Intel Graphics Gen12 has new Display State Buffer (DSB)

The latest Linux drivers for Intel's integrated graphics solutions reveal that Gen12 will have a new feature called Display State Buffer (DSB). This new, contextually-aware technology promises to improve performance by offloading some work from the CPU in scenarios where it makes sense to do so.

Gen12 (aka Xe) will hit the market in 2020 via the Tiger Lake (and possibly Rocket Lake) processors as well as the Xe discrete video cards.

In the patches, DSB is generically described as a hardware capability that will be introduced in the Gen12 display controller. This engine will only be used for some specific scenarios for which it will deliver performance improvements, and after completion of its work, it will be disabled again.

Some additional (technical) documentation of the feature is available, but the benefits of the DSB are described as follows: “[It] helps to reduce loading time and CPU activity, thereby making the context switch faster.” In other words, it is new engine that offloads some work from the CPU and helps to improve context switching time.

More details at Tom's Hardware.