WTF?! The Raspberry Pi 5’s expanded PCIe performance is one in every of its most fascinating upgrades over its predecessors. Most homeowners probably use it to put in quick storage, AI chips, or community playing cards, however modders have efficiently related it to devoted graphics playing cards. Though the Pi is not a gaming PC, putting in a GPU on one may unlock attention-grabbing potentialities.
Prolific Raspberry Pi modder Jeff Geerling not too long ago revealed directions for connecting a Raspberry Pi 5 to an exterior graphics card. Following years of trial and error, he managed to run Doom 3 at a secure 60 frames per second in 4K.
The venture requires loads of further {hardware} and intensive software program tweaking. To attach the GPU and convert its sign to the Pi, Geerling used an exterior graphics card enclosure, an OcuLink cable, a HAT module, an ATX energy provide, and a technique to energy it on.
Testing a couple of GPUs revealed that older AMD playing cards go well with the Pi the most effective, as a consequence of AMD’s coverage of publishing open-source drivers, which Geerling may customise for the Pi. The modder selected a 4GB Radeon RX 460 as a result of data on its drivers and {hardware} is available.
After patching the Linux kernel, Geerling selected Doom 3 from a listing of video games that natively help the Pi’s Arm-based system. Id Software program’s 2004 horror first-person shooter is probably going probably the most demanding recreation within the pile, however the RX 460 had no hassle operating a title that predates its launch by 12 years. Geerling suspects that Doom 3’s inner 60fps lock is the one factor stopping efficiency from climbing increased.
Geerling initially tried to attach a number of GPUs to the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 in 2022 however solely achieved fundamental graphics show duties. The Pi 5’s PCIe growth put extra demanding workloads inside attain. Though it formally solely helps PCIe 2.0, unlocking PCIe 3.0 speeds is feasible.
In the meantime, Pineboards efficiently ran an open-source racing recreation on a Pi with an RX 460 in August 2024, prompting Geerling’s current experiment with Doom 3. Trying forward, the RX 460 probably cannot deal with AI duties simply, however video encoding may very well be a helpful software. Geerling can be attempting to run net browser engines by the GPU and discover the potential for making newer AMD playing cards appropriate.