linux-drivers/
drivers/gpu/drm/nouveau/nvkm/engine/mspdec

Nouveau MSPDEC video-decode engine for legacy NVIDIA GPUs

Driver code that controls the MSPDEC fixed-function video-decode block found on NVIDIA PureVideo-era GPUs, specifically the G98 (2007), GT215 (2009), Fermi GF100 (2010), and Kepler GK104 (2012) generations. It provides hardware-accelerated decoding of formats like H.264 and MPEG-2 on those older cards when running the open-source Nouveau driver instead of NVIDIA's proprietary blob.

keep-annotate conf=0.78 last_sold=2014 deploy=low replacement=none subsystem=gpu category=media-other
78%

recommendation

Worth keeping but documenting as frozen legacy support. The GPUs it serves are all on NVIDIA's legacy list (Fermi support ended in 2022, Kepler is on the legacy 470 branch), and the only recent upstream activity has been mechanical API refactoring in 2021 rather than new feature work. Since Nouveau itself is still actively maintained and there is no replacement path for these specific old chips, removing this code would simply leave their owners without video acceleration, so an annotation noting its legacy status is the right call rather than deprecation.

repository signals

7 files
227 source lines
0 commits, 5y
+0 / −0 lines added / removed, 5y
0 authors, 5y

sources

  1. codebrowser.dev

    Current kernel still carries this engine interface, with constructors for g98, gt215, gf100, and gk104 MSPDEC variants.

  2. cgit.freedesktop.org

    A visible 2021 public DRM tree commit touched all mspdec files as part of a broad nvkm engine API refactor, indicating recent changes were mechanical rather than feature work.

  3. en.wikipedia.org

    The covered chips map to old PureVideo generations: G98 VP3 (2007), GT215 VP4 (2009), GF100 VP4 (2010), and GK104 VP5 (2012).

  4. nvidia.custhelp.com

    NVIDIA classifies these generations as legacy: G8x/G9x/GT2xx have no further 340-series releases planned, Fermi support ended with 390 through 2022, and Kepler is on legacy 470.

  5. cateee.net

    The parent Nouveau driver remains present in current upstream kernels, so MSPDEC lives inside an active driver rather than an already-retired subsystem.

codex reasoning notes (technical)

Local shell inspection (`rg`, `sed`) showed this is real nvkm video-decode engine code, not a helper library, with per-chip constructors for G98/GT215/GF100/GK104. URLs were obtained via `web.search_query` and `web.open`: Codebrowser confirmed the live in-tree interface; the cgit commit showed the last easy-to-find public touch was a 2021 treewide refactor, matching the static signal of no substantive recent work; Wikipedia supplied launch-era chip/date mapping; NVIDIA's legacy-driver KB showed all covered generations are long into legacy status; LKDDb confirmed Nouveau itself is still upstream. That mix points to legacy hardware with low but nonzero field deployment and no natural replacement for the same old GPUs, so keep the code but annotate it as frozen legacy support rather than deprecating/removing it now.