Open Source Adreno Project “Freedreno” Receives New Update

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Users of Freedreno, the open-source graphics driver support for Adreno on Linux distributions, will be pleased to know that a new update has been released in the past week. Lead developer Rob Clark discussed many of the details in his blog, which highlight above all the support for Adreno 500 series GPUs. Among the highlights include compute shaders for OpenGL and OpenGL ES, improved performance and improved Linux distribution support.

The update has been a long time in the works and formalizes much of the 500 series support originally introduced into Freedreno back in November of last year. Mr. Clark’s blog also notes a “lot of interest in open source OpenCL support” but mentions several challenges remain in implementing this. Given the multiple attempts for Qualcomm to break into the server market as well as its upcoming release of Snapdragon powered devices utilizing Windows 10 ARM it makes sense that giving an option outside of the proprietary drivers would be desired and help offer similar performance from the open-source Freedreno. The blog also mentions a pending open attempt to improve performance for the 500 series GPUs using bandwidth compression, but is unsure if it will make the upcoming Mesa 17.2 release.

Users who wish to see more of the code changes can find them now on Github.