Intel Makes Progress On HDMI 2.1 FRL With Their Linux Driver For Meteor Lake & Newer
It seems something indeed has changed at the HDMI Forum around open-source driver support given AMD's work toward getting an HDMI 2.1 implementation out there in recent months and now with new activity on the Intel driver side too. Back in 2022 there was actually Intel patches for HDMI FRL and working toward "native HDMI 2.1" for Meteor Lake on Linux. But those patches then went cold and nothing more heard on the matter until now.
The 44 patches out today for the Intel Linux kernel graphics driver enable HDMI 2.1 Fixed Rate Link support for Meteor Lake and newer for supporting higher refresh rates and resolutions over TMDS limits.
Display Stream Compression (DSC) isn't yet implemented so some resolution / refresh rate combinations are not yet supported. Intel engineers have only tested these patches so far on some Panther Lake and Meteor Lake hardware. In any event it seems promising moving forward:
"This is a work in progress. The primary goal at this stage is to get the overall design reviewed and the foundational patches landed before building on top.
Lightly tested on PTL. Modes like 4K@120 are working. Higher resolution modes (e.g. 8K) require DSC which is not yet covered in this series, that work is ongoing.
Testing on other MTL+ platforms is also ongoing. Known gaps:
- DSC over FRL not yet supported
- Testing limited to MTL, PTL so far"
The patches are out there for testing. We'll see if this work manages to be finally ready for upstreaming later this year in the Linux v7.4 cycle and if the DSC support will also be ready by then.
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