i915_gem_ob...ate_internal(9)

💅 i915_gem_object_create_internal 💅

okay bestie so you found yourself a i915_gem_ob...ate_internal(9) page — that's the Kernel API Manual, the i915 flavour, and honestly? she's a lil niche but she slays. let's get into it 🫶

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✨ NAME ✨

i915_gem_object_create_internal — create an object with volatile pages 🦋

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

struct drm_i915_gem_object * i915_gem_object_create_internal (struct
       drm_i915_private *i915 , phys_addr_t size );

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🎀 ARGUMENTS 🎀

• i915 — the i915 device, aka the main character of this whole situation 👑
• size — the size in bytes of backing storage to allocate for the object. yes, bytes. count them. 💀

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💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

so what does she even do. Creates a new object that wraps some internal memory for private use ✨ — like a little private stash, not for public consumption.

ngl, this object is not backed by swappable storage, and because of that its contents are volatile and only valid whilst pinned 😭. the second she gets unpinned, all bets are off.

if the object is reaped by the shrinker, its pages and data will be discarded. literally gone. bestie. 🫠

equally important: it is not a full GEM object, so it's not valid for access from userspace. lowkey a red flag if you were planning that. 🙈

which makes it super useful for hardware interfaces like ringbuffers — those are pinned from the time the request is written to the time the hardware stops accessing it, so the volatile thing? totally fine there. 💅

but not for contexts — those need to be preserved when not active for later reuse, and that's just not the vibe here. ❌

⚠️ also note that it is not cleared upon allocation. no zeroing, no wiping, nothing. whatever's in there is in there. 🫶

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🔥 SEE ALSO 🔥

• Kernel file ./drivers/gpu/drm/i915/gem/i915_gem_internal.c — go read the source, iykyk 📖

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that's the whole page, bestie! and for the cute sign-off: this all came out of ./drivers/gpu/drm/i915/gem, dated October 2026 — iconic, on time, ate. 🌈⭐💜