Mesa VCN JPEG Decode Patches Posted For AMD Raven Ridge

With the imminent Linux 4.19 kernel release there is VCN JPEG decode support within the AMDGPU DRM driver for use with Raven Ridge APUs. The accompanying user-space patches for the Radeon Gallium3D code have now been posted for making this functionality work on the Linux desktop with these Zen+Vega APUs.

Now that the kernel-side bits for accelerated JPEG decoding using the "Video Core Next" block are in place, the Mesa/Gallium3D patches were posted today for getting this functionality enabled and working for Raven Ridge. VCN as a reminder is the new unified video encode/decode block with Raven that succeeds the UVD video decoding and VCE video encoding blocks on the GPU.

There are 15 patches needed for plumbing in the VCN JPEG decode support and flipping it on with the RadeonSI Gallium3D driver for Raven Ridge hardware. As the work is fairly straight forward, it will presumably be merged to mainline Mesa in short order, which would put it well in time for the Mesa 18.3 release due out later this quarter.

Depending upon your motherboard/BIOS, Raven Ridge APUs with their Vega graphics can still be a bit spotty on Linux. But generally if you are using the latest Linux kernel and Mesa as well as your latest motherboard BIOS, generally things in recent times are beginning to "just work" for this hardware. If you missed it from late September were some fresh Linux tests with various Intel/AMD integrated graphics.