https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=101837
--- Comment #5 from Emil Velikov emil.l.velikov@gmail.com --- (In reply to Lauri Kasanen from comment #4)
The DRM node must be opened (and kept open for the lifetime of the app) to make the VRAM queries, or to make the register queries on kernels that prohibit direct access (e.g. Ubuntu).
Right - the fd is required for the queries. Yet the app does not seem to close it upon exit ;-)