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netree
Journeyman III

AMD's GPU (Z430, Z160) support in i.MX535 Freescale Processor

Hi,

Using iMX535 in my custom hardware. Understood that the GPU used is AMD's Z430 for 3D and Z160 for 2D.

Freescale had supported Android2.3 (kernel 2.6.35) libs / binaries for the GPU, based on which our custom BSP for Android 2.3 was developed.

But we are trying to upgrade our device to Android4.2 (kernel 3.0.35). The performance is too poor while using as is.

Could not get support for the GPU libs / binaries for this from Freescale for the higher versions.

Pls guide us on how to proceed with respect to this.

Looking forward for an immediate support in this regard.

Thanks in advance.

Regards,

Sridevi

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1 Solution

You are correct, it was moved to Qualcomm and renamed to "Adreno".  With ATI/AMD, it was the Imageon Z430, with Qualcomm, it became the Adreno 200.

For even more trivia, the ATI/AMD Imageon design was originally grew out of IP that was bought from BitBoys:

BitBoys - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

If one is using Linux, it should be possible to use the Open Source "Freedreno" code in Mesa with the Imageon Z430/Adreno 200.  Freedreno is a reverse engineered graphics stack for the Adreno GPUs.  It does require a relatively new kernel though to the best of my knowledge.

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11 Replies
jtrudeau
Staff

I'll see if I can track down anything,  but this really looks like a Freescale issue to me. It takes me no effort at all to imagine any number of ways that something perfectly functional in isolation that AMD produces might not work optimally on a Freescale system once it's integrated into a platform. And the causes of that suboptimal performance would be beyond AMD's control.

Nonetheless, I'm going to do a bit of digging, because I don't like that answer either. But it may be the best/only answer there is.

Curiously, I happen to know someone at Freescale in the i.MX group. Do you have any reference number in their system? I might be able to hook up with my FSL colleague and see what's what from their side.

Jim

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Dear Jim,

Thanks for the reply.

Well as per the i.MX Community discussion OpenGL ES for i.MX53 for Android 4.2.2 | Freescale Community

understood that i.MX53 has AMD GPU, for which we might find some patches from AMD directly since the Android BSP libraries are precompiled and delivered as part of the BSP package and hence are not available as sources.

Currently for i.MX53, Freescale supports only Android 2.3 BSP which are provided with precompiled libs. There has been no further releases.

What I would need is support for Android 4.2.2 either pre-compliled AMD GPU libraries/binaries or the source code for integration to ensure that the GPU hardware acceleration & rendering is taken care when we upgrade for Android 4.2.2. As of now, if we use the libs of Android2.3 as it is, there is performance issue. Hope it explains our requirement or the problem which we are facing.

My profile is in i.MX Community for your reference.

Regards,

Sridevi

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Dear Jim ,

Awaiting for your update....

Regards,

Sridevi

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I'm not expecting a good answer. I have yet to find anyone who worked on these drivers. If/when I do, my guess is that they have moved on to other things. But, I still have not heard back (weekend in between).

Jim

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Thanks Jim for the quick reply.

Looking forward for your guidance asap to proceed further.

Will await for your inputs then.

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I haven't given up, but realistically, the odds of me finding out info about these older drivers are getting smaller and smaller. I'm still pursuing one thread.

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Really thanks for your attempts.

Frankly speaking, this is our first embedded product (SmartPOS) roll-out & the customer is very keen to have the product with this OS upgradation.

But its unfortunate that we are unable to move ahead for next BSP updates with OS upgrade because of this GPU & performance bottleneck.

Somehow feel that you can help us in this regard by providing the source files for integration. So keeping my fingers crossed to get a positive response from your end so that we can have a market launch soon.

Hope to hear from you asap.

Regards,

Sridevi

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Sridevi,

I might have some contacts that can help you with this.  PM me at cphealy@gmail.com to discuss further.

Regards,

Chris

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Just as an update. While I am still hunting, we are off into the realm of legacy technical manual writers. So, realistically, I'm not expecting to be able to help on this.

I hope Chris Healy was able to help in some way.

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jtrudeau
Staff

And, we have the mystery solved, but not a good answer for you.

AMD sold that technology to Qualcomm in 2009. If you search for AMD sells hand held graphics you'll find all kinds of information.

Qualcomm Acquires Handheld Graphics and Multimedia Assets from AMD

So, no answer here, but now at least we know why, and where, perhaps, you may be able to get some help.

Thanks for the treasure hunt! Sorry it came up empty for you. If nothing else it helps me meet LOTS of people all over the company.

You are correct, it was moved to Qualcomm and renamed to "Adreno".  With ATI/AMD, it was the Imageon Z430, with Qualcomm, it became the Adreno 200.

For even more trivia, the ATI/AMD Imageon design was originally grew out of IP that was bought from BitBoys:

BitBoys - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

If one is using Linux, it should be possible to use the Open Source "Freedreno" code in Mesa with the Imageon Z430/Adreno 200.  Freedreno is a reverse engineered graphics stack for the Adreno GPUs.  It does require a relatively new kernel though to the best of my knowledge.

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