Several devices and development boards based on Rockchip RK3288 processor already support Linux, usually with images based on Ubuntu, including Ugoos UM3 / UT3, Open Hour Chameleon, and Firefly-RK3288 among others. What these images lack however, is support for 2D and 3D graphics acceleration with the GPU, and hardware video decoding/encoding with the VPU. But Jas-hacks has made some progress with 3D graphics support.
He has managed to add GPU acceleration via EGL/OpenGL ES bringing 3D acceleration to the platform, but 2D support is not there yet, meaning X11 still heavily relies on software rendering. But the implementation is still good enough to run the usual es2gears and glmark2-es2 benchmarks. as well as some WebGL demos in Chromium. Performance is currently underwhelming, with 50 points in glmark-es2, even a bit lower than the score (54 points) I got with ODROID-X board powered by Exynos 4412 SoC with a Mali-400MP4 GPU, and running Unity desktop in Ubuntu Linaro 12.11. The desktop environment used also appears to greatly affect glmark-es2 performance, with Unity being much slower than LXDE for example. But let’s get to the demo.
Since the image used for the demo is a minimal image for testing, it has not been released, and you can’t try by yourself just yet. But I’m sure GPU acceleration will eventually make it to Ubuntu for Firefly-RK3288, and possibly other RK3288 hardware platforms where the manufacturer or/and the community are involved with Linux development.
Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
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Blobs? Or open source
@freechelmi
blobs from ChromeOS
Blobs from ChromeOS is very good , this could lead the way into Accelerated browser support, making Videos playable in fullscreen or CSS3 acceleration – which is a basic but hasent come to rk3288.
The GPU is faster than Intel Atoms , even more good news!
OMG. This is good improvement.do you think that it will beat mali GPU ? I mean is this gpu release x2 performance us ?
(sorry my bad englısh)
@neonero
It’s about 5 times faster than Mali 400 in RK3188 and 3 times faster than Mali 450 in AMLogic S802/5 in Android. The Linux/ChromeOS driver is in early stages and there are lots of room for even better performance.
Maybe the xf86-video-fb driver that already supports Mali 400 can integrate Mali T764 support, then 2D graphics will work great and 3D will also get a boost.
https://github.com/ssvb/xf86-video-fbturbo
From ARM
“Hi,
Just to keep you updated.
We plan to release binary userspace drivers for the Firefly board within the next month for both fbdev and X11. These will appear on our malideveloper website in the same location as the current Exynos based drivers live.
Regarding the response from RockChip about not being able to release binaries… this is incorrect and we have contacted RockChip to clarify the terms of contract. They are fully aware and apologise for the miscommunication earlier.
In fact, RockChip plan to release their own drivers for the public for Linux within the next few months, however it will be targeting the TopMetal platform rather than Firefly.
I imagine it wont be too much effort for the community to make those drivers work for Firefly however.
I hope this helps regarding public driver support. If anyone has any further queries, please don’t hesitate to contact us.
Kind Regards,
Michael McGeagh”
@dewet
Thanks for the update, that’s great news!
From ARM
http://community.arm.com/message/24816?et=notification.mention#24816
Would this also include VPU support for video encoding/decoding via gstreamer ?
You would have to contact Rockchip regarding this, as the VPU in the RK3288 is not ARM’s IP, so we have no drivers to release for this.
Note that the driver we are releasing is just the Mali GPU driver, not an entire BSP.
Do you plan to offer a beta or pre-release of your driver blob for interested developers ?
No, the majority of time spent to release these drivers is not in the engineering work, but in the testing and legal. These will still hold true for beta/pre-release candidates so you wouldnt get them much quicker.
To help with your scheduling, the fbdev version should be out this week, with the X11 version to quickly follow.
I hope that helps.
Kind Regards,
Michael McGeagh
@Peter Bauer
nice
Something new to try !?
http://malideveloper.arm.com/develop-for-mali/features/mali-t6xx-gpu-user-space-drivers/
Nice
So finnaly gpu drivers for ubuntu on rk3288
Now someone should just post instructions on how to load the binary drivers and compile a new kernel.
only framebuffer drivers 🙁
@m][sko
Patience. They said “the fbdev version should be out this week, with the X11 version to quickly follow.” So it’s getting there.
@cnxsoft
Demo of fbdev drivers working on Firefly http://youtu.be/itEyJGhXXMs
@jas-hacks
Please tell me what you modified for Firefly Mali fb kernel drivers to compile successfully.
Getting compile errors related to GPU.
Would really like to test it out myself.
Can reply in the Firefly forums.