VIRTUAL MEMORY ADDRESS(9)

🦋 Virtual Memory Address(9) 🦋

okay so bestie, welcome to the Kernel API Manual page for Virtual Memory Address, and here’s the tea: a VMA literally represents a GEM BO that is bound into an address space. ✨

Because of that, a VMA’s presence cannot be guaranteed before binding, or after unbinding the object into/from the address space. It’s giving “temporary guest in the address space,” not “permanent resident,” and that’s on purpose. 💅

To make things as simple as possible (ie. no refcounting), a VMA's lifetime will always be <= an objects lifetime. So object refcounting should cover us. periodt. 🫶

💖 SEE ALSO 💖

• Kernel file ./drivers/gpu/drm/i915/i915_vma_types.h
• Global GTT views(9)

aaaand scene 💋 this page lives under the source/version ./drivers/gpu/drm/i915, dated October 2026 — iconic, no cap. 🌈