[RFC] Using DC in amdgpu for upcoming GPU

Harry Wentland harry.wentland at amd.com
Tue Dec 13 02:33:52 UTC 2016


On 2016-12-11 03:28 PM, Daniel Vetter wrote:
> On Wed, Dec 07, 2016 at 09:02:13PM -0500, Harry Wentland wrote:
>> We propose to use the Display Core (DC) driver for display support on
>> AMD's upcoming GPU (referred to by uGPU in the rest of the doc). In order to
>> avoid a flag day the plan is to only support uGPU initially and transition
>> to older ASICs gradually.
>
> Bridgeman brought it up a few times that this here was the question - it's
> kinda missing a question mark, hard to figure this out ;-). I'd say for

My bad for the missing question mark (imprecise phrasing). On the other 
hand letting this blow over a bit helped get us on the map a bit more 
and allows us to argue the challenges (and benefits) of open source. :)

> upstream it doesn't really matter, but imo having both atomic and
> non-atomic paths in one driver is one world of hurt and I strongly
> recommend against it, at least if feasible. All drivers that switched
> switched in one go, the only exception was i915 (it took much longer than
> we ever feared, causing lots of pain) and nouveau (which only converted
> nv50+, but pre/post-nv50 have always been two almost completely separate
> worlds anyway).
>

You mention the two probably most complex DRM drivers didn't switch in a 
single go...  I imagine amdgpu/DC falls into the same category.

I think one of the problems is making a sudden change with a fully 
validated driver without breaking existing use cases and customers. We 
really should've started DC development in public and probably would do 
that if we had to start anew.

>> The DC component has received extensive testing within AMD for DCE8, 10, and
>> 11 GPUs and is being prepared for uGPU. Support should be better than
>> amdgpu's current display support.
>>
>>  * All of our QA effort is focused on DC
>>  * All of our CQE effort is focused on DC
>>  * All of our OEM preloads and custom engagements use DC
>>  * DC behavior mirrors what we do for other OSes
>>
>> The new asic utilizes a completely re-designed atom interface, so we cannot
>> easily leverage much of the existing atom-based code.
>>
>> We've introduced DC to the community earlier in 2016 and received a fair
>> amount of feedback. Some of what we've addressed so far are:
>>
>>  * Self-contain ASIC specific code. We did a bunch of work to pull
>>    common sequences into dc/dce and leave ASIC specific code in
>>    separate folders.
>>  * Started to expose AUX and I2C through generic kernel/drm
>>    functionality and are mostly using that. Some of that code is still
>>    needlessly convoluted. This cleanup is in progress.
>>  * Integrated Dave and Jerome’s work on removing abstraction in bios
>>    parser.
>>  * Retire adapter service and asic capability
>>  * Remove some abstraction in GPIO
>>
>> Since a lot of our code is shared with pre- and post-silicon validation
>> suites changes need to be done gradually to prevent breakages due to a major
>> flag day.  This, coupled with adding support for new asics and lots of new
>> feature introductions means progress has not been as quick as we would have
>> liked. We have made a lot of progress none the less.
>>
>> The remaining concerns that were brought up during the last review that we
>> are working on addressing:
>>
>>  * Continue to cleanup and reduce the abstractions in DC where it
>>    makes sense.
>>  * Removing duplicate code in I2C and AUX as we transition to using the
>>    DRM core interfaces.  We can't fully transition until we've helped
>>    fill in the gaps in the drm core that we need for certain features.
>>  * Making sure Atomic API support is correct.  Some of the semantics of
>>    the Atomic API were not particularly clear when we started this,
>>    however, that is improving a lot as the core drm documentation
>>    improves.  Getting this code upstream and in the hands of more
>>    atomic users will further help us identify and rectify any gaps we
>>    have.
>
> Ok so I guess Dave is typing some more general comments about
> demidlayering, let me type some guidelines about atomic. Hopefully this
> all materializes itself a bit better into improved upstream docs, but meh.
>

Excellent writeup. Let us know when/if you want our review for upstream 
docs.

We'll have to really take some time to go over our atomic 
implementation. A couple small comments below with regard to DC.

> Step 0: Prep
>
> So atomic is transactional, but it's not validate + rollback or commit,
> but duplicate state, validate and then either throw away or commit.
> There's a few big reasons for this: a) partial atomic updates - if you
> duplicate it's much easier to check that you have all the right locks b)
> kfree() is much easier to check for correctness than a rollback code and
> c) atomic_check functions are much easier to audit for invalid changes to
> persistent state.
>

There isn't really any rollback. I believe even in our other drivers 
we've abandoned the rollback approach years ago because it doesn't 
really work on modern HW. Any rollback cases you might find in DC should 
really only be for catastrophic errors (read: something went horribly 
wrong... read: congratulations, you just found a bug).

> Trouble is that this seems a bit unusual compared to all other approaches,
> and ime (from the drawn-out i915 conversion) you really don't want to mix
> things up. Ofc for private state you can roll back (e.g. vc4 does that for
> the drm_mm allocator thing for scanout slots or whatever it is), but it's
> trivial easy to accidentally check the wrong state or mix them up or
> something else bad.
>
> Long story short, I think step 0 for DC is to split state from objects,
> i.e. for each dc_surface/foo/bar you need a dc_surface/foo/bar_state. And
> all the back-end functions need to take both the object and the state
> explicitly.
>
> This is a bit a pain to do, but should be pretty much just mechanical. And
> imo not all of it needs to happen before DC lands in upstream, but see
> above imo that half-converted state is postively horrible. This should
> also not harm cross-os reuse at all, you can still store things together
> on os where that makes sense.
>
> Guidelines for amdgpu atomic structures
>
> drm atomic stores everything in state structs on plane/connector/crtc.
> This includes any property extensions or anything else really, the entire
> userspace abi is built on top of this. Non-trivial drivers are supposed to
> subclass these to store their own stuff, so e.g.
>
> amdgpu_plane_state {
> 	struct drm_plane_state base;
>
> 	/* amdgpu glue state and stuff that's linux-specific, e.g.
> 	 * property values and similar things. Note that there's strong
> 	 * push towards standardizing properties and stroing them in the
> 	 * drm_*_state structs. */
>
> 	struct dc_surface_state surface_state;
>
> 	/* other dc states that fit to a plane */
> };
>
> Yes not everything will fit 1:1 in one of these, but to get started I
> strongly recommend to make them fit (maybe with reduced feature sets to
> start out). Stuff that is shared between e.g. planes, but always on the
> same crtc can be put into amdgpu_crtc_state, e.g. if you have scalers that
> are assignable to a plane.
>
> Of course atomic also supports truly global resources, for that you need
> to subclass drm_atomic_state. Currently msm and i915 do that, and probably
> best to read those structures as examples until I've typed the docs. But I
> expect that especially for planes a few dc_*_state structs will stay in
> amdgpu_*_state.
>
> Guidelines for atomic_check
>
> Please use the helpers as much as makes sense, and put at least the basic
> steps that from drm_*_state into the respective dc_*_state functional
> block into the helper callbacks for that object. I think basic validation
> of individal bits (as much as possible, e.g. if you just don't support
> e.g. scaling or rotation with certain pixel formats) should happen in
> there too. That way when we e.g. want to check how drivers corrently
> validate a given set of properties to be able to more strictly define the
> semantics, that code is easy to find.
>
> Also I expect that this won't result in code duplication with other OS,
> you need code to map from drm to dc anyway, might as well check&reject the
> stuff that dc can't even represent right there.
>
> The other reason is that the helpers are good guidelines for some of the
> semantics, e.g. it's mandatory that drm_crtc_needs_modeset gives the right
> answer after atomic_check. If it doesn't, then you're driver doesn't
> follow atomic. If you completely roll your own this becomes much harder to
> assure.
>

Interesting point. Not sure if we've checked that. Is there some sort of 
automated test for this that we can use to check?

> Of course extend it all however you want, e.g. by adding all the global
> optimization and resource assignment stuff after initial per-object
> checking has been done using the helper infrastructure.
>
> Guidelines for atomic_commit
>
> Use the new nonblcoking helpers. Everyone who didn't got it wrong. Also,

I believe we're not using those and didn't start with those which might 
explain (along with lack of discussion on dri-devel) why atomic 
currently looks the way it does in DC. This is definitely one of the 
bigger issues we'd want to clean up and where you wouldn't find much 
pushback, other than us trying to find time to do it.

> your atomic_commit should pretty much match the helper one, except for a
> custom swap_state to handle all your globally shared specia dc_*_state
> objects. Everything hw specific should be in atomic_commit_tail.
>
> Wrt the hw commit itself, for the modeset step just roll your own. That's
> the entire point of atomic, and atm both i915 and nouveau exploit this
> fully. Besides a bit of glue there shouldn't be much need for
> linux-specific code here - what you need is something to fish the right
> dc_*_state objects and give it your main sequencer functions. What you
> should make sure though is that only ever do a modeset when that was
> signalled, i.e. please use drm_crtc_needs_modeset to control that part.
> Feel free to wrap up in a dc_*_needs_modeset for better abstraction if
> that's needed.
>
> I do strongly suggest however that you implement the plane commit using
> the helpers. There's really only a few ways to implement this in the hw,
> and it should work everywhere.
>
> Misc guidelines
>
> Use the suspend/resume helpers. If your atomic can't do that, it's not
> terribly good. Also, if DC can't make those fit, it's probably still too
> much midlayer and its own world than helper library.
>

Do they handle swapping DP displays while the system is asleep? If not 
we'll probably need to add that. The other case where we have some 
special handling has to do with headless (sleep or resume, don't remember).

> Use all the legacy helpers, again your atomic should be able to pull it
> off. One exception is async plane flips (both primary and cursors), that's
> atm still unsolved. Probably best to keep the old code around for just
> that case (but redirect to the compat helpers for everything), see e.g.
> how vc4 implements cursors.
>

Good old flip. There probably isn't much shareable code between OSes 
here. It seems like every OS rolls there own thing, regarding flips. We 
still seem to be revisiting flips regularly, especially with FreeSync 
(adaptive sync) in the mix now. Good to know that this is still a bit of 
an open topic.

> Most imporant of all
>
> Ask questions on #dri-devel. amdgpu atomic is the only nontrivial atomic
> driver for which I don't remember a single discussion about some detail,
> at least not with any of the DAL folks. Michel&Alex asked some questions
> sometimes, but that indirection is bonghits and the defeats the point of
> upstream: Direct cross-vendor collaboration to get shit done. Please make
> it happen.
>

Please keep asking us to get on dri-devel with questions. I need to get 
into the habit again of leaving the IRC channel open. I think most of us 
are still a bit scared of it or don't know how to deal with some of the 
information overload (IRC and mailing list). It's some of my job to 
change that all the while I'm learning this myself. :)

Thanks for all your effort trying to get people involved.

> Oh and I pretty much assume Harry&Tony are volunteered to review atomic
> docs ;-)
>

Sure.

Cheers,
Harry

> Cheers, Daniel
>
>
>
>>
>> Unfortunately we cannot expose code for uGPU yet. However refactor / cleanup
>> work on DC is public.  We're currently transitioning to a public patch
>> review. You can follow our progress on the amd-gfx mailing list. We value
>> community feedback on our work.
>>
>> As an appendix I've included a brief overview of the how the code currently
>> works to make understanding and reviewing the code easier.
>>
>> Prior discussions on DC:
>>
>>  * https://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/dri-devel/2016-March/103398.html
>>  *
>> https://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/dri-devel/2016-February/100524.html
>>
>> Current version of DC:
>>
>>  * https://cgit.freedesktop.org/~agd5f/linux/tree/drivers/gpu/drm/amd/display?h=amd-staging-4.7
>>
>> Once Alex pulls in the latest patches:
>>
>>  * https://cgit.freedesktop.org/~agd5f/linux/tree/drivers/gpu/drm/amd/display?h=amd-staging-4.7
>>
>> Best Regards,
>> Harry
>>
>>
>> ************************************************
>> *** Appendix: A Day in the Life of a Modeset ***
>> ************************************************
>>
>> Below is a high-level overview of a modeset with dc. Some of this might be a
>> little out-of-date since it's based on my XDC presentation but it should be
>> more-or-less the same.
>>
>> amdgpu_dm_atomic_commit()
>> {
>>   /* setup atomic state */
>>   drm_atomic_helper_prepare_planes(dev, state);
>>   drm_atomic_helper_swap_state(dev, state);
>>   drm_atomic_helper_update_legacy_modeset_state(dev, state);
>>
>>   /* create or remove targets */
>>
>>   /********************************************************************
>>    * *** Call into DC to commit targets with list of all known targets
>>    ********************************************************************/
>>   /* DC is optimized not to do anything if 'targets' didn't change. */
>>   dc_commit_targets(dm->dc, commit_targets, commit_targets_count)
>>   {
>>     /******************************************************************
>>      * *** Build context (function also used for validation)
>>      ******************************************************************/
>>     result = core_dc->res_pool->funcs->validate_with_context(
>>                                core_dc,set,target_count,context);
>>
>>     /******************************************************************
>>      * *** Apply safe power state
>>      ******************************************************************/
>>     pplib_apply_safe_state(core_dc);
>>
>>     /****************************************************************
>>      * *** Apply the context to HW (program HW)
>>      ****************************************************************/
>>     result = core_dc->hwss.apply_ctx_to_hw(core_dc,context)
>>     {
>>       /* reset pipes that need reprogramming */
>>       /* disable pipe power gating */
>>       /* set safe watermarks */
>>
>>       /* for all pipes with an attached stream */
>>         /************************************************************
>>          * *** Programming all per-pipe contexts
>>          ************************************************************/
>>         status = apply_single_controller_ctx_to_hw(...)
>>         {
>>           pipe_ctx->tg->funcs->set_blank(...);
>>           pipe_ctx->clock_source->funcs->program_pix_clk(...);
>>           pipe_ctx->tg->funcs->program_timing(...);
>>           pipe_ctx->mi->funcs->allocate_mem_input(...);
>>           pipe_ctx->tg->funcs->enable_crtc(...);
>>           bios_parser_crtc_source_select(...);
>>
>>           pipe_ctx->opp->funcs->opp_set_dyn_expansion(...);
>>           pipe_ctx->opp->funcs->opp_program_fmt(...);
>>
>>           stream->sink->link->link_enc->funcs->setup(...);
>>           pipe_ctx->stream_enc->funcs->dp_set_stream_attribute(...);
>>           pipe_ctx->tg->funcs->set_blank_color(...);
>>
>>           core_link_enable_stream(pipe_ctx);
>>           unblank_stream(pipe_ctx,
>>
>>           program_scaler(dc, pipe_ctx);
>>         }
>>       /* program audio for all pipes */
>>       /* update watermarks */
>>     }
>>
>>     program_timing_sync(core_dc, context);
>>     /* for all targets */
>>       target_enable_memory_requests(...);
>>
>>     /* Update ASIC power states */
>>     pplib_apply_display_requirements(...);
>>
>>     /* update surface or page flip */
>>   }
>> }
>>
>>
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>> dri-devel at lists.freedesktop.org
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>


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