323 lines
13 KiB
ReStructuredText
323 lines
13 KiB
ReStructuredText
==========
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drm-memory
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==========
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---------------------
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DRM Memory Management
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---------------------
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:Date: September 2012
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:Manual section: 7
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:Manual group: Direct Rendering Manager
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Synopsis
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========
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``#include <xf86drm.h>``
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Description
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===========
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Many modern high-end GPUs come with their own memory managers. They even
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include several different caches that need to be synchronized during access.
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Textures, framebuffers, command buffers and more need to be stored in memory
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that can be accessed quickly by the GPU. Therefore, memory management on GPUs
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is highly driver- and hardware-dependent.
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However, there are several frameworks in the kernel that are used by more than
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one driver. These can be used for trivial mode-setting without requiring
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driver-dependent code. But for hardware-accelerated rendering you need to read
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the manual pages for the driver you want to work with.
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Dumb-Buffers
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------------
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Almost all in-kernel DRM hardware drivers support an API called *Dumb-Buffers*.
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This API allows to create buffers of arbitrary size that can be used for
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scanout. These buffers can be memory mapped via **mmap**\ (2) so you can render
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into them on the CPU. However, GPU access to these buffers is often not
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possible. Therefore, they are fine for simple tasks but not suitable for
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complex compositions and renderings.
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The ``DRM_IOCTL_MODE_CREATE_DUMB`` ioctl can be used to create a dumb buffer.
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The kernel will return a 32-bit handle that can be used to manage the buffer
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with the DRM API. You can create framebuffers with **drmModeAddFB**\ (3) and
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use it for mode-setting and scanout. To access the buffer, you first need to
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retrieve the offset of the buffer. The ``DRM_IOCTL_MODE_MAP_DUMB`` ioctl
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requests the DRM subsystem to prepare the buffer for memory-mapping and returns
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a fake-offset that can be used with **mmap**\ (2).
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The ``DRM_IOCTL_MODE_CREATE_DUMB`` ioctl takes as argument a structure of type
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``struct drm_mode_create_dumb``:
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::
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struct drm_mode_create_dumb {
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__u32 height;
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__u32 width;
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__u32 bpp;
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__u32 flags;
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__u32 handle;
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__u32 pitch;
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__u64 size;
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};
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The fields *height*, *width*, *bpp* and *flags* have to be provided by the
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caller. The other fields are filled by the kernel with the return values.
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*height* and *width* are the dimensions of the rectangular buffer that is
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created. *bpp* is the number of bits-per-pixel and must be a multiple of 8. You
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most commonly want to pass 32 here. The flags field is currently unused and
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must be zeroed. Different flags to modify the behavior may be added in the
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future. After calling the ioctl, the handle, pitch and size fields are filled
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by the kernel. *handle* is a 32-bit gem handle that identifies the buffer. This
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is used by several other calls that take a gem-handle or memory-buffer as
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argument. The *pitch* field is the pitch (or stride) of the new buffer. Most
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drivers use 32-bit or 64-bit aligned stride-values. The size field contains the
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absolute size in bytes of the buffer. This can normally also be computed with
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``(height * pitch + width) * bpp / 4``.
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To prepare the buffer for **mmap**\ (2) you need to use the
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``DRM_IOCTL_MODE_MAP_DUMB`` ioctl. It takes as argument a structure of type
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``struct drm_mode_map_dumb``:
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::
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struct drm_mode_map_dumb {
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__u32 handle;
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__u32 pad;
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__u64 offset;
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};
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You need to put the gem-handle that was previously retrieved via
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``DRM_IOCTL_MODE_CREATE_DUMB`` into the *handle* field. The *pad* field is
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unused padding and must be zeroed. After completion, the *offset* field will
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contain an offset that can be used with **mmap**\ (2) on the DRM
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file-descriptor.
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If you don't need your dumb-buffer, anymore, you have to destroy it with
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``DRM_IOCTL_MODE_DESTROY_DUMB``. If you close the DRM file-descriptor, all open
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dumb-buffers are automatically destroyed. This ioctl takes as argument a
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structure of type ``struct drm_mode_destroy_dumb``:
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::
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struct drm_mode_destroy_dumb {
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__u32 handle;
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};
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You only need to put your handle into the *handle* field. After this call, the
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handle is invalid and may be reused for new buffers by the dumb-API.
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TTM
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---
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*TTM* stands for *Translation Table Manager* and is a generic memory-manager
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provided by the kernel. It does not provide a common user-space API so you need
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to look at each driver interface if you want to use it. See for instance the
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radeon man pages for more information on memory-management with radeon and TTM.
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GEM
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---
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*GEM* stands for *Graphics Execution Manager* and is a generic DRM
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memory-management framework in the kernel, that is used by many different
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drivers. GEM is designed to manage graphics memory, control access to the
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graphics device execution context and handle essentially NUMA environment
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unique to modern graphics hardware. GEM allows multiple applications to share
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graphics device resources without the need to constantly reload the entire
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graphics card. Data may be shared between multiple applications with gem
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ensuring that the correct memory synchronization occurs.
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GEM provides simple mechanisms to manage graphics data and control execution
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flow within the linux DRM subsystem. However, GEM is not a complete framework
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that is fully driver independent. Instead, if provides many functions that are
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shared between many drivers, but each driver has to implement most of
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memory-management with driver-dependent ioctls. This manpage tries to describe
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the semantics (and if it applies, the syntax) that is shared between all
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drivers that use GEM.
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All GEM APIs are defined as **ioctl**\ (2) on the DRM file descriptor. An
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application must be authorized via **drmAuthMagic**\ (3) to the current
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DRM-Master to access the GEM subsystem. A driver that does not support GEM will
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return ``ENODEV`` for all these ioctls. Invalid object handles return
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``EINVAL`` and invalid object names return ``ENOENT``.
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Gem provides explicit memory management primitives. System pages are allocated
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when the object is created, either as the fundamental storage for hardware
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where system memory is used by the graphics processor directly, or as backing
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store for graphics-processor resident memory.
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Objects are referenced from user-space using handles. These are, for all
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intents and purposes, equivalent to file descriptors but avoid the overhead.
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Newer kernel drivers also support the **drm-prime** (7) infrastructure which
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can return real file-descriptor for GEM-handles using the linux DMA-BUF API.
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Objects may be published with a name so that other applications and processes
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can access them. The name remains valid as long as the object exists.
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GEM-objects are reference counted in the kernel. The object is only destroyed
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when all handles from user-space were closed.
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GEM-buffers cannot be created with a generic API. Each driver provides its own
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API to create GEM-buffers. See for example ``DRM_I915_GEM_CREATE``,
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``DRM_NOUVEAU_GEM_NEW`` or ``DRM_RADEON_GEM_CREATE``. Each of these ioctls
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returns a GEM-handle that can be passed to different generic ioctls. The
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*libgbm* library from the *mesa3D* distribution tries to provide a
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driver-independent API to create GBM buffers and retrieve a GBM-handle to them.
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It allows to create buffers for different use-cases including scanout,
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rendering, cursors and CPU-access. See the libgbm library for more information
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or look at the driver-dependent man-pages (for example **drm-intel**\ (7) or
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**drm-radeon**\ (7)).
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GEM-buffers can be closed with the ``DRM_IOCTL_GEM_CLOSE`` ioctl. It takes as
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argument a structure of type ``struct drm_gem_close``:
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::
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struct drm_gem_close {
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__u32 handle;
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__u32 pad;
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};
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The *handle* field is the GEM-handle to be closed. The *pad* field is unused
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padding. It must be zeroed. After this call the GEM handle cannot be used by
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this process anymore and may be reused for new GEM objects by the GEM API.
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If you want to share GEM-objects between different processes, you can create a
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name for them and pass this name to other processes which can then open this
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GEM-object. Names are currently 32-bit integer IDs and have no special
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protection. That is, if you put a name on your GEM-object, every other client
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that has access to the DRM device and is authenticated via
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**drmAuthMagic**\ (3) to the current DRM-Master, can *guess* the name and open
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or access the GEM-object. If you want more fine-grained access control, you can
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use the new **drm-prime**\ (7) API to retrieve file-descriptors for
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GEM-handles. To create a name for a GEM-handle, you use the
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``DRM_IOCTL_GEM_FLINK`` ioctl. It takes as argument a structure of type
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``struct drm_gem_flink``:
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::
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struct drm_gem_flink {
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__u32 handle;
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__u32 name;
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};
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You have to put your handle into the *handle* field. After completion, the
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kernel has put the new unique name into the name field. You can now pass
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this name to other processes which can then import the name with the
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``DRM_IOCTL_GEM_OPEN`` ioctl. It takes as argument a structure of type
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``struct drm_gem_open``:
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::
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struct drm_gem_open {
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__u32 name;
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__u32 handle;
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__u32 size;
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};
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You have to fill in the *name* field with the name of the GEM-object that you
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want to open. The kernel will fill in the *handle* and *size* fields with the
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new handle and size of the GEM-object. You can now access the GEM-object via
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the handle as if you created it with the GEM API.
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Besides generic buffer management, the GEM API does not provide any generic
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access. Each driver implements its own functionality on top of this API. This
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includes execution-buffers, GTT management, context creation, CPU access, GPU
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I/O and more. The next higher-level API is *OpenGL*. So if you want to use more
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GPU features, you should use the *mesa3D* library to create OpenGL contexts on
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DRM devices. This does *not* require any windowing-system like X11, but can
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also be done on raw DRM devices. However, this is beyond the scope of this
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man-page. You may have a look at other mesa3D man pages, including libgbm and
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libEGL. 2D software-rendering (rendering with the CPU) can be achieved with the
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dumb-buffer-API in a driver-independent fashion, however, for
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hardware-accelerated 2D or 3D rendering you must use OpenGL. Any other API that
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tries to abstract the driver-internals to access GEM-execution-buffers and
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other GPU internals, would simply reinvent OpenGL so it is not provided. But if
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you need more detailed information for a specific driver, you may have a look
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into the driver-manpages, including **drm-intel**\ (7), **drm-radeon**\ (7) and
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**drm-nouveau**\ (7). However, the **drm-prime**\ (7) infrastructure and the
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generic GEM API as described here allow display-managers to handle
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graphics-buffers and render-clients without any deeper knowledge of the GPU
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that is used. Moreover, it allows to move objects between GPUs and implement
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complex display-servers that don't do any rendering on their own. See its
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man-page for more information.
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Examples
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========
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This section includes examples for basic memory-management tasks.
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Dumb-Buffers
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------------
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This examples shows how to create a dumb-buffer via the generic DRM API.
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This is driver-independent (as long as the driver supports dumb-buffers)
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and provides memory-mapped buffers that can be used for scanout. This
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example creates a full-HD 1920x1080 buffer with 32 bits-per-pixel and a
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color-depth of 24 bits. The buffer is then bound to a framebuffer which
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can be used for scanout with the KMS API (see **drm-kms**\ (7)).
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::
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struct drm_mode_create_dumb creq;
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struct drm_mode_destroy_dumb dreq;
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struct drm_mode_map_dumb mreq;
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uint32_t fb;
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int ret;
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void *map;
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/* create dumb buffer */
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memset(&creq, 0, sizeof(creq));
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creq.width = 1920;
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creq.height = 1080;
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creq.bpp = 32;
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ret = drmIoctl(fd, DRM_IOCTL_MODE_CREATE_DUMB, &creq);
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if (ret < 0) {
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/* buffer creation failed; see "errno" for more error codes */
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...
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}
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/* creq.pitch, creq.handle and creq.size are filled by this ioctl with
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* the requested values and can be used now. */
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/* create framebuffer object for the dumb-buffer */
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ret = drmModeAddFB(fd, 1920, 1080, 24, 32, creq.pitch, creq.handle, &fb);
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if (ret) {
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/* frame buffer creation failed; see "errno" */
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...
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}
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/* the framebuffer "fb" can now used for scanout with KMS */
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/* prepare buffer for memory mapping */
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memset(&mreq, 0, sizeof(mreq));
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mreq.handle = creq.handle;
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ret = drmIoctl(fd, DRM_IOCTL_MODE_MAP_DUMB, &mreq);
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if (ret) {
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/* DRM buffer preparation failed; see "errno" */
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...
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}
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/* mreq.offset now contains the new offset that can be used with mmap() */
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/* perform actual memory mapping */
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map = mmap(0, creq.size, PROT_READ | PROT_WRITE, MAP_SHARED, fd, mreq.offset);
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if (map == MAP_FAILED) {
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/* memory-mapping failed; see "errno" */
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...
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}
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/* clear the framebuffer to 0 */
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memset(map, 0, creq.size);
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Reporting Bugs
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==============
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Bugs in this manual should be reported to
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https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/mesa/drm/-/issues
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See Also
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========
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**drm**\ (7), **drm-kms**\ (7), **drm-prime**\ (7), **drmAvailable**\ (3),
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**drmOpen**\ (3), **drm-intel**\ (7), **drm-radeon**\ (7), **drm-nouveau**\ (7)
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