Raven Ridge Isn't Yet Ready To Have GFXOFF & Stutter Mode Flipped On For Linux

As part of the big DRM pull request for the next Linux kernel cycle, the AMDGPU driver enabled GFXOFF and Stutter Mode functionality for Raven Ridge. But this power-savings functionality is already being reverted for the next kernel release.

GFXOFF allows turning off the graphics engine when it isn't needed in order to save power. Stutter mode support is another power-savings feature pertaining to video memory.

While these features were flipped on last week for Raven Ridge APUs when DRM-Next was merged to mainline, that is already being reverted.

As part of today's amdgpu drm-next-4.20, the GFXOFF and Stutter Mode functionality is being disabled as some system BIOS / firmware combinations are "not stable yet" for this functionality.

Given the problems we've been seeing on and off since the Raven Ridge launch earlier this year and similar issues encountered by other Phoronix readers, Raven Ridge hardware on Linux can be a roll of the dice still it seems based upon the BIOS/firmware at play with unusually high variation between system vendors. Hopefully when Raven 2 and Picasso are ready to ship, the firmware will be in better shape.

Today's AMDGPU updates also include tweaks for Vega 20, overclocking regression fixes, and other bug fixes.