2021.

Previously in anticipation of Linux 5.11 AMD already sent in Van Gogh APU and Dimgrey Cavefish support. There were also more RDNA 2 updates, buffer modifier support going back to GFX9/Vega, and even some Renoir improvements. There were also an additional round of improvements that made it to DRM-Next at the end of November.

Now for this last minute AMDGPU material for DRM-Next to head into Linux 5.11 are some additional changes:

- BACO (Bus Active, Chip Off) reset support for Bonaire GPUs (Radeon 7790, R7 260 series).

- Runtime power management now being enabled for GCN 1.1 Sea Islands GPUs using BACO.

- GPU VM support is enabled for DCN 3.01.

- Support for shutting down the HDR3DLUT and SHAPER memory blocks when they are not in use. This is a power optimization for DCN3 hardware.

- DSCL memory low power support for shutting down the DSCL when not in use is also enabled.

- 8MB of vRAM is now being reserved for page tables rather than 4MB.

- VSIF V3 is now implemented as an extended refresh rate feature. This is part of FreeSync but haven't been able to find any public documentation pertaining specifically to the VSIF V3 feature.

- Scatter/Gather support is now enabled for Van Gogh APUs. S/G is another power optimization.

- Updating the golden register settings for the RDNA2 yet-to-be-released Dimgrey Cavefish.

- Support for a new display firmware command for run-time feature command.

- Various bug fixes throughout.

It's quite a big last minute pull ahead of the Linux 5.11 cycle.