Every day we’re ever closer to the Radeon RX 8000 GPU release date and the new series seems to be shaping up nicely, even for Linux users. The operating system is less represented in the gaming sector, but the upcoming 8000 series already looks ready for full Linux support. Thanks to the open-source nature of development, we can get a closer look into what’s to come.
Just last month we saw new Linux patches for RDNA 4 hit and this fresh update is a continuation of that. This time around, DCC (Delta Color Compression) has been enabled, which is by far the biggest change of the lot.
Radeon RX 8000 GPUs get DCC support
As mentioned above, Linux users will be able to benefit from DCC support on the next generation of AMD graphics cards. This is relevant for the upcoming Linux 6.11 version, and these pre-launch patches provide a good amount of support for the OS. Enabling kernel driver codes such as DCC is a solid step forward. For the uninformed, DCC is a technique used by modern GPUs to improve rendering efficiency by exploiting redundancy in color data.
Optimizations & more efficient performance
DCC, as a mechanism, is a method of optimization that reduces memory bandwidth usage – enabling faster performance overall. Phoronix reports further changes such as fixes to SR-IOV and ‘clean-ups’ for GPUVM TLB flushing. Additionally, fixes to the DCN 4.0.1 Display Core Next IP block are mentioned, but DCC enablement remains the biggest change.
Team Red’s reported shift away from high-end GPUs for RDNA 4 seems to be showing, as they focus on optimizing a smaller number of GPUs (Navi 44 & Navi 48), which we’ll see the results of later this year when the 8000 series launches. More Linux updates could very well be a part of that.
