AMDGPU(4) Kernel Interfaces Manual AMDGPU(4)
NAME
amdgpu - AMD RADEON GPU video driver
SYNOPSIS
Section "Device"
Identifier "devname"
Driver "amdgpu"
...
EndSection
DESCRIPTION
amdgpu is an Xorg driver for AMD RADEON-based video cards with the fol-
lowing features:
• Support for 8-, 15-, 16-, 24- and 30-bit pixel depths;
• RandR support up to version 1.4;
• 3D acceleration;
SUPPORTED HARDWARE
The amdgpu driver supports SI and newer families' video cards.
CONFIGURATION DETAILS
Please refer to xorg.conf(5) for general configuration details. This
section only covers configuration details specific to this driver.
The following driver Options are supported:
Option "SWcursor" "boolean"
Selects software cursor. The default is off.
Option "Accel" "boolean"
Enables or disables all hardware acceleration.
The default is on.
Option "ZaphodHeads" "string"
Specify the RandR output(s) to use with zaphod mode for a partic-
ular driver instance. If you use this option you must use this
option for all instances of the driver.
For example: Option "ZaphodHeads" "LVDS,VGA-0" will assign xrandr
outputs LVDS and VGA-0 to this instance of the driver.
Option "DRI" "integer"
Define the maximum level of DRI to enable. Valid values are 2 for
DRI2 or 3 for DRI3. The default is 3 for DRI3 if the Xorg ver-
sion is >= 1.18.3, otherwise 2 for DRI2.
Option "EnablePageFlip" "boolean"
Enable DRI2 page flipping. The default is on.
Option "TearFree" "boolean"
Set the default value of the per-output 'TearFree' property,
which controls tearing prevention using the hardware page flip-
ping mechanism. TearFree is on for any CRTC associated with one
or more outputs with TearFree on. Two separate scanout buffers
need to be allocated for each CRTC with TearFree on. If this op-
tion is set, the default value of the property is 'on' or 'off'
accordingly. If this option isn't set, the default value of the
property is auto, which means that TearFree is on for rotated
outputs, outputs with RandR transforms applied and for RandR 1.4
secondary outputs, otherwise off.
Option "VariableRefresh" "boolean"
Enables support for enabling variable refresh on the Screen's
CRTCs when an suitable application is flipping via the Present
extension.
The default is off.
Option "AsyncFlipSecondaries" "boolean"
Use async flips for secondary video outputs on multi-display se-
tups. If a screen has multiple displays attached and DRI3 page
flipping is used, then only one of the displays will have its
page flip synchronized to vblank for tear-free presentation. This
is the display that is used for presentation timing and time-
stamping, usually the one covering the biggest pixel area of the
screen. All other displays ("Secondaries") will not synchronize
their flips. This may cause some tearing on these displays, but
it prevents a permanent or periodic slowdown or irritating judder
of animations if not all video outputs are running synchronized
with each other and with the same refresh rate. There is no per-
fect solution apart from perfectly synchronized outputs, but this
option may give preferrable results if the displays in a multi-
display setup mirror or clone each other. The default is off.
Option "AccelMethod" "string"
Setting this option to none disables use of the glamor accelera-
tion architecture. In that case, all 2D rendering is done by the
CPU, but 3D and video hardware acceleration can still work. This
is mainly useful for OpenGL driver bring-up.
The default is to use glamor.
The following driver Option is supported for glamor :
Option "ShadowPrimary" "boolean"
This option enables a so-called "shadow primary" buffer for fast
CPU access to pixel data, and separate scanout buffers for each
display controller (CRTC). This may improve performance for some
2D workloads, potentially at the expense of other (e.g. 3D,
video) workloads. Note in particular that enabling this option
currently disables page flipping. The default is off.
SEE ALSO
Xorg(1), xorg.conf(5), Xserver(1), X(7)
1. Wiki page:
https://www.x.org/wiki/radeon
2. Overview about amdgpu development code:
https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/xorg/driver/xf86-video-amdgpu
3. Mailing list:
https://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/amd-gfx
4. IRC channel:
#radeon on irc.freenode.net
5. The bugtracker for amdgpu bugs:
https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/xorg/driver/xf86-video-amdgpu/-/is-
sues
6. Submit merge requests:
https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/xorg/driver/xf86-video-
amdgpu/-/merge_requests
AUTHORS
Authors include:
Michel Dänzer michel@daenzer.net
Alex Deucher alexdeucher@gmail.com
X Version 11 xf86-video-amdgpu 23.0.0 AMDGPU(4)
Generated by dwww version 1.16 on Sat Oct 3 06:48:22 CEST 2026.