Radeon HD 2000 and 3000 video corruption fix headed to Linux 7.5

A patch for the radeon driver that fixes video corruption on RV6xx GPUs is included in a Linux 7.5 pull request. The fix, submitted on November 12, targets the Radeon HD 2000 and HD 3000 series. Ted Bullock developed the patch after encountering broken frames during hardware-accelerated video playback on an iMac7,1.

Image: Hardware Busters

Bullock used OpenAI's Codex to assist with his investigation, testing, and writing the patch. He found that corruption occurred when the Unified Video Decoder (UVD) fetched compressed video from system memory while the GPU was performing 3D draws. The fix forces UVD buffers into VRAM for RV610, RV620, RV630, RV635, and RV670 chips to prevent this contention.

Bullock noted he only tested the fix on an RV610 using Debian and said owners of other chips in the family should confirm the results. The Linux 7.5 merge window opens at the end of 2026, which means the fix should reach mainline in early 2027.