There is a feat that very few users can achieve: getting a dedicated GPU to work on a Raspberry Pi. In the past, we have seen several milestones related to this device, but very few are as impressive as what a technology enthusiast has achieved. And, considering the graphics card used, it is even more surprising, as they opted for an AMD RX 460 which has three main characteristics: its open source driver AMDGPU, its Polaris architecture, and its low cost.
As indicated by the Ars Technica portal in a recent publication, the open source driver includes support for Arm processors and, in turn, is mature enough to handle the RX 460. Unfortunately, NVIDIA GPUs are not a great option for this type of project, as their open source drivers are far behind compared to Radeon’s. It was also necessary to patch the Linux kernel and recompile it to properly run the AMDGPU driver and the graphics firmware.
Running games with the GPU was complicated
However, enjoying video games was not as simple as many might think. Despite the graphical simplicity of titles like Doom 3 or Tux Racer, running games on the Pi 5 GPU was relatively complicated, especially in 1080p resolutions. Nevertheless, it was able to run both games at a 4K resolution with specific adjustments, as well as smoothly rendering the Pi’s operating system interface in 4K.
Unfortunately, neither graphic acceleration in the Chromium browser nor support for video encoding/decoding with GPU acceleration worked properly. In addition, despite being a partial success, it is still a project with software issues that, combined with the hacking, make it difficult to reproduce for most users. However, its mere existence shows the progress of using dedicated graphics cards with Arm CPUs, a situation that could improve in the future if Arm continues to try to compete with Intel and AMD.
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