Intel chipsets getting resizable BAR setting, but only latest 400 series chipsets

[moshpit]

AMD's Smart Access Memory feature turns out to be pretty much just a very well optimized use of an already existing, but normally un-exposed feature on PCIe. Nvidia is currently working on a driver to support this feature for Nvidia GPUs, but will require it enabled on the motherboard it's installed on.

As it stands right now, we're looking at only the latest Intel chipset getting this feature exposed by motherboard makers in bios updates, Asus is already ahead of the game and has a beta bios with support ready before Nvidia even has a driver ready to go. This means it's a simple switch to throw to expose the feature in bios, most likely. The speed which Asus was able to drop a bios of this sort really strongly hints at the ease of exposing the feature.

This leads me to wonder... those of us out there with 200 or 300 series chipsets also have full hardware support for this feature, but nobody will be releasing any bios updates to expose the feature. But if my theory is right, this should be something that can be modded into a bios manually?

Of all the places in my entire 30 years in the IT industry, I know this forum is the place to ask this question. Does this sound like something that might be possible? It sounds, in theory at least, like a pretty simple hack of a bios file, probably just flipping a flag from 0 to 1 to expose the feature? I don't know, just guessing out of my depth here, but it seems possible?
https://www.overclock3d.net/news/cpu...ory_on_intel/1

[zanzabar]

It has been a server feature for a while, and support is mostly on software so I would guess older chipsets could work. I would bet the x99 and x299 could both support it since some socket 2011 c series boards have supported it on linux. That said I dont really see why they would put the money into getting it working on older consumer hardware when they could use it as a selling point. Intel is really hurting on desktop and they have in the past limited hardware features that should have worked to keep OEM/OEIs happy and legacy support costs LOW. Companies like Dell and HP would love to up sell that and would hate to go back and update all of their bios and then make things to inform customers on how to use it and more importantly how to turn it off/trouble shoot it.

[moshpit]

You misunderstand me. I am asking if it is something that can be modded into an existing bios by us, the modding community. I'm not asking if you think OEMs are going to add it to older hardware, I already stated they are not. My opening comment clearly said "nobody will be releasing any bios updates to expose the feature" in reference to older chipsets.

My question has nothing to do with what companies will do. It has to do with what WE can do about it.

[zanzabar]

Oh, it could happen. There are two problems I can see with it. 1) there are white lists on the gpu driver side for cpu/chipsets, 2) With other bios mods if you inject a workstation UEFI loader or do that to spoof power targets you loose board specific overclocking.

[moshpit]

Oh, it could happen. There are two problems I can see with it. 1) there are white lists on the gpu driver side for cpu/chipsets, 2) With other bios mods if you inject a workstation UEFI loader or do that to spoof power targets you loose board specific overclocking.

Okay, we're on the right track then, my GPU is as pure of a reference board as possible (PNY) to begin with, there is no factory customized settings at all.

So the problems are fairly minor ones from the sound so far. Nvidia's driver that will support this may not use white lists, it simply may check for the feature flag as it needs to support both AMD and Intel chipsets with this feature, and since the feature is a standard PCIe feature, the flag should be visible when the feature is enabled. I wouldn't think white lists work well when you have to work across different vendors chipsets?