Intel and AMD they are preparing major updates to the drivers and firmware that they implement in the Linux kernel. The former is developing a new driver aimed at making better use of its recent dedicated and integrated Xe graphics, while the latter is improving the firmware and experience with RDNA 3.
The direction of the graphics drivers present in the Linux kernel began to turn 180 degrees in the middle of the last decade, more specifically after the AMDGPU announcement, which marked the definitive and official adoption of the system’s standard graphics stack by AMD part. From there Intel responded to greatly improve the performance of its controllers. At this point, it is not a bad thing to remember that all drivers for Linux come from reverse engineering is a myth in a significant percentage (DualSense is also supported with an official driver).
Returning to the present, Intel is preparing a new driver for the kernel, Xe, which would replace the old i915 in the integrated graphics with Xe technology (from Tiger Lake) and the company’s dedicated ones. As a curiosity, Intel Arc graphics have in the execution of OpenGL on Linux the only scenario in which they have complied from day one.
The Xe driver will be compatible with the userspace drivers provided by Mesa for Intel: Iris, which provides support for OpenGL, and ANV, which provides support for Vulkan. Leaving aside what the Xe driver can contribute, ANV continues to be one of Intel’s Achilles tendons in Linux, especially when it comes to running native games made with Vulkan or through Proton. It will also have support for OneAPI, Intel’s development platform, and for OpenCL through the corresponding user-space driver.
The i915 driver, as its name indicates, is very old, and Intel may have seen that improving it is a difficult task, so the company would have chosen to start developing a new driver from scratch in order to have a better framework. to compete against AMD and NVIDIA. If this has reminded some of the situation of the drivers for Intel Arc dedicated graphics in Windows, the origin is similar, although the circumstances are very different.
Regarding AMD, the red giant has presented a series of patches that allow easier fallback to the firmware frame buffer when the AMDGPU driver does not load correctly. This change introduces a new approach that should allow firmware frame buffer recovery in the event that AMDGPU initialization fails, thus offering greater resiliency especially in contexts where the driver does not fully support a new one. graphics generation, as is the case for now with RDNA 3 (RX 7900 XT and RX 7900 XTX).
Another set of patches that AMD has come up with for Linux involves the implementation of user-mode graphics queues for the AMDGPU driver on Navi 3x and later graphics. Basically, they consist of allowing the direct dispatch of workloads from a user space process that has a context in AMDGPU (which is the component that carries the weight). As a result, you could have a better performance and easier management of apps and certain games running in full screen.
The improvements that AMD intends to introduce in its driver for Linux could be focused on future versions of the Steam Deck with RDNA 3 graphics, since Valve’s console operating system, SteamOS 3, is a standard GNU/Linux that is they have added immutability properties to prevent breakage and offer a more watertight floor to developers.
The news around the graphics drivers for Linux have not stopped throwing very interesting things since 2016, and that is that running triple A video games for Windows with the standard graphics stack of the system was considered an impossible dream until relatively recently.
First, we will see if the Xe driver manages to put Intel on par with AMD and NVIDIA in terms of performance, while on the other hand it will be necessary to see if the patches that AMD is preparing manage to give the expected results.
