Broadcom VideoCore VI/VII (V3D) GPU driver for Raspberry Pi 4 and 5
The 3D graphics engine inside Broadcom's BCM2711 and BCM2712 SoCs, which power the Raspberry Pi 4 and Raspberry Pi 5 single-board computers. It handles OpenGL ES and Vulkan acceleration for the VideoCore VI and VII GPU generations, the workhorse graphics found in millions of Raspberry Pi boards used by hobbyists, schools, and embedded product makers since 2019.
recommendation
It should stay in the kernel because the hardware is mainstream and actively sold: Raspberry Pi 5 launched in late 2023 with VideoCore VII, and Raspberry Pi has committed to producing it through at least 2036, while the Raspberry Pi 4 family has shipped over 14 million units. Upstream development is vigorous, with substantial feature work like a runtime power-management series still landing in 2026, and there is no alternate driver covering this hardware (the older vc4 driver only handles VideoCore IV / V3D 2.x).
repository signals
sources
- lore.kernel.org
As of 2026-03-31 the driver was still receiving substantial upstream feature work, including a v9 runtime power-management series touching v3d_drv.c.
- raspberrypi.com
Raspberry Pi 5 is sold as a current product, uses Broadcom BCM2712 with a VideoCore VII GPU, and Raspberry Pi states production will continue until at least January 2036.
- raspberrypi.com
Raspberry Pi 5 launched with a VideoCore VII GPU, and Raspberry Pi said Raspberry Pi 4 plus derivatives had sold over 14 million units and remained popular with enthusiasts, educators, and professional engineers.
- git.kernel.org
Upstream Kconfig defines this as the Broadcom V3D 3.x-and-newer GPU driver.
- git.kernel.org
The driver source contains support for multiple V3D generations, including V3D_GEN_71, indicating coverage beyond the original BCM2711-era hardware.
codex reasoning notes (technical)
Real driver, not an early-exit case. `lore_file_timeline` on v3d_drv.c showed dense 2021-2026 activity and fresh March 31, 2026 runtime-PM patches; that is incompatible with deprecation/removal. A `lore_regex` removal/deprecation scan timed out and `lei` was blocked by the sandbox, but the lore timeline itself showed ongoing feature development rather than retirement traffic. Raspberry Pi product/news pages were obtained via `web.search_query` + `web.open`; they show Raspberry Pi 5 is a live product with VideoCore VII and long production horizon, while Raspberry Pi 4-family deployment remains large. Kernel.org URLs are canonical recall used to anchor the chipset/coverage claims from upstream source files. No natural replacement exists for the same hardware family; VC4 only covers older VideoCore/V3D 2.x generations.