The Direct Rendering Manager (DRM) subsystem updates have been merged for the ongoing Linux 7.3 merge window. There is a lot of exciting GPU kernel driver improvements this cycle ranging from some notable enhancements to old AMD Radeon graphics hardware up through enabling support for some next-generation AMD graphics IP blocks to over on the Intel side where Nova Lake S graphics are being enabled by default.

Exciting those with very limited amounts of vRAM is the DMEMCG eviction work led by Natalie Vock of Valve for [1]improving the Linux gaming performance when exceeding vRAM capacity . The DMEMCG eviction should be initially working nice for both AMDGPU and Intel graphics.

Meanwhile from Valve's Timur Kristóf is [2]DRM format modifier support for old AMD GPUs from GFX6 to GFX8 era hardware. This is part of Timur's focus this past year on enhancing support for original GCN era graphics cards on Linux. Also with AMDGPU for Linux 7.3 is [3]improved GPU reset recovery for older hardware.

The AMDGPU driver is also [4]enabling the second graphics pipe on modern AMD APUs , 8K display fixes, DCN 6.0 display core support, DC CACP support, and other improvements.

Also exciting over on the Intel side for Linux 7.3 is [5]Xe3P Nova Lake graphics are now considered stable and enabled by default rather than being gated behind the "force probe" option.

Linux 7.3 DRM also continues building out the Rust driver capabilities with additional infrastructure now in place. The Rust-based NVIDIA Nova driver also continues being built out with Blackwell and Hopper fixes, GSP boot improvements, and being able to boot the GSP now with the vGPU enabled. With the existing Nouveau open-source NVIDIA driver is also now [6]NVDEC support for enabling [7]NVK Vulkan Video support .

Also on the DRM core side is [8]TTM now being more aggressive .

More details on the many Direct Rendering Manager driver changes for Linux 7.3 via [9]this pull request that was merged to Git on Friday.



[1] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-7.3-Improving-vRAM-Mgmt

[2] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-7.3-AMDGPU-GFX6-Modifiers

[3] https://www.phoronix.com/news/AMD-GFX7-Soft-Reset-Linux-7.3

[4] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-7.3-Second-Pipe-GFX11-APU

[5] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-7.3-Intel-NVL-S-Stable

[6] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-7.3-Nouveau-NVDEC

[7] https://www.phoronix.com/news/NVK-Vulkan-Video-Mesa-26.3

[8] https://www.phoronix.com/news/More-Aggressive-TTM-Linux-7.3

[9] https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/CAPM=9ty-79O4_Cd_cGDTg11ej2sAQgFsjjkn3sd25mUaKwQBLw@mail.gmail.com/