Valve tells Ars its “trying to unblock” limits caused by open source driver issues.

The TL;DR is that the organization that controls the HDMI standard won’t allow any open source implementation of HDMI 2.1.

So the hardware is fully capable of it, but they’ll get in trouble if them officially implement it.

Instead it’s officially HDMI 2 (which maxes out at 4k @ 60Hz), but through a technique called chroma sub-sampling they’ve been able to raise that up to 4k @ 120Hz.

However there are some minor reductions in picture quality because of this, and the whole thing would be much easier if the HDMI forum would be more consumer friendly.

In the meantime, the Steam Machine also has display port as a completely issue free display option.

  • klangcola@reddthat.com
    14·
    4 hours ago

    AMD already spent a significant amount of effort implementing HDMI2.1 in their open driver in such a way that it would be compliment. The suits from HDMI consortium still said No.

    https://www.phoronix.com/news/HDMI-2.1-OSS-Rejected

    AMD Linux engineers have spent months working with their legal team and evaluating all HDMI features to determine if/how they can be exposed in their open-source driver. AMD had code working internally and then the past few months were waiting on approval from the HDMI Forum… Sadly, the HDMI Forum has turned down AMD’s request for open-source driver support.

    AMD Linux engineer Alex Deucher commented on the ticket:

    "The HDMI Forum has rejected our proposal unfortunately. At this time an open source HDMI 2.1 implementation is not possible without running afoul of the HDMI Forum requirements."