Message-ID: <b296bfef-1a9c-4452-baeb-09f86758addd@suse.de>
Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2025 08:57:33 +0100
From: Thomas Zimmermann <tzimmermann@...e.de>
To: Nicolas Baranger <nicolas.baranger@....fr>,
 dri-devel@...ts.freedesktop.org
Cc: airlied@...hat.com, Jocelyn Falempe <jfalempe@...hat.com>,
 Maarten Lankhorst <maarten.lankhorst@...ux.intel.com>,
 Maxime Ripard <mripard@...nel.org>, David Airlie <airlied@...il.com>,
 Simona Vetter <simona@...ll.ch>, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: Include ASPEED ast-drm 1.15.1 video driver in kernel tree

Hi Nicolas

Am 12.02.25 um 19:58 schrieb Nicolas Baranger:
> Dear maintener

That's mostly me and Jocelyn.

>
> I did include ast-drm driver version 1.15.1 (in replacement of version 
> 0.1.0) on the new mainline kernel too (6.14.0-rc2) and I issue a new 
> dkms patch
>
> Last DKMS patch had been sucessfully tested on mainline.
> And last ast.ko version 1.15.1 included in linux tree had also been 
> sucessfully tested
>
> Online directory is updated with :
> - new DKMS patch
> - new DKMS srouces
> - new DKMS debian package
> - new tarball of mainline included ast_new ported in kernel tree
> - new kernel debian package (mainline with ast_new)
>
>
> NB: online directory is here: 
> https://xba.soartist.net/ast-drm_nba_20250211/
>
> Please let me know what I should do to see this change in linux-next

I'm having a little trouble with figuring out which of the many driver 
sources is the relevant one. Am I correct to assume it's the one at

https://xba.soartist.net/ast-drm_nba_20250211/nba-dkms/nba_last_src_20250212/src/


About that driver: Although the official driver reports an ancient 
version number, it is an up-to-date driver. It is actually more 
up-to-date than Aspeed's package. Both drivers share source code and a 
few years ago there was an effort to bring the kernel's driver up to the 
same feature set. Since then, the kernel's driver has been updated, 
reworked and improved.

About the performance: From what I can tell, the only significant 
difference in these drivers is memory management. Your ast_new driver 
uses an older algorithm that we replaced quite a few releases ago. The 
old version was unreliable on systems with little video memory, so we 
had to replace it.  I don't know why the new code should be slower though.

If I give you a patch against a recent Linux kernel, are you capable of 
building the patched kernel and testing that change on your system?

Best regards
Thomas


>
> Thanks for help
>
> Kind regards
> Nicolas Baranger
>
>
> Le 2025-02-11 19:15, Nicolas Baranger a écrit :
>
>> Dear maintener
>>
>> For my own usage, I did make work the ASPEED ast-drm 1.15.1 video 
>> driver on mainline kernel (6.13.0 + 6.13.1).
>>
>> ASPEED video driver is availiable here:
>> https://www.aspeedtech.com/file/support/Linux_DRM_1.15.1_4.tar.gz
>>
>> But it only work for LTS kernel
>> So I modify the DKMS package and I build a new Debian DKMS package 
>> with the adapted  source.
>> My patch can be find here :
>> https://xba.soartist.net/ast-drm_nba_20250211/nba-dkms/astdiff.patch
>> See the README:
>> https://xba.soartist.net/ast-drm_nba_20250211/nba-dkms/README
>>
>> Using this new 'ast 1.15.1' driver, performance are amazing compared 
>> to the 'ast' driver include in kernel tree, specially when using a 
>> discrete GPU and offloading VULKAN / 3D on it but using AST VGA card 
>> as the main video card and as the main and only video output (the 
>> discrete GPU is used only for offloading 3D or for cuda/opencl)
>>
>> So to make things easier, I include the new 'ast 1.15.1' driver in 
>> kernel tree as AST_NEW : linux-6.13.1-ast/drivers/gpu/drm/ast_new'
>> It's working fine as you can see on this video :
>> https://xba.soartist.net/ast-drm_nba_20250211/vulcan_nvidia_prime_render_offload_on_ast_vga_card.webm 
>>
>>
>> I upload all the work I've done here :
>> https://xba.soartist.net/ast-drm_nba_20250211/
>>
>> See the global README :
>> https://xba.soartist.net/ast-drm_nba_20250211/README
>>
>> and the README in nba-kernel sub-directory :
>> https://xba.soartist.net/ast-drm_nba_20250211/nba-kernel/README
>>
>> I'm not a developer so please let me know if I made the things the 
>> right way and if this new 'ast 1.15.1' driver can be ported to 
>> linux-next or linux-? ?
>> If you need more explanations, do not hesitate to contact me, I would 
>> be happy to help
>>
>> Kind regards
>> Nicolas Baranger

-- 
--
Thomas Zimmermann
Graphics Driver Developer
SUSE Software Solutions Germany GmbH
Frankenstrasse 146, 90461 Nuernberg, Germany
GF: Ivo Totev, Andrew Myers, Andrew McDonald, Boudien Moerman
HRB 36809 (AG Nuernberg)

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