Linux 6.2 Graphics Changes: Intel Arc Graphics Stable, Initial NVIDIA RTX 30 Acceleration
First and foremost, Intel Arc Graphics (DG2/Alchemist) are no longer experimental. On prior kernels the i915.force_probe= option was needed to force-enable the "experimental" hardware support. But with Linux 6.2 and onward the DG2/Alchemist discrete graphics processor support is deemed stable enough to have it on by default and ready for end-user use. If running Linux 6.2+ and Mesa 22.3+ you are in good shape for enjoying Arc Graphics atop the open-source driver stack.
The other big change to the kernel graphics drivers with Linux 6.2 is initial RTX 30 "Ampere" accelerated support. Yes, RTX 30 and not the now current generation RTX 40 series... This RTX 30 series acceleration with Nouveau relies on the binary-only firmware NVIDIA published months ago and Nouveau Gallium3D has initial OpenGL support in Mesa.
Linux 6.2 finally brings upstream open-source accelerated support for NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 "Ampere" GPUs... Albeit slow until re-clocking / GSP support gets sorted out in a future kernel. Prior kernels only had open-source mode-setting support.
The RTX 30 series code and Nouveau upstream doesn't yet use the NVIDIA GPU System Processor (GSP) and thus still subject to the re-clocking limitations known to Phoronix readers for years. So while there is the initial RTX 30 series accelerated support on Linux 6.2, expect it to be very slow -- benchmarks to come.
On the AMDGPU driver side they have continued working on enabling new IP blocks for future GPUs/APUs. There is also DCN2.1 secure display support, fixes for building the DCN display code on AArch64, and other low-level improvements.
Intel engineers meanwhile have continued working on Meteor Lake graphics enablement, various fixes, and other improvements.
The full list of DRM driver feature patches for Linux 6.2 can be found via the pull request that as of this afternoon has already been merged.
8 Comments
