Intel Arc GPUs could raise the bar for gaming on Linux

Intel ARC graphics cards look like they’ll have Resizable BAR (ReBAR) support at or near launch. ReBAR technology can boost the frame rate performance of games that support the feature. That list is rather short at the moment, but support for ReBAR would still be nice to see on Intel’s upcoming ARC GPUs.

A report by Phoronix explains that Intel’s open-source developers are working on Linux driver support. ReBAR support is on the way, according to the notes for the most recent kernel patches (via PC Gamer).

“Starting from DG2 we will have resizable BAR support for device local-memory, but in some cases the final BAR size might still be smaller than the total local-memory size,” explains the notes for the recent Linux patch. “In such cases only part of local-memory will be CPU accessible, while the remainder is only accessible via the GPU. This series adds the basic enablers needed to ensure that the entire local-memory range is usable.”

ReBAR allows the CPU and GPU of a PC to communicate with larger pieces of data.

Unlike some other methods of boosting frame rate performance, ReBAR is only supported by a small collection of games. Some of the best PC games support the feature, such as Red Dead Redemption 2, but it’s not as widespread as alternatives.

NVIDIA’s RTX 30 Series GPUs also support ReBar. NVIDIA explains the feature in technical detail. AMD has a somewhat similar feature called Smart Access Memory.

It’s here

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