VC4 GEM BO MANAGEMENT SUPPORT(9)

💖 VC4 GEM BO management support(9) 💖

okay so bestie, this is the Kernel API Manual entry for VC4 GEM BO management support, and it's giving “GPU goes straight to memory, no middleman” energy. 💅

The VC4 GPU architecture (both scanout and rendering) has direct access to system memory with no MMU in between. To support it, we use the GEM DMA helper functions to allocate contiguous ranges of physical memory for our BOs. no cap, that's the setup. 🫶

Since the DMA allocator is very slow, we keep a cache of recently freed BOs around so that the kernel's allocation of objects for 3D rendering can return quickly. lowkey that's the whole reason for the cache. 😭✨

🌸 SEE ALSO 🌸

• Kernel file ./drivers/gpu/drm/vc4/vc4_bo.c — also peep vc4_create_object(9), vc4_set_tiling_ioctl(9), and vc4_get_tiling_ioctl(9) 🦋

mwah 💋 this cutie comes from the ./drivers/gpu/drm/vc4 source/version and is dated October 2026. periodt. 👑