The graphics driver for Steam Deck will get more economical operation
The AMDGPU driver in the Linux 6.4 kernel is targeted by modifications that will make the system run more efficiently on the Steam Deck portable console. AMD developers here are working on things like UMC RAS, DCN 3.2, FreeSync, SR-IOV, support for different IP blocks, USB4, etc. In addition, the driver will bring a number of innovations in the field of power management for the Van Gogh APU, which are used, among other things, in the Steam Deck.
The creators have added a new sysfs interface that implements the ability to use settings and changes of thermal throttling in Van Gogh, allows reading and editing values for temperature limits at the level of thousands of degrees Celsius. For older Steam Decks with outdated BIOS versions with broken indirect SRAN support, there is an option to turn it off to solve problems with the AMD VCN video core. The computing part of AMDKFD then receives support for exporting buffers through DNA-BUF, etc.
KDE fixes 100 bugs
Over the past 7 days, the KDE desktop environment has received several user interface improvements. Ark has a better welcome screen, roughly along the lines of Kate / KWrite, i.e. including recently opened files. The Elisa player also offers the Quit item in the hamburger menu, it correctly returns from full-screen mode. The default toolbar in the Okular reader now includes the “View Mode” item and zoom buttons on the left side, with tools on the right side. Plasma then generally makes available the global actions Restart and Shutdown, to which keyboard shortcuts can be assigned – compared to the existing variants that do not require confirmation of the given action, these new ones request confirmation.
When importing VPN settings, all possible errors are newly displayed in the graphical interface. When downloading Flatpak applications, Discover correctly reports their download process. If the user has a keyboard with an Emoji button, pressing it will bring up the appropriate Emoji selection dialog. The information center received a new sidebar structure, the pages are no longer divided into subcategories. Mouse cursor size has been added to the settings synchronized from Plasma to SDDM.
A number of bugs are also fixed, specifically round 100 pieces. All the details, as usual, summarizes Nate Graham on your blog. However, it is worth adding that in Firefox 113 with native Wayland mode, there will no longer be a forced constant redraw of the screen due to some kind of hidden animation, which used up the CPU unnecessarily.
Wine 8.4 with early Wayland drivers
New development version of Wine 8.4 deploys the initial pieces of code for future implementation of native Wayland support. In addition, the creators managed to clean up the IME support and various test and common fixes. This time there are a solid 51 of them closed, when the oldest related to the cult game Thief waited 16 long years to be closed, the fastest closed only 1 day.
Intel recommendation for 600W power supply connector 12VHPWR
Intel managing the ATX standard released an update to ATX version 3.0 including the new 12VHPWR power connector for graphics cards, which we already know can melt or burn outright if it’s not inserted enough. Intel engineers examined the existing designs of power connector manufacturers, who of course adhere to the given specification, but implement it in different ways, and came to the belief that the design of this connector, which uses three holes along the length of the pins, is less robust than the four-spring design. This belief now copied into the standard itself.
In short, the four-spring design has greater contact between the female connector of the cable and the male pins on the side of the graphics card and is thus able to transmit especially >450W consumptions without critical overheating of the connection. However, this adjustment does not solve the problem of stressing the multi-core cable, which is often bent by 90° right behind the connector, it is still appropriate to think about stressing the connector connection by this off-axis pull.
DreamWorks Animation’s MoonRay renderer released as open-source
As DreamWorks Animation promised, so now it fills. Their MoonRay renderer, used in a number of films, is now an open-source project distributed under the Apache 2.0 license. The OpenMoonRay project has a new home page openmoonray.org the code available on GitHub. Let us add that the qualities of this renderer can be seen, for example, in the following films:
- How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World
- Abominable
- The Croods: A New Age
- Trolls World Tour
- The Bad Guys
- The Boss Baby: Family Business
- The Bad Guys
- Puss In Boots: The Last Wish
Whether there will be a closer connection with, for example, the Blender project, let’s leave it to future developments.
