# Purpose of the various ATI/AMD graphics drivers?



## Snurg (Feb 28, 2021)

I am trying to find out which driver is for which purpose and after hours of sifting through source files and the web, I still feel confused.
This is what impression I got:

KMS driver support:
amdgpu: kms driver for GPUs that are currently supported by AMD
   (e.g. these using GCN/RDNA arch, HD7700 and later, only exception are HD7000M and HD7400M (both mobile) which have also GCN)
radeonkms: kms driver for all legacy cards from R100 to Northern Islands
   (see the files in https://github.com/freebsd/drm-kmod/tree/master/drivers/gpu/drm/radeon)

I guess these drivers for 1990s vintage stuff are non-KMS drivers?:
xf86-video-mach64: mach64/early Rage
xf86-video-r128: late Rage

And finally this driver:_ is it a KMS driver?_
xf86-video-ati: It seems intended for all Terascale models (R600 to Northern Islands)
   (see: https://cgit.freedesktop.org/xorg/driver/xf86-video-ati/tree/src, _there is a file radeon_kms.c_)

Background info (tables and lists): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:AMD_GPU_features

I'd appreciate much if the above could be confirmed, corrected or even detailed!


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