9.3 AMD Graphics Drivers

This section covers the installation and configuration of AMD graphics drivers. Please read the Graphics Driver Overview first.

Installing AMD Graphics Driver

Note

When using GNOME, if the screen automatically locks/turns off, you may not be able to return to the desktop. For related technical issues, see: Bug 255049 - x11/gdm doesn't show the login screen[EB/OL]. [2026-03-26]. https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=255049.

Note

When installing via Ports, the drm driver requires a copy of the current system source code in /usr/src. For details, refer to the system update chapter. If you have already followed other chapters in this book to install it, the system typically already has a copy of the source code, and there is no need to obtain it again.

FreeBSD 14.x

# cd /usr/ports/graphics/drm-61-kmod
# make BATCH=yes install clean

Or install using pkg (use this method if Ports installation has issues):

# pkg install drm-61-kmod

FreeBSD 15.0

Install using Ports:

# cd /usr/ports/graphics/drm-66-kmod
# make BATCH=yes install clean

AMD Graphics Configuration

• For AMD graphics cards based on the GCN architecture (HD 7750 and above) and newer, add the amdgpu kernel module to kld_list in the /etc/rc.conf file so that it loads at system startup (most users should use this driver; if it does not work, change it to radeonkms):

# sysrc -f /etc/rc.conf kld_list+=amdgpu

• For AMD graphics cards prior to the GCN architecture, add the radeonkms kernel module to kld_list in the /etc/rc.conf file:

# sysrc -f /etc/rc.conf kld_list+=radeonkms

AMD Graphics Video Hardware Decoding

Warning

If you skip this section, software such as Blender will not run and will directly produce "segmentation faults".

Installing Mesa's Gallium VA-API and VDPAU Support Packages

• Install using pkg:

# pkg install mesa-gallium-va mesa-gallium-vdpau

• Or install using Ports:

# cd /usr/ports/graphics/mesa-gallium-va/ && make install clean
# cd /usr/ports/graphics/mesa-gallium-vdpau/ && make install clean

Appendix: X11 Settings

If the above configuration does not take effect, you may also need to configure X11.

Write the following content to the /usr/local/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-amdgpu-tearfree.conf file (create this file yourself):

Section "Device"
  Identifier "AMDgpu"          # Set device identifier to AMDgpu
  Driver "amdgpu"              # Use amdgpu driver
  Option "TearFree" "on"       # Enable TearFree feature to prevent screen tearing
EndSection

After configuration, you can test using the command mpv --hwdec=auto xxx.mp4. You need to install mpv yourself.

References

• FreeBSD Project. Graphics[EB/OL]. [2026-03-25]. https://wiki.freebsd.org/Graphics. The official FreeBSD wiki, providing detailed lists of graphics hardware compatibility and configuration guides.

Exercises

1. Try to automate the DRM porting process on FreeBSD.
2. Try to re-port the DRM implementation from OpenBSD.