The ongoing development of support for legacy hardware always attracts the attention of the open-source community, and the recent progress in the ATI Radeon R300 driver is no exception. In August 2025, it was revealed that the GTX Radeon 9000 series, along with series like X300, X500, and X600, has received new functionalities through the R300 driver for Linux.
What's New in the R300 Driver
Although driver support for R300 series GPUs had been neglected on the Microsoft Windows side, the open-source community has maintained a steady effort to provide support on Linux. This includes not only the R300 series but also the R400 (X700, X800) and R500 (X1000) lines.
The latest update highlights two OpenGL extensions that have been incorporated into the Gallium3D R300 driver within Mesa 25.3-devel. The GL_ATI_meminfo and GL_NVX_gpu_memory_info extensions are now enabled in this driver.
Details of the Extensions
The GL_ATI_meminfo extension, although released in 2009, provides valuable information about video memory (vRAM) consumption, which is especially relevant for resource management in games and applications. On the other hand, GL_NVX_gpu_memory_info offers a more detailed view of the GPU hardware memory usage, allowing for more effective management during software use.
It is noteworthy that, despite these extensions being more recent than the R300 series itself, their integration represents an effort by open-source developers to revitalize and maintain the relevance of these older GPUs.
Contribution from Independent Developers
Brais Solla, an independent developer from the open-source community, was responsible for implementing these extensions. This addition was confirmed and merged into the Mesa Git repository, ensuring that support was functional on ATI R300 through R500 (X1000 series) graphics cards.
This update is expected to be part of the upcoming version of Mesa, set to be released in the next quarter. Meanwhile, the Radeon DRM driver continues to manage these GPUs which, despite their age, still hold a place in the hearts of many free software enthusiasts.
Looking to the Future
The inclusion of these extensions is not only a sign that the R300 driver is still receiving attention, but it also represents the commitment of the open-source community to maintain support for older hardware. This effort helps enhance the user experience on systems that, although based on older technology, can still be useful and relevant in the current context.
Thus, the new updates to the R300 driver reinforce the idea that old hardware does not have to become obsolete by being compatible with modern, efficient software.
For those seeking more information about related hardware and software, feel free to continue reading more on the blog.
