Valve, the company behind the upcoming Steam Deck portable, is funding further continuous integration (CI) testing of Mesa commits and Radeon Drivers. This is useful information for both Linux users and Steam Deck gamers.
Charlie Turner, an Igalia programming expert, submitted a merge request on FreeDesktop’s Mesa site today for more dEQP runners. Igalia is an open-source consulting firm that “specializes in the growth of creative initiatives and solutions,” according to its website. The request demonstrates Valve’s engagement in AMD Radeon Linux driver testing. Valve’s system uses Radeon graphics, so it’s only natural that they’d want to make sure their newest portable is as compatible as possible.
The draw elements Quality Program (dEQP) runners provide tests for a variety of graphics APIs, including OpenGL ES, EGL, and Vulkan. Graphic API testing has been critical for Mesa’s continuous integration testing to secure unstable changes that don’t make it to mainline Mesa and to retrogress OpenGL/Vulkan graphics API activities.
Turner explained Valve’s desire for extra testing on Freedesktop in the following statement. This series proposes to add more deep bare-metal runners, sponsored by Valve. For now, the runners are conditioned on a selection of users (similar to how freedreno’s restricted traces work), since there are not enough machines to hit the runtime targets required for inclusion in the automatic pre-merge pipelines. There’s nothing secret about the test loads, the restriction is purely practical for now and any interested user may request access to the runners.
A follow-up series will add trace testing runners to the CI, using a similar approach to the above.
The number of hardware systems committed to Mesa’s CI testing for the AMD Radeon Linux graphics driver shows restraint, including ones capable of testing new Mesa merge requests and making fixes instantly. Valve’s support will help speed up the process of finding additional problems. This method ensures efficiency while still allowing for the generation of patches that may still require testing before being released to the public.
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