Qualcomm Adreno MSM Driver For Linux 5.11 Has Many Improvements

The set of MSM DRM driver improvements have now been submitted to DRM-Next that are targeting the Linux 5.11 merge window for enhancing the Qualcomm Adreno mainline kernel graphics driver support.

Of the numerous MSM DRM changes for Linux 5.11, there are two prominent changes worth mentioning:

- Support for using the "System Cache" or Last Level Cache (LLC) as it's also known. The System Cache is a layer of caching for non-coherent devices that sits before the DDR. Enabling the System Cache / LLC for MSM DRM was found to improve the glmark2 graphics performance as a reference point by about 10%.

- GPU cooling support by registering the GPU as a DEVFREQ cooling device so it can be handled by the Linux thermal framework.

More details on the MSM DRM changes ready for Linux 5.11 via dri-devel.