Neon enhanced FB Driver[fbdev replacement for Xorg]

Ran across this article last night: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTI5MDI

Siarhei Siamashka wasn’t happy with the open source framebuffer driver for his Raspberry Pi that utilizes the built in Mali GPU.

It seems the main problem was that the driver was just a basic driver with some function call replacements to use the Mali GPU’s special functions.

This means that it didn’t include any of the other accelerated function calls that come with the Arm platform[NEON and VFRP]

So he rewrote the fbdev driver using their code, and went ahead and added the calls for neon and vfrp. He also has done it in a very smart manner, his driver is a drop in replacement for xf86-video-fbdev.

It’s default mode of operation is exactly the same as fbdev - so it will work on any platform including both desktops[intel or amd processors] and embedded platforms.

During initialization, it will check to see if the Neon features are available, if so it will configure itself to use them. It checks for VFRP and enables those functions. Finally it checks for the Mali GPU and if it is there it enables use of those functions.

He’s very appropriately named his driver ‘fbturbo’ amd posted it up to Github. https://github.com/ssvb/xf86-video-fbturbo

This means it should work on the BBB as well and give you a performance boost if running a desktop environment.

Ran across this article last night:
New ARM X.Org Driver Promises Better Performance - Phoronix

I think you have misread this article.

Siarhei Siamashka <http://ssvb.github.io/&gt; wasn't happy with the open
source framebuffer driver for his Raspberry Pi that utilizes the built in
Mali GPU.

The article talks about A10/20 chips, not the Raspberry Pi.

It seems the main problem was that the driver was just a basic driver with
some function call replacements to use the Mali GPU's special functions.

The Pi does not use a Mali GPU, neither do the Beagles.

This means that it didn't include any of the other accelerated function
calls that come with the Arm platform[NEON and VFRP]

Yes, this bit is relevant.

So he rewrote the fbdev driver using their code, and went ahead and added
the calls for neon and vfrp. He also has done it in a very smart manner,
his driver is a drop in replacement for xf86-video-fbdev.

It's default mode of operation is exactly the same as fbdev - so it will
work on any platform including both desktops[intel or amd processors] and
embedded platforms.

During initialization, it will check to see if the Neon features are
available, if so it will configure itself to use them. It checks for VFRP
and enables those functions. Finally it checks for the Mali GPU and if it
is there it enables use of those functions.

He's very appropriately named his driver 'fbturbo' amd posted it up to
Github. GitHub - ssvb/xf86-video-fbturbo: Xorg DDX driver for ARM devices (Allwinner, RPi and others)

This means it should work on the BBB as well and give you a performance
boost if running a desktop environment.

Less that it will for chips like the A10/20, but might be worth a try.

David

Any numbers to compare?