@All I could be mistaken, but GPUOpen sounds like it's a middleware library, which sits above the drivers. So, other developers could handle porting the code.**
Hans
** NOTE: We have no idea what kind of underlying driver features GPUOpen will need. Nevertheless, the effects, tools & libs still sit on top of the drivers (AFAICT).
The article says "As this evolution happens, it means that Linux will gain access to a full open source, high-performance driver stack, with the only constraint being that developers must use Vulkan instead of the older OpenGL."
That means there is a question of whether it is possible to access the underlying radeon GPU command buffer in a legitimate way along with feeding blocks of 3D data to it without disrupting your existing 2D driver.
Is there any considerations for opening access to this in some clean way without trashing your existing driver?
That means there is a question of whether it is possible to access the underlying radeon GPU command buffer in a legitimate way along with feeding blocks of 3D data to it without disrupting your existing 2D driver.
Is there any considerations for opening access to this in some clean way without trashing your existing driver?
The RadeonHD_RM.resource allows multiple drivers to access the GPU without getting in each other's way. That's how the W3D_SI driver gets access to the GPU.
Direct access to the GPU command buffer (via RadeonHD_RM.resource) would be a bad idea because it's far too low-level. The correct approach is via a driver (e.g., Vulkan, Gallium3D, or even something else), and that's a definite possibility. In fact, the whole point of the RadeonHD_RM.resource is to give a modern 3D driver access to GPU resources.
If this happens, will it also improve video playback (like fullHD mp4) ?
No. The video decoder & encoder hardware require their own drivers to be used.
There are a few projects out their whose goal is to use the GPU for video decoding but, AFAIK, none of them have reached a usable state. The truth is that it doesn't make sense to use the GPU for video decoding, when the graphics card also has dedicated video decoder hardware onboard.