Even With AMDGPU DC, HDMI/DP Audio Isn't Working Out For All Radeon Linux Users

Written by Michael Larabel in Radeon on 20 February 2018 at 03:44 PM EST. 38 Comments
RADEON
While the newly-released Raven Ridge APUs could make for nice HTPC systems given the number of compatible mini-ITX/micro-ATX motherboards and these 65 Watt APUs offering Zen CPU cores with Vega graphics, besides the current problematic Raven Ridge graphics support, there are still some broader AMDGPU DC audio problems for newer graphics cards.

Phoronix reader Fred wrote in today to call attention to the AMDGPU DC audio situation. While AMDGPU DC was merged in Linux 4.15 and provides HDMI/DP audio support to the past few generations of Radeon GPUs on this new display code stack, not all audio formats play nicely.

Currently only the legacy HDMI audio formats appear supported of PCM and Dolby Digital/DTS. But support for modern audio formats like Dolby TrueHD / DTS-HD MA / Dolby Atmos and others are not supported, or at least not in a working state for users of AMDGPU DC on recent GPUs.

Going back to last summer is Bug #101900 about this issue of that originated with no HDMI HBR audio support on Polaris or other formats for using at the time the out-of-tree AMDGPU DC code. While reminded of the issue today by a reader, this has been a problem several others have also reiterated in the past few months in the forums and via email about the audio formats supported or not by AMDGPU DC.

Judging from the bug comments, it looks like AMD developers are looking for more testers with helping to analyze the situation and figure out what's happening as there does appear to be code in place albeit not working. If you have any insight to add, be sure to jump in on that thread or comment as well in the forums with your AMDGPU audio experiences.
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Michael Larabel

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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