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Why open source rocks – a new SM750 (Silicon Motion GPU) HDMI Driver

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Re: Why open source rocks – a new SM750 (Silicon Motion GPU) HDMI Driver

#11

Post by SillyUsername »

mmastrac wrote: post #4
SillyUsername wrote: post #2

I 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.

Ah you mean this https://www.pcworld.com/article/393815/the-asrock-rack-m2-vg...

That one is VGA so I think the original upstream driver should support it.

Re: Why open source rocks – a new SM750 (Silicon Motion GPU) HDMI Driver

#13

Post by SillyUsername »

wtallis wrote: post #9
userbinator wrote: post #5

A 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.

It is just an old school 2D style card, with some (shape) primitives acceleration (unused), two logical controllers (no idea why), but has DMA (used) and a hardware cursor (also used). There's no onboard audio either. It's pretty much a GPU for rack mount servers that require occasional log in. It's exactly what I was looking for desktop work, it runs cinnamon fairly well, and won't clash with my Nvidia setup :)

Re: Why open source rocks – a new SM750 (Silicon Motion GPU) HDMI Driver

#14

Post by userbinator »

SillyUsername wrote: post #13
wtallis wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It is just an old school 2D style card, with some (shape) primitives acceleration (unused), two logical controllers (no idea why), but has DMA (used) and a hardware cursor (also used). There's no onboard audio either. It's pretty much a GPU for rack mount servers that require occasional log in. It's exactly what I was looking for desktop work, it runs cinnamon fairly well, and won't clash with my Nvidia setup :)

two logical controllers (no idea why)

For dual-monitor versions?

Re: Why open source rocks – a new SM750 (Silicon Motion GPU) HDMI Driver

#15

Post by userbinator »

SillyUsername wrote: post #7
userbinator wrote: post #5

A 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.

Maybe an LLM can also assist with modifying the Nvidia driver appropriately.

Re: Why open source rocks – a new SM750 (Silicon Motion GPU) HDMI Driver

#17

Post by bigstrat2003 »

SillyUsername wrote: post #2

I 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…

[flagged]

Re: Why open source rocks – a new SM750 (Silicon Motion GPU) HDMI Driver

#18

Post by cromka »

SillyUsername wrote: post #6
realusername wrote: post #3

Will 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 :)

How did they react to it being vibe coded? Were they pragmatic about it, as Linus recently suggested

I have like 4 drivers to upstream myself, plus a couple of patches here and there. Quality is good and they're tested, and while I understand the code and how things work low level, I wouldn't be able to write them myself.

Re: Why open source rocks – a new SM750 (Silicon Motion GPU) HDMI Driver

#19

Post by pdpi »

userbinator wrote: post #5

A GPU with HDMI and 16MB of VRAM is a very strange combination.

16 * 1024 * 1024 / 1920 / 1080 = 8.0909, so you have enough VRAM for double-buffered 24-bit 1080p, with a bit to spare. For pure software rendering, that's good enough!

Re: Why open source rocks – a new SM750 (Silicon Motion GPU) HDMI Driver

#20

Post by SillyUsername »

userbinator wrote: post #15
SillyUsername wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Maybe an LLM can also assist with modifying the Nvidia driver appropriately.

Funny you should say that

On the same machine I experimented with IOMMU and a lightweight VM to run Nvidia Pascal era GPUs in a VM with 580 drivers, while Nvidia Blackwell on the host uses 590. I vibe coded that too

When exposed via openai compatible endpoints with GPUStack https://github.com/gpustack/gpustack I could use the combined compute power from both generations on a single machine.

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