SAM440EP and RX550 gfx card

I may end up with a Radeon RX550 gfx card, full size (well, not low profile, but seems to be fairly compact although it's two ports wide), due to an admin error.

So.. given I have a SAM440EP and I haven't opened anything up to see whether it would physically fit, and have no idea whether this thing is in any way compatible (hardware or software).

I think I might need a riser? And maybe the latest SAM firmware? And it looks like this card might have drivers? Is it possible it would work?

@Chris

if you have little Sam440ep, don't use this card. It works, but this Sam has only 33 MHz PCI slot, so it will be very slow.

if you have Sam440ep-flex, it can be good option.
Look into this article> Sam440ep-llex graphics cards.
Article is from 2021, when Polaris cards (like yours RX550) not worked in Sam440, but today they worked. Your RX550 will be faster than HD7750 in article.

You will need:
- PCI-PCIe adapter and powered PCIe riser
- new UBoot from ACube
- Enhancer 2.2 ( with RadeonHD and Warp3D Nova drivers )
- Optionally also NovaBridge for Warp3D compatibility.

@sailor

Yeah, it's the non-flex version.

Thanks for the info! I'll probably just offload it if I get stuck with it then.

Just out of curiousity, with a 33MHz PCI slot, are there are graphics cards that are worthwhile?

@Chris
Quote:Nothing comparable to PCIe Radeon HD/RX cards nor usable for current OpenGL software, but for example a PCI ATI Radeon 9250 with 256 MB VRAM is probably still better than the onboard Radeon M9 with only 64 MB VRAM.

@Chris
Quote:

I have also mini-ITX Sam440ep and I have it without PCI card.
If you look to this article - see block diagram.

Generally, all cards mentioned in Sam440ep-flex gfx card article incl. your RX550 probably will work. Only they will be slow.
If you check block diagram - internal Radeon M9 is on 66 MHz PCI bus, but external PCI slot is behind the PCI bridge on 33 MHz bus.
Real measured speed on my Sam440ep:
internal M9: CopyToVRAM 40 MB/s, WritePixelArray 87 MB/s
PCI 9200 SE: CopyToVRAM 18 MB/s, WritePixelArray 60 MB/s
PCIe cards like RX550 will be even slower becouse of PCI-PCIe bridge latency.


So you can use RX550, but in practice all Warp3DNova or OGLES application will be terribly slow.

Only good reason why to use external card is, as joerg said, if you need more VRAM. For example, in article is screenshot with SysMon/System and in bottom you can see Radeon 9200 SE 128MB connected ( via PCI-AGP adapter ).

More VRAM would be nice but it sounds like it probably is minimal benefit for all the money and hassle. Thanks all, very interesting!

@Chris

The Sam440ep-Flex is not really worth equipping with a Radeon RX or HD graphics card. Most games that require OpenGL ES–level graphics do not run at a playable speed, even when the original CPU requirement was only a 166 MHz PowerPC processor. At the same time, a large portion of games that rely on MiniGL stop working altogether.

While this setup can be experimented with, the required software is expensive enough that the overall experience ends up being a major disappointment. I ended up reinstalling a Radeon 9250 graphics card in my Sam440ep-Flex system.

Anyone successfully tried Sam440-Flex with a Radeon RX card?
...with a new firmware and ES2.2, of course...

I hoped for UVD on my Sam but looking at the lack of developement of the Enhancer it is meanigless, anyway...

I tested just now.

Sam440ep-flex with latest UBoot 2015.d + 4.1FEu2 + MSI Gaming Radeon RX 560 AERO ITX 4GB

UBoot works with Polaris, graphicsc output is visible, can select kickstart, modules loaded
Then it hangs with "Loading done, launching kickstart"

Serial debug:


So, UBoot works very well, but probably RadeonRX driver has issues.

P.S: on weekend I will try with update 3 + RadeonRX.chip.debug

@sailor

Thank you, very much. You are great
Now, Im puzzled. Is it your specific card or all RXs freezes the OS?

@sailor

If you can, check the RadeonRX.chip.debug driver.

Maybe it's the same case as for A1 and Radeon.
https://www.amigans.net/modules/newbb/ ... &order=ASC&status=&mode=0
I have the same issue with qemu passthrough gpu A1
“infinite loop bug”

The driver has long been fixed, as @Hans wrote, but it has not been made public

This is output from RadeonRXchip.debug


I also post it to bugtracker.

@Chris

Quote:

The PCI Radeon cards seem to be pretty scarce these days and the only ones I could find had asking prices well over £100.

Quote:

If you can't return the RX550, it may be worth holding onto in case you ever replace the Sam440 with hardware that has PCIe slots.

By the way, Acube are now recommending that owners should add a fan to the heatink on the M9 chip in order to ensure longevity of the hardware.