[PATCH v1] drm/amd/display: Initialise backlight level values from hw

From: Vivek Das Mohapatra

Date: Mon Jan 12 2026 - 07:21:50 EST


Internal backlight levels are initialised from ACPI but the values
are sometimes out of sync with the levels in effect until there has
been a read from hardware (eg triggered by reading from sysfs).

This means that the first drm_commit can cause the levels to be set
to a different value than the actual starting one, which results in
a sudden change in brightness.

This path shows the problem (when the values are out of sync):

amdgpu_dm_atomic_commit_tail()
-> amdgpu_dm_commit_streams()
-> amdgpu_dm_backlight_set_level(..., dm->brightness[n])

This patch calls the backlight ops get_brightness explicitly
at the end of backlight registration to make sure dm->brightness[n]
is in sync with the actual hardware levels.

Signed-off-by: Vivek Das Mohapatra <vivek@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
---
.../gpu/drm/amd/display/amdgpu_dm/amdgpu_dm.c | 16 ++++++++++++++++
1 file changed, 16 insertions(+)

diff --git a/drivers/gpu/drm/amd/display/amdgpu_dm/amdgpu_dm.c b/drivers/gpu/drm/amd/display/amdgpu_dm/amdgpu_dm.c
index 354e359c4507..50f0547ed63c 100644
--- a/drivers/gpu/drm/amd/display/amdgpu_dm/amdgpu_dm.c
+++ b/drivers/gpu/drm/amd/display/amdgpu_dm/amdgpu_dm.c
@@ -5258,6 +5258,8 @@ amdgpu_dm_register_backlight_device(struct amdgpu_dm_connector *aconnector)
struct amdgpu_dm_backlight_caps *caps;
char bl_name[16];
int min, max;
+ int real_brightness;
+ int init_brightness;

if (aconnector->bl_idx == -1)
return;
@@ -5282,6 +5284,8 @@ amdgpu_dm_register_backlight_device(struct amdgpu_dm_connector *aconnector)
} else
props.brightness = props.max_brightness = MAX_BACKLIGHT_LEVEL;

+ init_brightness = props.brightness;
+
if (caps->data_points && !(amdgpu_dc_debug_mask & DC_DISABLE_CUSTOM_BRIGHTNESS_CURVE)) {
drm_info(drm, "Using custom brightness curve\n");
props.scale = BACKLIGHT_SCALE_NON_LINEAR;
@@ -5297,6 +5301,18 @@ amdgpu_dm_register_backlight_device(struct amdgpu_dm_connector *aconnector)
&amdgpu_dm_backlight_ops, &props);
dm->brightness[aconnector->bl_idx] = props.brightness;

+ /*
+ * dm->brightness[x] can be inconsistent just after startup until
+ * ops.get_brightness is called.
+ */
+ real_brightness =
+ amdgpu_dm_backlight_ops.get_brightness(dm->backlight_dev[aconnector->bl_idx]);
+
+ if (real_brightness != init_brightness) {
+ dm->actual_brightness[aconnector->bl_idx] = real_brightness;
+ dm->brightness[aconnector->bl_idx] = real_brightness;
+ }
+
if (IS_ERR(dm->backlight_dev[aconnector->bl_idx])) {
drm_err(drm, "DM: Backlight registration failed!\n");
dm->backlight_dev[aconnector->bl_idx] = NULL;
--
2.39.5