Driver Patch Reduces ATI Graphics Power Consumption
ATI graphics cards have become more and more interesting for Linux developers ever since the manufacture released the sources. The latest drive has released power management functions that have previously been neglected on Linux.
AMD developer Alex Deucher released a patch for the free R500 and R600 graphics chip driver to add support for dynamic graphics processor clocking. The "Dynamic Clocks" extension changes the graphics processors clock speed, although functions for modifying the bus and memory clock speeds are still missing for full dynamic power management support like that provided by ATI's "PowerPlay" solution. PowerPlay has not been completely released. And because clock management is often implemented in the form of BIOS calls, the new code will not benefit some users. Despite this, the patch is regarded as a starting point for making the free ATI driver less power hungry.
The current "xf86-video-ati driver" driver is available in the Git tree on FreeDesktop.org. It is most useful to owners of notebooks with the ATI R500/R600 graphics chipset. The code has no effect on desktop machines.
AMD released the specifications for the ATI R500 and R600 in September last year. The release was followed by documentation for further cards and chips this February.
Issue 14: Raspberry Pi Handbook/Special Editions
Tag Cloud
News
-
SCO Rises from the Swamp
Longtime litigator revives an ancient suit against IBM alleging Linux infringes on Unix copyrights.
-
UberStudent Project Releases UberStudent 3.0
Specialty distro keeps the focus on advanced learning.
-
openSUSE Conference Approaches
The openSUSE Conference will be held July 18-22, 2013, at the Olympic Museum in Thessaloniki, Greece.
-
Drupal.org Hacked
Security breached at home sites of the CMS project.
-
Oracle Takes Action on Java Security
Lead Java developer vows policy changes and more attention to fixing problems.
-
Google and NASA Partner in Quantum Computing Project
Vendor D-Wave scores big with a sale to NASA's Quantum Intelligence Lab.
-
Mageia Project Announces Mageia 3 Linux
Many package updates and Steam integration highlight the latest from the Mandriva-based community Linux.
-
FSF Outs the World Wide Web Consortium over DRM Proposal
Richard Stallman calls for the W3C to remain independent of vendor interests.
-
Debian 7.0 Debuts
The new release supports nine architectures, 73 human languages, and zero non-Free components.
-
Alpha Version of Fedora 19 Released
Fedora developers release the first alpha version of Fedora 19, known as Schrödinger’s Cat, for general testing. The final release is expected in July 2013.