Intel, long associated exclusively with the x86 architecture, is taking an important step toward supporting alternative hardware platforms. With its new Direct Rendering Manager (DRM) kernel driver for Intel Xe, the company is paving the way for the use of its discrete graphics processors on systems with ARM, POWER9, RISC-V and other processor architectures. The traditional i915 driver, developed over the years, was tightly coupled to the x86 architecture and contained a lot of x86-specific code. This limited the use of Intel's integrated graphics solutions outside of x86/x86_64 processors. However, with the release of Intel Arc Graphics discrete graphics processors, there was a need for a more flexible and cross-platform approach.
The first successful steps in this direction were taken by enthusiast Vladimir Smirnov, who managed to run Intel Arc Graphics on the Ampere Altra ARM system. Although with some remaining issues, this result demonstrates the feasibility of using Intel discrete GPUs on non-x86 architectures.
Achieving this success required building a fresh Linux kernel with code for the new Xe DRM driver (which will be included in the 6.10 release), applying patches to support PCI Express on Ampere, fixing the kernel to address failures with Xe on ARM, rebuilding libdrm for AArch64 and Mesa 24.1-rc3 with modifications to build Intel drivers on non-x86 systems.
Initial experience showed some instability, such as GDM crashes on first run after reboot and kernel crashes when running complex Vulkan applications. Nevertheless, it was possible to run the Doom 3 game with acceptable performance, which shows the functionality and prospects of this solution.
While support for Intel discrete GPUs on alternative architectures is not ready for widespread use at this time, the steps taken open up new opportunities for developers and enthusiasts working on non-x86 platforms. As the remaining bugs are fixed, we can expect more stable and productive Intel graphics solutions outside of the x86 ecosystem.
This progress marks an important milestone in Intel hardware development and demonstrates the company's commitment to cross-platform and support for a variety of computing architectures. Expanding support beyond x86 opens new horizons for software, game and application developers, allowing them to harness the power of Intel GPUs on a wide range of systems and devices.