RadeonSI and Gallivm received various improvements

May 11, 2017 21:48 GMT  ·  By

A new maintenance update of the Mesa 17.0 3D Graphics Library stable series, which numerous GNU/Linux distributions are currently using in their default install, is being prepped these days.

We're talking here about Mesa 17.0.6, which is now in the Release Candidate stage of development, promising to bring more than 50 improvements for various supported drivers, as well as core components. The final release of Mesa 17.0.6 is expected this weekend, but let's have a look at what to expect from it.

The first thing AMD Radeon users should expect from the Mesa 17.0.6 point release, which could also be the last in the series, is Polaris 12 support in the Radeon RADV Vulkan driver, something that those privileged to use the Mesa 17.1 stable branch that was released the other day are already enjoying.

Moreover, the RadeonSI driver received a workaround for Polaris 12 support addressing a hang, along with an adjustment to the buffer size computation of the ESGS ring on VI, as well as a fix for an issue with the gl_PrimitiveID in tessellation with instanced draws.

The Intel ANV Vulkan driver received a bit of attention as well in Mesa 17.0.6 in the form of a bunch of fixes to correct the method of returning error codes, and Intel's i965 OpenGL driver got some fixes regarding DF. The Freedreno driver was also improved with a fix for a hang that occurred with large render targets on devices that a have small gmem.

Memory leak fixes, Gallivm improvements, and more

Mesa 17.0.6 also promises to fix a bunch of recently discovered memory leaks, fix an issue with Gallivm that occurred when setting bool values in Big Endian architectures, add LLVM 4.0 support to the Scons build system, fix a segfault for EGL, as well as a deadlock and other issues for Android.

"EGL has seen fixed a segfault and, now emits an error when EGLSurface is lost. Also, in Android, there has been included a fix to prevent a deadlock and yet another to ensure the emission of an error when needed. Finally, in the building front, DRI modules now always link against shared glapi," reads the mailing list announcement.

Also worth mentioning is a fix in Mesa Core for validating the fact that SSA references use the same number of channels available in the SSA value, and some minor improvements to the YUV color conversion matrix. Lastly, the Etnaviv driver received support for the L8A8_UNORM texture format.