[PATCH 5/6] Documentation/gpu: Create a GC entry in the amdgpu documentation
Rodrigo Siqueira
siqueira at igalia.com
Tue Mar 25 17:18:46 UTC 2025
GC is a large block that plays a vital role for amdgpu; for this reason,
this commit creates one specific page for GC and adds extra information
about the CP component.
Signed-off-by: Rodrigo Siqueira <siqueira at igalia.com>
---
Documentation/gpu/amdgpu/driver-core.rst | 30 ++-------------
Documentation/gpu/amdgpu/gc/index.rst | 48 ++++++++++++++++++++++++
Documentation/gpu/amdgpu/index.rst | 1 +
3 files changed, 53 insertions(+), 26 deletions(-)
create mode 100644 Documentation/gpu/amdgpu/gc/index.rst
diff --git a/Documentation/gpu/amdgpu/driver-core.rst b/Documentation/gpu/amdgpu/driver-core.rst
index 746fd081876f..2af1e919d76a 100644
--- a/Documentation/gpu/amdgpu/driver-core.rst
+++ b/Documentation/gpu/amdgpu/driver-core.rst
@@ -67,38 +67,16 @@ GC (Graphics and Compute)
This is the graphics and compute engine, i.e., the block that
encompasses the 3D pipeline and and shader blocks. This is by far the
largest block on the GPU. The 3D pipeline has tons of sub-blocks. In
- addition to that, it also contains the CP microcontrollers (ME, PFP,
- CE, MEC) and the RLC microcontroller. It's exposed to userspace for
- user mode drivers (OpenGL, Vulkan, OpenCL, etc.)
+ addition to that, it also contains the CP microcontrollers (ME, PFP, CE,
+ MEC) and the RLC microcontroller. It's exposed to userspace for user mode
+ drivers (OpenGL, Vulkan, OpenCL, etc.). More details in :ref:`Graphics (GFX)
+ and Compute <amdgpu-gc>`.
VCN (Video Core Next)
This is the multi-media engine. It handles video and image encode and
decode. It's exposed to userspace for user mode drivers (VA-API,
OpenMAX, etc.)
-Graphics and Compute Microcontrollers
--------------------------------------
-
-CP (Command Processor)
- The name for the hardware block that encompasses the front end of the
- GFX/Compute pipeline. Consists mainly of a bunch of microcontrollers
- (PFP, ME, CE, MEC). The firmware that runs on these microcontrollers
- provides the driver interface to interact with the GFX/Compute engine.
-
- MEC (MicroEngine Compute)
- This is the microcontroller that controls the compute queues on the
- GFX/compute engine.
-
- MES (MicroEngine Scheduler)
- This is a new engine for managing queues. This is currently unused.
-
-RLC (RunList Controller)
- This is another microcontroller in the GFX/Compute engine. It handles
- power management related functionality within the GFX/Compute engine.
- The name is a vestige of old hardware where it was originally added
- and doesn't really have much relation to what the engine does now.
-
-
GFX, Compute, and SDMA Overall Behavior
=======================================
diff --git a/Documentation/gpu/amdgpu/gc/index.rst b/Documentation/gpu/amdgpu/gc/index.rst
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..f8128cca7028
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Documentation/gpu/amdgpu/gc/index.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,48 @@
+.. _amdgpu-gc:
+
+========================================
+ drm/amdgpu - Graphics and Compute (GC)
+========================================
+
+The relationship between the CPU and GPU can be described as the
+producer-consumer problem, where the CPU fills out a buffer with operations
+(producer) to be executed by the GPU (consumer). The requested operations in
+the buffer are called Command Packets, which can be summarized as a compressed
+way of transmitting command information to the graphics controller.
+
+The component that acts as the front end between the CPU and the GPU is called
+the Command Processor (CP). This component is responsible for providing greater
+flexibility to the GC since CP makes it possible to program various aspects of
+the GPU pipeline. CP also coordinates the communication between the CPU and GPU
+via a mechanism named **Ring Buffers**, where the CPU appends information to
+the buffer while the GPU removes operations. It is relevant to highlight that a
+CPU can add a pointer to the Ring Buffer that points to another region of
+memory outside the Ring Buffer, and CP can handle it; this mechanism is called
+**Indirect Buffer (IB)**. CP receives and parses the Command Streams (CS), and
+according to the parser result, the CP writes the request for operations in the
+correct block.
+
+Graphics (GFX) and Compute Microcontrollers
+-------------------------------------------
+
+GC is a large block, and as a result, it has multiple firmware associated with
+it. Some of them are:
+
+CP (Command Processor)
+ The name for the hardware block that encompasses the front end of the
+ GFX/Compute pipeline. Consists mainly of a bunch of microcontrollers
+ (PFP, ME, CE, MEC). The firmware that runs on these microcontrollers
+ provides the driver interface to interact with the GFX/Compute engine.
+
+ MEC (MicroEngine Compute)
+ This is the microcontroller that controls the compute queues on the
+ GFX/compute engine.
+
+ MES (MicroEngine Scheduler)
+ This is the engine for managing queues.
+
+RLC (RunList Controller)
+ This is another microcontroller in the GFX/Compute engine. It handles
+ power management related functionality within the GFX/Compute engine.
+ The name is a vestige of old hardware where it was originally added
+ and doesn't really have much relation to what the engine does now.
diff --git a/Documentation/gpu/amdgpu/index.rst b/Documentation/gpu/amdgpu/index.rst
index 7e9d60754287..1624f4b588c5 100644
--- a/Documentation/gpu/amdgpu/index.rst
+++ b/Documentation/gpu/amdgpu/index.rst
@@ -10,6 +10,7 @@ Next (GCN), Radeon DNA (RDNA), and Compute DNA (CDNA) architectures.
driver-core
amd-hardware-list-info
module-parameters
+ gc/index
display/index
flashing
xgmi
--
2.49.0
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