Intel Starts Publishing Open-Source Linux Driver Code For Discrete GPUs (phoronix.com)

fstack writes: Intel is still a year out from releasing their first discrete graphics processors, but the company has begun publishing their open-source Linux GPU driver code. This week they began by publishing patches on top of their existing Intel Linux driver for supporting device local memory for dedicated video memory as part of their restructuring effort to support discrete graphics cards. Intel later confirmed this is the start of their open-source driver support for discrete graphics solutions. They have also begun working on Linux driver support for Adaptive-Sync and better reset recovery.

Comments

I always thought it would be interesting

[Solandri]

and useful if a discrete GPU could begin to use system RAM as second-tier VRAM once the VRAM on board the GPU was exhausted. That would prevent the issue where if you run out of VRAM, the game starts to stutter as the game dumps textures from VRAM and is forced to read new textures in off disk. If those extra textures could be held in system RAM instead, the stutter when it was transferred to the GPU would be considerably smaller than having to read it off disk.

Nvidia and AMD would never do this because it would cannibalize their sales of GPUs with more VRAM. Right now if your GPU doesn't have enough VRAM to run a game, your only choices are to reduce texture quality, or buy a new GPU. Intel only did it because they built GPUs without any VRAM, or with just 32-64 MB of eDRAM.

The need has decreased as SSDs have supplanted HDDs. And some games appear to be doing this manually - caching all textures in system RAM so they don't need to be re-read from disk. But system RAM as second-tier VRAM would be faster and a more universal solution.

Re:I always thought it would be interesting

[Fly Swatter]

They already use ram for additional storage, but the problem still exists because the speed of data transfer across the bus between the CPU and the GPU are still the limiting factor. Also the VRAM is tuned purely for the GPU, and is significantly more efficient even if you could stick a standard dimm slot onto the graphics card right next to the GPU.

Excellent.

[Gravis Zero]

As much as I dislike Intel for their usual business practices, it's a good thing that they are bringing more open source hardware to the market. If nothing else, this will put additional preasure on other companies *cough*nvidia*cough* to be more open about their own hardware.

I've always found it strange that some companies release hardware with almost no documentation and half-assed drivers because it's basically kneecapping your own product.

In other words

[TeknoHog]

Some companies like to wait until product launch, but Intel isn't being too discrete about their plans.