alt.hn

12/30/2025 at 1:55:59 PM

Igniting the GPU: From Kernel Plumbing to 3D Rendering on RISC-V

https://mwilczynski.dev/posts/riscv-gpu-zink/

by michalwilczynsk

12/31/2025 at 5:05:38 PM

Thanks so much for great work! I hope to finally see VisionFive 2 with enabled GPU acceleration soon.

by dmytrish

12/31/2025 at 1:48:58 PM

So I'm unfamiliar with this so let me ask a few dumb questions but first of all great job! My questions are - If you didn't do this work how would you use this soc? When I search, it is stated that it supports OpenGL and Vulkan but was that just ' in theory? ' How can a SOC developer make a product without driver support? Don't they risk messing up and having hardware that doesn't work properly?

by djmips

1/1/2026 at 12:17:21 PM

You see they don't care. They give you a OS image on Google Drive with a forked kernel and call it a day.

Silicon hardware companies have one of the dumbest business models, when it comes to programmable chips. They want to sell chips, because it makes them money through sales. They don't want to spend money on software support, because you cannot link the software to a sale. So software to them costs money and produces no benefits.

But when you think about it even a little bit, you start to wonder. Who is going to write commercial grade software for a commercial hardware product that they don't make money off? Nobody. What you'll get is an anemic volunteer effort at best. The volunteers might even do a good job, but since they are not involved in the hardware development process, they will always be playing catch up and take a year until the latest hardware is supported. So even in the theoretical best case scenario the hardware will be sold when it is least attractive.

This business model is completely illogical and Nvidia doesn't follow it. Instead Nvidia proactively invested in a software ecosystem for their hardware, thereby leading them to their current valuation.

The same applies to Intel and x86. People prefer x86 boxes, because the software ecosystem of drivers, UEFI/booting and so on is fully mature, whereas ARM SBCs are a fragmented mess.

by imtringued

1/1/2026 at 12:38:46 PM

man, things haven't changed since the nineties... What you said about Nvidia is 100% facts

by djmips

12/30/2025 at 8:09:14 PM

Nice! Looking forward to finally getting proper support for my Lichee Pi 4A!

by eek2121

12/30/2025 at 6:41:55 PM

Hooray! Personally, I'm hoping this'll lead to support for the GPU on Spacemit SoCs.

by stevefolta

12/30/2025 at 8:02:35 PM

The GPU driver itself is largely the same, though it might need some tweaks for the specific variant in the K1.

The bigger hurdle will likely be the display controller. The TH1520 and JH7110 both use the Verisilicon DC8200, whereas the Spacemit K1 uses a custom display controller that will need its own DRM driver mainlined.

by michalwilczynsk

12/30/2025 at 5:51:25 PM

Kudos, great project, i wait to have my work machine being the RISC-V once...

by holg

12/30/2025 at 7:52:58 PM

Fantastic, good work. I'm looking forward to mainstream RISC-V.

by yunnpp

12/30/2025 at 11:26:10 PM

Congratulations!

BTW is OrangePI V2 supported?

by fithisux

12/31/2025 at 9:57:41 AM

The Orange Pi RV2 (Ky X1) uses the Imagination BXE-2-32.

The good news is that firmware is available for that variant. The bad news is that Mesa currently lists the BXE-2-32 as 'unsupported / not under active development' (unlike the BXS-4-64 in the TH1520, which is active). https://docs.mesa3d.org/drivers/powervr.html

So while the kernel driver (drm/imagination) is the right path, the RV2 is a steeper hill to climb: it needs the SoC kernel plumbing and likely some work in Mesa.

by michalwilczynsk

12/31/2025 at 12:09:26 PM

Ouch!!!

I will have to wait then. I may choose a supported variant then.

by fithisux

1/1/2026 at 4:02:09 AM

This year will see the first chips with RVA23 support.

K3 (which succeeds K1 this story is about) is expected to be among them.

by snvzz

1/1/2026 at 11:32:33 AM

Yay!!!

by fithisux

12/30/2025 at 9:13:01 PM

what's the point of supporting HDMI?

just let this worse standard die already - and switch to DisplayPort

by NooneAtAll3

12/31/2025 at 9:02:34 AM

I agree DisplayPort would be nice, but unfortunately, almost all currently available RISC-V SBCs only have physical HDMI and MIPI DSI connectors. We have to support the hardware that actually exists on the board.

by michalwilczynsk

12/30/2025 at 10:02:59 PM

If your board comes with a HDMI output you surely want to the that to connect e.g. a TV

by pantalaimon