AMD's Linux Kernel Compute Driver For ROCm Begins Preparing For RDNA4 GPUs

In addition to debuting their "Peano" LLVM compiler back-end for Ryzen AI NPUs on Friday, AMD also submitted a new batch of feature code for their AMDGPU kernel graphics driver and AMDKFD kernel compute driver of new feature code aiming for the upcoming Linux 6.11 merge window.

With this new round of AMDGPU/AMDKFD driver updates for the next Linux kernel version there are continued preparations for upcoming RDNA 4 graphics processors with GFX12 IP. The AMDGPU driver sees DCN 4.0.x support, GC 12.0 support, GMC 12.0 support, SMU 13 updates, MES 12 support, and a variety of other new hardware IP updates and enablement. There is also updates for RDNA 3.5 graphics being found with upcoming Ryzen AI 300 series NPUs.

The AMDGPU driver also has DisplayPort Multi-Stream Transport (DP MST) fixes, cursor fixes, fixing HDP flush for platforms with larger than 4K page sizes, and various other low-level changes.

The AMDKFD kernel compute driver updates are a big deal this time around. First, it contains more work around better compute support for "small" Ryzen APUs. The code for Linux 6.11 is allowing for contiguous vRAM allocations and simplifies the APU vRAM handling. The other big change is the GC 12.0 support in the AMDKFD driver in beginning to prepare this "Kernel Fusion Driver" for RDNA4/GFX12 hardware. There is also SDMA 7.0 IP enabled too.

Here's to hoping that when the RDNA 4 graphics cards do launch in months down the road, AMD will be ready with at-launch support for ROCm on their next-gen consumer GPUs...

See this pull request for the full list of these AMDGPU/AMDKFD feature patches aiming for Linux 6.11. Expect more AMD feature work for Linux 6.11 to be published in the next few weeks.