AMD GFX8 GPUs can now use D16 support in the open-source RadeonSI and RADV drivers. The capability arrived in Mesa 27.0-devel through a series of 17 patches contributed by Georg Lehmann.
Until this change, the Radeon 3D driver code enabled D16 only on GFX9 and newer hardware. D16 uses packed 16-bit values in load and store instructions, which can reduce memory-bandwidth pressure and improve register efficiency compared with 32-bit values.
The update adds D16 support to the ACO compiler and enables its use on GFX8 in both RadeonSI and RADV. The change also benefits GFX8 hardware that supports FP16 for Direct3D 12 content running through VKD3D-Proton.
Sources: Phoronix.