JH7110 / VisionFive 2 — PowerVR BXE-4-32 GPU + DC8200 display bring-up

Summary

With a few small kernel changes you can get experimental GPU 3D graphics working on the StarFive VisionFive 2.

vkmark test results

The following results are from vkmark under three configurations: direct KMS scanout (no compositor, no window) and two Wayland compositors, labwc and Weston. The physical screen always runs at its native 1920x1080.

vkmark itself is tested windowed at 1920x1080 and 800x600:

Scene	FPS (KMS, 1920x1080)	FPS (labwc, 1920x1080)	FPS (labwc, 800x600)	FPS (Weston, 800x600)
clear	480	55	186	206
cube	140	34	131	134
shading	84	28	70	60
desktop	19	8	39	30
effect2d	9	5	21	21
texture	78	25	94	81
vertex	124	34	97	81

Command line invocation and output, e.g.:

• vkmark_7scenes_kms_mesa26.2.2-2_1920x1080_20sec_output.txt
• vkmark_7scenes_labwc_mesa26.2.2-2_1920x1080_20sec_output.txt
• vkmark_7scenes_labwc_mesa26.2.2-2_800x600_20sec_output.txt
• vkmark_7scenes_weston_mesa26.2.2-2_800x600_20sec_output.txt

glmark2-es2-wayland test results

The following results are from glmark2-es2-wayland (OpenGL ES via Zink) under two Wayland compositors, Weston and labwc. The physical screen always runs at its native 1920x1080.

glmark2 itself is tested windowed at 1920x1080 and 800x600:

Scene	FPS (Weston, 1920x1080)	FPS (labwc, 1920x1080)	FPS (Weston, 800x600)	FPS (labwc, 800x600)
clear	21	26	56	63
shading	16	18	45	40
bump	17	20	47	53
function	11	13	41	40
texture	15	18	47	52
ideas	7	11	16	13
shadow	5	5	15	13
pulsar	9	12	33	37
refract	3	3	4	4
conditionals	10	16	39	40
effect2d	6	10	37	38
loop	9	14	31	35
buffer	7	9	16	20
desktop	3	3	8	9
terrain	1	1	2	2
build	20	22	47	57
jellyfish	4	5	13	14

Command line invocation and output, e.g.:

• glmark2_jellyfish_weston_zink_mesa26.2.2-2_800x600_20sec_output.txt
• glmark2_jellyfish_labwc_zink_mesa26.2.2-2_800x600_20sec_output.txt

glxgears test results

glxgears renders under labwc at 25 FPS, using indirect GLX via XWayland, translated to Vulkan by Zink.

Hardware

• StarFive VisionFive 2 (SoC: JH7110)
• GPU: Imagination PowerVR BXE-4-32 (BVNC 36.50.54.182)

Firmware

The driver loads rogue_36.50.54.182_v1.fw from /lib/firmware/powervr/. Pinned to commit 8a58f818 (FW version v1.1 (build 6976702 OS)).

Install:

wget https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/imagination/linux-firmware/-/raw/8a58f81883f7be458daa34e418cc4079f995b279/powervr/rogue_36.50.54.182_v1.fw

sudo mkdir -p /lib/firmware/powervr
sudo cp rogue_36.50.54.182_v1.fw /lib/firmware/powervr/

Kernel

You need to apply 2 branches to your kernel:

jh7110_dc8200_hdmi_v7.3-rc4 and powervr_on_jh7110_visionfive2_v7.3-rc4

git remote add domibel https://github.com/domibel/linux
git fetch domibel powervr_on_jh7110_visionfive2_v7.3-rc4 jh7110_dc8200_hdmi_v7.3-rc4
git checkout -b test_gpu v7.3-rc4
git merge domibel/powervr_on_jh7110_visionfive2_v7.3-rc4
git merge domibel/jh7110_dc8200_hdmi_v7.3-rc4

and additionally, the following configs:

CONFIG_DRM_POWERVR=m
CONFIG_DRM_VERISILICON_DC=y
CONFIG_CMA=y
CONFIG_ERRATA_SIFIVE=y
CONFIG_ERRATA_SIFIVE_XPBMTUC=y

The DTB arch/riscv/boot/dts/starfive/jh7110-starfive-visionfive-2-v1.3b.dtb is built from the same tree; where it needs to go depends on how your board's bootloader is set up, on my system it's /boot/efi/dtb/starfive/.

If your kernel's default CMA reservation is too small, increase it with cma=64M or higher on your kernel cmdline.

Install userspace packages

sudo apt install mesa-vulkan-drivers vulkan-tools vkmark glmark2-es2-wayland

Loading the driver

The shader-cluster power domain ("rascal/dust") comes up gated after reset. So you need to load the driver twice with different parameter values (pow_rascaldust_enable defaults to 0).

sudo insmod powervr.ko pow_rascaldust_enable=1
# a real dispatch here is what makes the FW actually ungate the domain
PVR_I_WANT_A_BROKEN_VULKAN_DRIVER=1 vkmark --winsys headless -s 64x64 -b clear:duration=1
sudo rmmod powervr
sudo insmod powervr.ko

Run vkmark (with winsys backends kms or headless)

All the commands below set MESA_VK_DEVICE_SELECT=1010:36054182, that is vendorID:deviceID, 36054182 is derived from the BXE-4-32's BVNC (36.50.54.182)

export PVR_I_WANT_A_BROKEN_VULKAN_DRIVER=1 MESA_VK_DEVICE_SELECT=1010:36054182

# headless - no root needed
vkmark --winsys headless -s 1920x1080 \
  -b clear:duration=20 -b cube:duration=20 -b shading:duration=20 \
  -b desktop:duration=20 -b effect2d:duration=20 -b texture:duration=20 \
  -b vertex:duration=20

# kms - needs root
# Stop your display manager first, e.g.
# `sudo systemctl stop lightdm`)
sudo env PVR_I_WANT_A_BROKEN_VULKAN_DRIVER=1 MESA_VK_DEVICE_SELECT=1010:36054182 \
vkmark --winsys kms --winsys-options kms-tty=/dev/tty1 -s 1920x1080 \
  -b clear:duration=20 -b cube:duration=20 -b shading:duration=20 \
  -b desktop:duration=20 -b effect2d:duration=20 -b texture:duration=20 \
  -b vertex:duration=20

Sometimes this fails with ErrorOutOfDeviceMemory, especially if you run the scenes independently, e.g

vkmark ...  -b clear:duration=20
vkmark ...  -b cube:duration=20
vkmark ...  -b shading:duration=20

Run under labwc (Wayland compositor)

sudo env XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=/run/user/0 XDG_SEAT=seat0 \
  WLR_LIBINPUT_NO_DEVICES=1 WLR_RENDER_DRM_DEVICE=/dev/dri/renderD128 \
  labwc

sudo env XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=/run/user/0 WAYLAND_DISPLAY=wayland-0 \
  PVR_I_WANT_A_BROKEN_VULKAN_DRIVER=1 MESA_VK_DEVICE_SELECT=1010:36054182 \
  glmark2-es2-wayland -b jellyfish:duration=20

Run under Weston (Wayland compositor)

sudo env XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=/run/user/0 XDG_SEAT=seat0 \
  weston --backend=drm-backend.so --renderer=gl

sudo env XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=/run/user/0 WAYLAND_DISPLAY=wayland-1 \
  PVR_I_WANT_A_BROKEN_VULKAN_DRIVER=1 MESA_VK_DEVICE_SELECT=1010:36054182 \
  glmark2-es2-wayland -b jellyfish:duration=20

It is not always wayland-1, sometimes it is wayland-0.

Issues

The rascal/dust power sequencing needs to be looked at.