gpu

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 7 Comments on PicUntu – Rockchip RK3066 Linux Distribution for mini PCs (UG802, MK808, …)

PicUntu – Rockchip RK3066 Linux Distribution for mini PCs (UG802, MK808, …)

Many people are using RK3066 mini PCs because they currently offer the best performance to cost ratio, but until now they were mainly limited to Android Jelly Bean, although there was some preliminary port of Ubuntu available for the devices. Now, this preliminary port has become a specific Linux distribution for Rockchip RK3066 PCs-on-a-stick called PicUntu, which is based on Ubuntu 12.10, and can optionally support Xfce or Gnome desktop environments. This distribution is known to work on UG802 and MK808, but should also work on some other RK3066 mini PCs such as iMito MX1. The latest version is Picuntu 0.9 RC 2.2, and features such as WiFi, Ethernet, HDMI audio, USB webcam are known to work,  What you won’t get, however, is hardware video decoding and GPU support since Rockchip does not provide the relevant binary files for Linux, but this does not seem to stop the developers from […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 38 Comments on GPUs Comparison: ARM Mali vs Vivante GCxxx vs PowerVR SGX vs Nvidia Geforce ULP

GPUs Comparison: ARM Mali vs Vivante GCxxx vs PowerVR SGX vs Nvidia Geforce ULP

I’m always very confused when it comes to comparing GPUs in different SoCs, and I could not really find comparisons on the web, so I’m going to give it a try even though, as you’re going to find out, it’s actually quite a challenge. There are mainly 4 companies that provide GPUs: ARM, Imagination Technologies, Vivante and Nvidia. [Update: Two comments  mentioned Qualcomm Adreno and Broadcom VideoCore are missing from the list. Maybe I’ll do an update later]. Each company offers many different versions and flavors of their GPU as summarized below. ARM Imagination Technologies Vivante Nvidia Mali-400 Series: Mali-400 MP Mali-450 MP Mali-600 Series Mali-T604 Mali-T624 Mali-T628 Mali-T658 Mali-T678 PowerVR SGX Series 5: SGX520 SGX530 SGX531 SGX535 SGX540 SGX545 PowerVR SGX Series 5XT: SGX543MP1-16 SGX544MP1-16 SGX554MP1-16 PowerVR SGX Series 6: G6200 G6230 G6400 G6430 G6600 2D graphics: GC300 GC350 3D graphics: GC400 GC800 GC1000 GC2000 GC4000 ULP GeForce (Tegra […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - No Comments on Modular Graphics on Embedded ARM – ELCE 2012

Modular Graphics on Embedded ARM – ELCE 2012

Philipp Zabel, kernel developer at Pengutronix, discusses about graphics and video support for Linux on embedded SoCs at Embedded Linux Conference Europe 2012. Abstract: Porting Linux to new ARM based application processors has recently become easier than ever: the kernel gained many new frameworks like common-clock, oftree and pinmux. However, things get complicated when it comes to high end embedded graphics units.Those graphics systems tend to be composed of a multitude of on-SoC functional blocks that can operate on shared graphics buffers and video signals, as well as off-SoC encoder/converter chips that can be mixed and matched with any SoC.The old framebuffer is certainly not enough for today’s hardware any more, while modern frameworks like KMS and DRM have their own hassles on non-PC style graphics systems.The talk outlines issues we found while working on graphics and video support for the MX53 and MX6 CPUs and gives suggestions for possible […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments on Etnaviv Project Vivante GCxxx GPU Open Source Driver

Etnaviv Project Vivante GCxxx GPU Open Source Driver

You have most probably heard of Lima, an initiative to provide fully open source Mali-200 & Mali-400 drivers by reverse-engineering the closed source Mali GPU drivers. A separate effort, Etnaviv Project, has now started to offer open source drivers for Vivante GCxxx GPU used in SoC such as Marvell Armada 1500 (notably used in mainly Google TV platforms), Rockchip RK2918 (present in many older tablets),  Freescale i.MX6 (used in newer tablets, low cost development boards, some SoMs and GK802/Hi802 mini PCs). The project is called Etnaviv. The introduction of Etnaviv Project reads as follows on the corresponding Github account: Project Etnaviv is an attempt to make an open source user-space driver for the Vivante GCxxx series of embedded GPUs. The current state of the project is experimental. It is currently only of use to developers interested in helping develop open source drivers for the hardware, reverse engineering, or in interfacing […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 12 Comments on AllWinner Publishes A31 and A20 Processors Details

AllWinner Publishes A31 and A20 Processors Details

Several tablets based on AllWinner A31 quad core processor have been announced this week,  such as Onda V972, but we did not really have full details on the processor. We now know more since AllWinner added product pages for two new (sun6i architecture. [Edit: A20 is actually sun7i…]) processors: AllWinner A31 and AllWinner A20. AllWinner A31 Specifications AllWinner A31 is a quad core Cortex A7 processor with PowerVR SGX544MP2 GPU (8 shader engines). CPU – ARM Cortex-A7 Quad-Core with 256KB L1-Cache/1MB L2-Cache GPU – POWER VR SGX 544 with Eight logic cores. Open GL ES2.0, Open CL1.x and DX 9_3 compliant. Memory – Dual-Channel LPDDR2/DDR3/DDR3L Controller, Dual-Channel NAND FLASH Controller and 64-bit ECC Video UHD H.264 4K ×2K @30fps video decoding Full HD video decoding BD Directory, BD ISO and BD m2ts video decoding H.264 High Profile 1080P@60fps encoding 3840×1080@30fps 3D decoding Complies with RTSP, HTTP, HLS, RTMP, MMS streaming […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 1 Comment on 2D/3D Graphics Linux Demo (X11, EGL, GLES2, Qt4) on AllWinner A10 Tablet

2D/3D Graphics Linux Demo (X11, EGL, GLES2, Qt4) on AllWinner A10 Tablet

Xlab (Maxim Kouprianov) has tested 2D & 3D capabilities of AllWinner A10 SoC (with Mali-400 GPU) on a Ployer MOMO11 Bird Edition tablet running OpenEmbedded with kernel 3.0.52+ testing X11, EGL, OpenGL ES2 and Qt4 on the platform, and the results are pretty smooth as you can see in the video below, although there appears to be some flickering in LunaSysMgr demo. The tools used in the demos are xfwm4 (Xfce Windows Manager), es2gears_x11, cube (Qt), LunaSysMgr (Qt/WebOS) and glmark2-es2. Qt4 acceleration is done via XlibGL platform which in turns uses X11-EGL. He used the Mali drivers version r3p0 (mali400-gles20-gles11-linux-x11-ump) and xf86-video-mali on sunxi-linux github repository mainly maintained by rz2k. You can get more details on how to build Mali-400 support for AllWinner A10 on http://linux-sunxi.org/Mali400, and GPU benchmark results for A10 show the drivers seem to work as expected. Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments on ARM Announces 3 New Midgard GPUs – Mali-T624, Mali-T628 and Mali-T678

ARM Announces 3 New Midgard GPUs – Mali-T624, Mali-T628 and Mali-T678

ARM announced the second generation of the Mali-T600 Series GPUs targeting tablets, smartphones and smart TVs. Those new GPUs provide up to 50% performance increase over the first generation Midgard GPUs (T-604 & T-658) and include  support for Adaptive Scalable Texture Compression (ASTC), a texture compression technique. The company explains that ASTC significantly optimizes GPU performance and increases battery life in devices. Those 3 new GPUs based on Mali Midgard architecture are named as follows: Mali-T624 – 1 to 4 cores – Market: Smartphones and smart-Tvs Mali-T628 – 5 to 8 cores – Market: Smartphones and smart-Tvs Mali-T678 – Up to 8 cores, 4x the GPU compute performance of Mali-T628 – Market: Tablets As with previous Midgard GPUs, the new GPUs support GPU compute with improves performance and energy-efficiency for math intensive activities, such as: Computational photography – computational methods of enhancing or extending digital photography Multi perspective views – […]

Posted on by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 12 Comments on ARM Unveils Some Details About Mali-450 GPU

ARM Unveils Some Details About Mali-450 GPU

EETimes reports that ARM has shown details about its new GPU, the Mali-T450, which offers up to twice the performance of the Mali-400 and can be scaled up to 8 cores, whereas Mali-400 can only be scaled up to 4 cores. The Mali-450 (codename Tyr) targets entry-level and mid-range mobile devices, and is said to be software compatible with Mali-400. ARM new GPU has also been “tweaked” to provide better performance at the cost of occupying a slightly larger area. The company recommends the use Mali-400 for 1 to 4 cores configuration and Mali-450 for 5 to 8 cores configuration for higher end products. Contrary to Mali-T604 and Mali-T685 GPU, Mali-450 does not support general purpose computing on GPU (GPGPU). ARM is also working on a new GPU codenamed Skrymir based on Midgard architecture (Like Mali-T604 & T658) that should be available in 2014. Source: EETimes Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)Jean-Luc started […]