Following last week’s initial batch of AMDGPU kernel graphics driver changes intended for Linux 6.19, another round of new AMDGPU / Radeon / AMDKFD material was sent out today to DRM-Next. Notable with this pull is the Display Core “DC” work for analog video connectors as the initiative from one of Valve’s contractors for improving the Radeon GCN 1.0 era GPU support with the AMDGPU driver.
This new batch of AMDGPU changes planned for Linux 6.19 includes the work by Timur Kristóf for enabling display analog encoders within the AMDGPU DC code. This is needed for helping the old GCN 1.0/1.1 era GPUs reach parity to the older Radeon driver with hopes of enabling GCN 1.0/1.1 hardware by default for the modern AMDGPU driver in place of the old Radeon driver code.
Timur the past few months has been working on the analog connector support for AMDGPU DC and with this pull request now appears to all be in place, going along with his other GCN 1.0 Southern Islands and GCN 1.1 improvements this year for the AMDGPU driver. We’ll see if in 2026 it finally reaches the point of those older circa Radeon HD 7000 series / Rx 200 series move to AMDGPU by default for enabling better performance, Vulkan with RADV out-of-the-box, and all around a better driver than the older Radeon code primarily for pre-GCN hardware.
This analog connector support is also useful for some Tonga and Hawaii graphics cards that have DVI-I connectors to work with AMDGPU DC.
One of Timur’s patches also part of this pull is now enabling DC by default for old Bonaire APUs. Bonaire was an exception due to its presence of analog connector support but otherwise being supported by AMDGPU.
Other material in today’s AMDGPU pull request are re-enabling DM idle optimizations, PowerPlay fixes for old Fiji and Iceland GPUs, SR-IOV updates, user queue “UserQ” fixes, adding an Ambient Backlight Management (ABM) KMS property, and various other fixes. More details for those interested via this pull request.
