The DRM Changes To Find With The Linux 4.14 Kernel

Written by Michael Larabel in Linux Kernel on 23 August 2017 at 06:38 AM EDT. 2 Comments
LINUX KERNEL
With the Linux 4.13-rc6 kernel now being out for a few days, we're now past the timeframe for which DRM subsystem maintainer David Airlie allows new feature code to be staged in DRM-Next. Thus we have a pretty solid look at the highlights of the new Direct Rendering Manager features/changes coming for the Linux 4.14 kernel.

Among the DRM changes to look forward to with Linux 4.14 are:

- Vega 10 huge page support is one of the big AMDGPU features for Linux 4.14. This should significantly help the performance of OpenCL and Vulkan with Radeon RX Vega hardware.

- SR-IOV fixes and other minor improvements to the AMDGPU code. There's also more Raven Ridge work for the AMD APU coming out late in the year with a Zen CPU paired with Vega class graphics. (Though no DC / DAL / display code for Linux 4.14.)

- More AMDKFD upstreaming as part of AMD's HSA vision.

- Kabylake support for Intel GVT.

- Continued Cannonlake enablement for the next-gen "Gen 10" Intel graphics coming with these post-Kabylake processors but not to be confused with the Coffee Lake / Kabylake Refresh parts.

- NVIDIA GP108 support in Nouveau, but it's limited to just display/mode-setting. Nothing else really exciting for the open-source NVIDIA driver this cycle.

- HDMI CEC support within the Allwinner sun4i DRM driver as well as other HDMI improvements.

I think that covers most of the interesting work for end-users when it comes to DRM-Next changes for Linux 4.14. If I missed anything of interest, please point it out in the forums. As a reminder, the Linux 4.14 kernel will be a Long Term Support release, but that also makes it a pity that AMDGPU DC didn't happen for this LTS kernel likely to be used by Ubuntu 18.04, etc.
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Michael Larabel is the principal author of Phoronix.com and founded the site in 2004 with a focus on enriching the Linux hardware experience. Michael has written more than 20,000 articles covering the state of Linux hardware support, Linux performance, graphics drivers, and other topics. Michael is also the lead developer of the Phoronix Test Suite, Phoromatic, and OpenBenchmarking.org automated benchmarking software. He can be followed via Twitter, LinkedIn, or contacted via MichaelLarabel.com.

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