Why open source rocks – a new SM750 (Silicon Motion GPU) HDMI Driver
1–10 of 47 posts
Re: Why open source rocks – a new SM750 (Silicon Motion GPU) HDMI Driver
#2I wrote* a modern Linux driver that supports ultrawide resolutions, higher refresh, and faster performance than the original driver(s) on this cheap HDMI only variant server GPU.
I created it because I wanted my Nvidia GPUs to be compute only, and needed a cheap and small display GPU to run X11. I bought this GPU on AliExpress, after learning it had Linux support. It does, but kernel 5.x series and the sm750 driver in modern Linux only supports the older VGA/DVI variants.
Rather than send it back or throw it away, I decided to vibe code a new driver with new features, to make it usable for day to day desktop use. I've a little bit of a background in low level graphics so also added a cool little magic ordered dither (a pretty good one I think!) I devised myself, called "bbdither", and a few hacks to get 2560x1080 at 75hz on a device only officially documented as capable of up to 1920x1200 at 60hz, and PCI-E 1x speed.
Screenshots here: https://github.com/KodeMunkie/sm750hdmifb#screenshots
If you try it out, be careful - read the project disclaimer :)
*Vibe coded, as mentioned in Hackernews comments here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49415282
Re: Why open source rocks – a new SM750 (Silicon Motion GPU) HDMI Driver
#3Will you upstream it?
Re: Why open source rocks – a new SM750 (Silicon Motion GPU) HDMI Driver
#4I wrote* a modern Linux driver that supports ultrawide resolutions, higher refresh, and faster performance than the original driver(s) on this cheap HDMI only variant server GPU. I created it because I wanted my Nvidia GPUs to be compute only, and needed a cheap and small display GPU to run X11. I bought this GPU on AliExpress, after learning it had Linux support. It does, but kernel 5.x series and the sm750 driver i…
Oh nice. I have a little PCIe/VGA one that I use for truenas and it's a bit flaky but I love that it's basically free from a PCIe perspective (just toss it off _any_ root). These are super useful and there are even m.2 variants.
Re: Why open source rocks – a new SM750 (Silicon Motion GPU) HDMI Driver
#5A GPU with HDMI and 16MB of VRAM is a very strange combination.
Re: Why open source rocks – a new SM750 (Silicon Motion GPU) HDMI Driver
#6Will you upstream it?
Possibly, but in order to be safe for everyone, reviewers may want me to remove features that allow the driver to achieve the non-standard performance. There's a lot of hoops to jump through :)
Re: Why open source rocks – a new SM750 (Silicon Motion GPU) HDMI Driver
#7A GPU with HDMI and 16MB of VRAM is a very strange combination.
I agree but these things are only about $25 USD.
Arguably an older Nvidia GPU is a better investment at this price if you just want basic desktop use. Unfortunately if I did that, the old Nvidia drivers wouldn't support my newer Nvidia Blackwell hardware.
Re: Why open source rocks – a new SM750 (Silicon Motion GPU) HDMI Driver
#8A GPU with HDMI and 16MB of VRAM is a very strange combination.
I agree but these things are only about $25 USD. Arguably an older Nvidia GPU is a better investment at this price if you just want basic desktop use. Unfortunately if I did that, the old Nvidia drivers wouldn't support my newer Nvidia Blackwell hardware.
old nvidia cards are pretty terrible actually on linux due to the proprietary drivers not working on mainline kernel after ~6.6
Re: Why open source rocks – a new SM750 (Silicon Motion GPU) HDMI Driver
#9A GPU with HDMI and 16MB of VRAM is a very strange combination.
It doesn't really do much in the way of processing (https://www.siliconmotion.com/download/3PS/a/SM750_PB_EN_201...); it's pretty much just a dumb framebuffer. You can wire it up to output over an HDMI connector, but with the features it supports you're really just getting a single-link DVI signal.
Re: Why open source rocks – a new SM750 (Silicon Motion GPU) HDMI Driver
#10I wrote* a modern Linux driver that supports ultrawide resolutions, higher refresh, and faster performance than the original driver(s) on this cheap HDMI only variant server GPU. I created it because I wanted my Nvidia GPUs to be compute only, and needed a cheap and small display GPU to run X11. I bought this GPU on AliExpress, after learning it had Linux support. It does, but kernel 5.x series and the sm750 driver i…
looks cool, and thanks for being upfront about the LLM-assisted part. It seems like a genuine project with a lot of time put into it!