A Lot Of Rust Graphics Driver Changes For Linux 7.1, NVIDIA Nova Driver Additions
Sent out yesterday were the DRM Rust feature changes for DRM-Next ahead of the Linux 7.1 merge window coming in April. The Rust graphics/display driver code for Linux 7.1 includes more programming language abstractions and other Rust infrastructure work to make graphics drivers written in Rust more capable… ⌘ Read more

Open-Source RadeonSI+Rusticl Nearing Formal OpenCL 3.0 Conformance
The open-source RadeonSI Gallium3D driver with Rusticl for modern Rust-based OpenCL is nearing formal OpenCL 3.0 conformance with all necessary OpenCL test cases passing. Making this all the more interesting is that this is the first modern AMD graphics hardware in a decade likely to see formal recognition for OpenCL conformance with AMD having not submitted any of their own OpenCL conformance results since 2015… ⌘ Read more

Intel Graphics Driver For Linux 7.1 Preps Workaround For Dell XPS Panther Lake Laptop
Sent out today was the latest batch of drm-intel-next changes as feature work toward DRM-Next for Linux 7.1 winds down. This week’s drm-intel-next pull is mostly fixes and some low-level code refactoring. The only item really standing out is some new quirk infrastructure for dealing with laptop display panels that may have buggy Panel Replay handling… ⌘ Read more

RadeonSI Driver Lands Fixes For EDuke32 For Those Wanting To Enjoy Duke Nukem 3D In 2026
It’s fairly rare for the RadeonSI Gallium3D driver to hit OpenGL rendering game bugs these days as besides more games going opting for Vulkan API use, RadeonSI is rather robust and very mature at this stage. Recently though a Linux gamer that upgraded to a Radeon RX 9070 XT RDNA4 graphics card noticed that the open-source EDuke32 Duke Nukem 3D build and its derivatives were failing to render properly with the RadeonSI driver… ⌘ Read more

Gedit Aims For More Frequent Releases, Bans AI / LLM Contributions
Following the release of GNOME 50, Gedit 50 was released on Friday as the newest version of this graphical text editor aligned with the GNOME desktop. Moving forward the Gedit developers are banning AI / large language model (LLM) driven developments and aim to ship more releases faster… ⌘ Read more

KDE Plasma 6.6 Showing Frequent Performance Advantage Over GNOME 50 With NVIDIA R595 Driver
Earlier this week I provided benchmarks looking at KDE Plasma 6.6’s performance advantage over GNOME 50 for Linux gaming with AMD Radeon graphics. That raised the question if the same was true when using NVIDIA graphics with their official Linux graphics driver stack. Here are such benchmarks looking at the KDE Plasma 6.6 and GNOME 50 performance on Ubuntu 26.04 beta while using the new NVIDIA 595.58.03 Linux driver. ⌘ Read more

Intel Xe Driver Improves Memory Pressure / Out-Of-Memory Behavior For vRAM With Linux 7.1
Following the Intel Xe kernel graphics driver pull request landing transparent hugepages for device pages as an SVM win, another round of Intel Xe driver updates were sent out this week ahead of next month’s Linux 7.1 merge window. This latest pull request lands a new user-space API for helping the Intel Xe driver better cope with situations of video memory pressure / out-of-memory behavior for vRAM… ⌘ Read more

Intel Xe Driver In Linux 7.1 Enabling THP For Device Pages As A Big SVM Win
Sent out today was a new batch of “drm-xe-next” material of Intel Xe kernel graphics driver improvements ready for the upcoming Linux 7.1 kernel cycle. Standing out in this pull is enabling Transparent Hugepages (THP) support for drm_pagemap as a big win for those making use of Shared Virtual Memory (SVM) for GPU compute and the like… ⌘ Read more

KDE Plasma 6.6 Delivers An Impressive Edge For Radeon Graphics Over GNOME 50 On Ubuntu 26.04
In testing thus far on Ubuntu 26.04, the KDE Plasma 6.6 desktop with the Wayland session is working pretty darn well and delivering a performance edge across many games/graphics workloads compared to the default GNOME 50 desktop. At least as far as AMD Radeon graphics are concerned, Plasma 6.6 is in quite impressive shape for the upcoming Ubuntu 26.04 LTS release. ⌘ Read more

Intel Announces Arc Pro B70 With 32GB GDDR6 Video Memory
Alongside announcing the new Intel Core Ultra Series 3 Panther Lake parts with vPro for commercial PCs and the Xeon 600 workstation processors, Intel finally announced their professional “big Battlemage” BMG-G31 graphics card with the Arc Pro B70 as well as the Arc Pro B65… ⌘ Read more

Mesa 26.0 Will Make It In Time For The Fedora 44 Release
With the recent Fedora 44 beta release, Mesa 25.3 graphics drivers were in use rather than the newest Mesa 26.0 series. The good news is that there is now approval for getting Mesa 26.0 drivers to land in time for next month’s official Fedora 44 release… ⌘ Read more

Linux 7.1 To Overcome Reporting Limitation For Multiple Batteries Per HID Device
A limitation affecting various gaming headsets, graphic tablets, wireless earbuds, multi-device receivers and more with Linux has been not being able to report multiple batteries per HID device. After patches were proposed last year for dealing with the increasingly common scenario these days of having multiple batteries per device, the upcoming Linux 7.1 kernel is set to address this limitation… ⌘ Read more

Intel FRED Can Yield Great Performance - FRED Benchmarks On Panther Lake
With Intel’s new Core Ultra Series 3 “Panther Lake” laptop SoCs, the Xe3-based Arc B390 graphics and much improved CPU performance capture much of the spotlight. One new capability with Panther Lake that isn’t featured as much though is the new FRED capability with Flexible Return and Event Delivery. Today’s Intel Panther Lake testing is looking at the very interesting performance impact of FRED on Linux. ⌘ Read more

Intel, NVIDIA, AMD GPU Drivers Finally Play Nice With ReactOS
ReactOS aims to be compatible with programs and drivers developed for Windows Server 2003 and later versions of Microsoft Windows.

And Slashdot reader jeditobe reports that the project has now “announced significant progress in achieving compatibility with proprietary graphics drivers.”

ReactOS now supports roughly 90% of GPU drivers for Windows XP and … ⌘ Read more

Vulkan 1.4.347 Debuts With Three New Extensions
Vulkan 1.4.347 made its debut overnight as the latest routine update to this high performance graphics and compute API. Beyond the usual maintenance churn over the past week, Vulkan 1.4.347 brings three new extensions… ⌘ Read more

Vulkan 1.4.347 Debuts With Three New Extensions
Vulkan 1.4.347 made its debut overnight as the latest routine update to this high performance graphics and compute API. Beyond the usual maintenance churn over the past week, Vulkan 1.4.347 brings three new extensions… ⌘ Read more

AMD Preps More GFX12.1 Enablement For Linux 7.1, Initial VCN 5.0.2 & JPEG 5.0.2 IP
AMD today sent out another batch of AMDGPU kernel graphics driver and AMDKFD kernel compute driver changes to DRM-Next ahead of next month’s Linux 7.1 merge window… ⌘ Read more

Intel Compute Runtime 26.09.37435.1 Brings More Features & Performance Optimizations
Following this morning’s Intel Graphics Compiler 2.30.1 release, the Intel Compute Runtime 26.09.37435.1 is now available for this open-source OpenCL and Level Zero compute stack for Intel graphics hardware on Windows and Linux… ⌘ Read more

Intel Graphics Compiler 2.30.1 Exposes HF8 Support For Crescent Island
Intel Graphics Compiler 2.30.1 is now available for this LLVM/Clang-based compiler stack used by the Compute Runtime on Linux and under Windows is used both for graphics and compute… ⌘ Read more

Mesa & AMDGPU Linux Driver See Patches For The Sony PS5 GPU
Open-source developer Andy Nguyen recently demonstrated porting Linux to the Sony PlayStation 5. The PS5 notably uses a custom AMD SoC and with some patches is able to play nicely with the open-source AMD graphics driver stack… ⌘ Read more

Imagination’s Open-Source PowerVR Vulkan Driver Now Plays Nicely With Zink OpenGL
The past several years Imagination Tech has been investing in an upstream and open-source DRM kernel graphics driver as well as a PowerVR Vulkan driver in Mesa. Their Mesa focus has exclusively been on the PowerVR Vulkan driver with the plans all along to use the Zink generic OpenGL-on-Vulkan implementation. With next quarter’s Mesa 26.1 release, that goal is being realized with Zink now working nicely atop the PowerVR Vulkan driver … ⌘ Read more

Intel Graphics Driver Preps For UHBR DP Tunnels With Linux 7.1
A round of Intel graphics driver updates were sent today to DRM-Next in staging ahead of April’s Linux 7.1 merge window. The changes in this pull aren’t too particularly exciting with a lot of code refactoring and other work, but there are preparations made for supporting UHBR DP tunnels… ⌘ Read more

AMD Preps More Graphics Driver Code For Linux 7.1
Last week yet more AMDGPU kernel graphics driver updates were submitted to DRM-Next ahead of the Linux 7.1 merge window happening in April… ⌘ Read more

SuperTux 0.7 Released With Enhanced Graphics, Level Redesign
SuperTux 0.7 officially released overnight for this nostalgic open-source game now seeing its first new release since December 2021. SuperTux 0.7 brings many significant improvements for this open-source game inspired by Super Mario… ⌘ Read more

Open-Source “GreenBoost” Driver Aims To Augment NVIDIA GPUs vRAM With System RAM & NVMe To Handle Larger LLMs
An open-source, independently developed Linux kernel module called GreenBoost aims to augment the dedicated video memory on NVIDIA discrete GPUs with system memory and NVMe storage. The intent here with GreenBoost is a CUDA caching layer to more easily run larger AI models for LLMs that otherwise won’t fit solely in your graphics card’s dedicated vRAM… ⌘ Read more

Intel Updates LLM-Scaler-vLLM With Support For More Qwen3/3.5 Models
Intel’s LLM-Scaler project that makes it easy to deploy various large language models on modern Arc Graphics hardware is out with a new test release to expand its LLM coverage… ⌘ Read more

Mesa 26.0.2 Has Plenty Of Graphics Driver Fixes From Intel & RADV Vulkan To Old R300g
Mesa 26.0.2 is now available as the latest bi-weekly stable point release for this set of open-source graphics drivers predominantly used on Linux systems… ⌘ Read more

Intel Posts New Linux Graphics Driver Patches For Improved Adaptive Sync Support
Posted today were new Intel kernel graphics driver patches for Linux to enable Adaptive Sync SDP (Secondary Data Packet) handling for Panel Replay and Auxless Adaptive Link Power Management (ALPM) modes… ⌘ Read more

Valve/RADV Developers Look At More Per-Game Tuning/Optimizations For Mesa Drivers
RADV Radeon Vulkan driver developers on Valve’s Linux graphics team are evaluating the idea of greater use of per-game/app profiles within this open-source driver and for Mesa drivers at large. Currently for Mesa drivers with DriConf there is the ability to provide per-game/app workarounds while the consideration now is extending that to allow for more per-game optimizations… ⌘ Read more

FreeBSD 15.1 On Track With Better Realtek WiFi & KDE Desktop Install Option
The effort around improving FreeBSD on laptops continues full speed ahead in 2026. The upcoming FreeBSD 15.1 remains on track with not only having a KDE desktop option from FreeBSD’s text-based installer UI but also improved Realtek WiFi adapter support is on the way, updating of the graphics drivers from Linux, and more… ⌘ Read more

Vulkan 1.4.345 Released With New ARM Shader Instrumentation Extension
Vulkan 1.4.345 released overnight as the latest routine spec update to this graphics and compute API. There is one new extension besides a handful of different clarifications and corrections to various elements of the spec… ⌘ Read more

Intel GMA500 “Poulsbo” Driver Still Seeing New Open-Source Activity In 2026
Approaching twenty years after Intel’s Poulsbo platform began giving Linux users nightmares due to its Imagination PowerVR SGX graphics IP that blocked open-source 3D driver support, the GMA500 driver that ended up coming about to provide open-source display support at least is still seeing occasional upstream activity for the Linux kernel… ⌘ Read more

Intel Xe Linux Driver Ready With Fix For Brand New Lenovo ThinkPad T14 Gen 7 Laptop
This week at MWC 2026, Lenovo announced the ThinkPad T14 Gen 7 as one of their new Intel Core Ultra Series 3 “Panther Lake” powered laptops alongside other products. With Panther Lake running rather well on Linux, the new ThinkPad T14 G7 should be in good standing on Linux and especially with a pending Xe graphics driver fix that is on the way… ⌘ Read more

Intel Begins Preparations For Xe3P Upstreaming To Open-Source OpenGL & Vulkan Drivers
Following the mainline Linux kernel beginning to see Xe3P graphics enablement for upcoming Nova Lake integrated graphics as well as the Crescent Island AI inference accelerator, Intel’s Mesa OpenGL “Iris” and Vulkan “ANV” drivers are preparing to begin laying out their Xe3P driver support… ⌘ Read more

Intel Rendering Toolkit & OpenVINO AI GPU Performance On Intel Panther Lake’s Xe3 B390
Over the past month I have been running a lot of Linux benchmarks on Intel’s new Panther Lake using the Core Ultra X7 358H and its Xe3-based Arc B390 Graphics. The Arc B390 on Linux has been quite interesting with its OpenGL and Vulkan graphics performance compared to prior generations of Intel graphics plus the Intel Compute Runtime / OpenCL performance too. In today’s article are more benchmarks of the latter in looking a … ⌘ Read more

Intel Preps A Lot Of Xe3 Code For Linux 7.1 Kernel
Intel yesterday sent out their first “drm-xe-next” pull request to DRM-Next of new Xe kernel graphics driver improvements they have readied for their eventual upstreaming into the Linux 7.1 kernel… ⌘ Read more

Verisilicon DC8200 & Coreboot Framebuffer Drivers Sent To DRM-Next For Linux 7.1
The first DRM-Misc-Next pull request was submitted this week to DRM-Next as new kernel graphics/display driver features to begin queuing for the Linux 7.1 kernel that will release mid-year. Among the early code for DRM-Next are two new drivers… ⌘ Read more

Mesa Developers Trying To Reach A Consensus On AI Policy
If all goes well, Mesa developers are hoping to reach a consensus or at least some common ground on an AI policy in March. Mesa is the latest open-source project making considerations around the growing activity around AI coding agents and the like and how to deal with them for this project that is crucial to the Linux desktop and open-source 3D graphics drivers at large… ⌘ Read more

@bender@twtxt.net I see. Well that’s not how I think of the term “Isomorphic” 🤣 I keep thinking about graphics and isomorphic games 😅

GTK 4.22 In Good Shape With Better SVG Support
Matthias Clasen shared an update today concerning the state of Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) within GNOME’s GTK toolkit… ⌘ Read more

Mesa PanVK Driver Seeing Up To 25.7x Speedup For MSAA
The open-source PanVK driver providing Vulkan support for modern Arm Mali graphics hardware is seeing big speed-ups in the multi-sample anti-aliasing (MSAA) performance in Vulkan tests as a result of new code merged today to Mesa 26.1… ⌘ Read more

Modern AMD Graphics Driver Surpasses Six Million Lines Of Code In Linux 7.0
It was less than four years ago that the modern AMDGPU/AMDKFD open-source driver stack was at four million lines of C code and header files. Now with the Linux 7.0 kernel it has surpassed six million lines. Or put another way, by the same calculations Linux 7.0-rc1 is at 39.2 million with the modern AMD kernel graphics driver now making up 15% of the kernel’s entire codebase as the single largest driver… ⌘ Read more

T2 Linux Restores XAA In Xorg, Making 2D Graphics Fast Again
Berlin-based T2 Linux developer René Rebe (long-time Slashdot reader ReneR) is announcing that their Xorg display server has now restored its XAA acceleration architecture, “bringing fixed-function hardware 2D acceleration back to many older graphics cards that upstream left in software-rendered mode.”

Older fixed-function GPUs now regain smooth window … ⌘ Read more

Linux 7.0 Lands More AMDGPU Fixes For Old Radeon Hardware
Following last week’s main set of DRM kernel graphics driver feature updates for Linux 7.0, merged on Friday to Linux 7.0 Git was the first round of fixes to these Direct Rendering Manager drivers. Dominating most of the code changes in this latest pull were AMDGPU fixes, including more enhancements for aging Radeon graphics processors… ⌘ Read more

Intel Hiring More Linux Developers - Including For GPU Drivers / Linux Gaming Stack
As some good news out of Intel today on the Linux/open-source side following last year’s layoffs, they’re hiring for some new Linux software development roles – including for enhancing their Linux graphics driver stack that also includes a focus on Linux gaming with the likes of Valve’s Proton (Steam Play)… ⌘ Read more

Linux 7.0 Shows Significant PostgreSQL Performance Gains On AMD EPYC
When beginning some early Linux 7.0 kernel benchmarking this week for looking at its performance in its early development state, I started off testing on Core Ultra X7 “Panther Lake” in being hopeful for better performance with the maturing Arc B390 Xe3 graphics and the like. But I ended up finding Intel Panther Lake seeing some performance regressions on Linux 7.0. So next up I turned to an AMD EPYC Turin server since if regressions existed th … ⌘ Read more

Vulkan 1.4.344 Released With New Extension From Valve
Vulkan 1.4.344 is out today as the latest routine spec update for this high performance graphics and compute API. Besides a handful of fixes and clarifications, Vulkan 1.4.344 brings a new extension courtesy of Valve engineers… ⌘ Read more

Minecraft Java Is Switching From OpenGL To Vulkan
Minecraft: Java Edition is switching its rendering backend from OpenGL to Vulkan as part of the upcoming Vibrant Visuals update, aiming for both better performance and modern graphics features across platforms like Linux and macOS (via translation layers). GamingOnLinux reports: For modders, they’re suggesting they start making preparations to move away from OpenGL: “Sw … ⌘ Read more

Linux 7.0 Showing Some Early Performance Regressions On Intel Panther Lake
With the Linux 7.0 merge window beginning to calm down ahead of the 7.0-rc1 release due out on Sunday, one of the areas I was most excited about benchmarking on Linux 7.0 was looking for any performance gains with the new Intel Core Ultra Series 3 “Panther Lake” given ongoing Intel Xe graphics driver improvements and other general kernel optimizations. Unfortunately, at large the Intel Panther Lake performance is moving in the wrong directio … ⌘ Read more

Experimental Out-Of-Tree Code Aims To Provide HDMI 2.1 FRL For AMD Linux Driver
One of the limitations of the AMDGPU Linux kernel graphics driver has been the lack of its support for HDMI 2.1 and later. AMD has wanted to support HDMI 2.1+ functionality under Linux but it’s been legally blocked by the HDMI Forum. But anxious independent users have been working on open-source patches for wiring up HDMI 2.1 into the AMDGPU driver outside of the realm of AMD and the HDMI Forum’s blessings… ⌘ Read more