support for first generation UVD blocks (RV6xx, RS780, RS880 and RV790)

[pchristy]

It should be noted that AMD never said we would support UVD in open source. We said repeatedly that we would look into it, but if it was deemed too risky we may not be able to do it. It should also be noted that we never said UVD would be supported on Linux at all (closed or open source) when these families of hw were launched. UVD 1.x and 2.0 are much different at a hw level compared to UVD 2.2 and newer. As such the older hardware needed had to be evaluated separately for release in open source. Additionally, this family of UVD hardware is several generations old so the relevant architects that need to review it have to look up the relevant details for the older hardware in order to review it properly. For closed source, you can still use catalyst along with a supported distro. Having a drm breach due to open source UVD and losing our ability to sell into a lot of markets is not going to help anyone. It doesn't matter that many of the various drm technologies have already been hacked. AMD is still legally responsible for it's part of the drm stack regardless.

And what guarantee is there that if I buy another AMD laptop, I won't find that, once again, support is withdrawn five minutes after I take delivery? Sorry, AMD has just become too risky for me to invest my hard-earned cash in!

Frankly, I don't care if the support is open-source or proprietary. I don't care about games. All I want to do is to be able to display HD video (1080p) via HDMI in real time. Surely this is simple enough. And I know the hardware can do it under Linux, because it used to until AMD dropped support. The last proprietary driver was extremely flakey even in its day, and the only way to continue with it is to use obsolete kernels and Xorg.

This simply isn't good enough!

Intel can do it. All their drivers seem to be open-source. If I can find a non-touch screen 12" laptop with Intel inside, that will be my next purchase.

Good-bye, AMD.

--
Pete

[gradinaruvasile]

For closed source, you can still use catalyst along with a supported distro.

Does catalyst legacy support any kind of hw decoding on old hardware? Isnt xvba supported only on uvd 2 and newer?

[pchristy]

Does catalyst legacy support any kind of hw decoding on old hardware? Isnt xvba supported only on uvd 2 and newer?

Well, it worked on my HD4000 laptop using MPlayer-vaapi. That is, when the 13.1 driver didn't cause the machine to freeze while booting in the first place! I never used xvba - only vaapi. Ffmpeg with vaapi enabled also worked reasonably well, despite the low-powered processor. However, I never managed to get VLC to work with hardware acceleration. But then, it doesn't under windoze, either! Only Micro$oft's media player seemed to work with hardware acceleration under windoze.....

[agd5f]

Does catalyst legacy support any kind of hw decoding on old hardware? Isnt xvba supported only on uvd 2 and newer?

Yes, just UVD 2.0 and newer.

[agd5f]

And what guarantee is there that if I buy another AMD laptop, I won't find that, once again, support is withdrawn five minutes after I take delivery? Sorry, AMD has just become too risky for me to invest my hard-earned cash in!

Frankly, I don't care if the support is open-source or proprietary. I don't care about games. All I want to do is to be able to display HD video (1080p) via HDMI in real time. Surely this is simple enough. And I know the hardware can do it under Linux, because it used to until AMD dropped support. The last proprietary driver was extremely flakey even in its day, and the only way to continue with it is to use obsolete kernels and Xorg.

This simply isn't good enough!

Intel can do it. All their drivers seem to be open-source. If I can find a non-touch screen 12" laptop with Intel inside, that will be my next purchase.

I would hardly call the possibility that we may not be able to support UVD on a few older asics a lack of commitment to open source. We support just about every feature of the hw with the exception of UVD on a few older parts and even then we may be able to release older UVD support once the review is done. There are features on older asics that Intel has chosen not to support as well.

[agd5f]

Attention rs880 stopped working dpm with 3.14 kernel(drm-next)
when using radeon.dpm=1 then
OpenGL renderer string: Gallium 0.4 on llvmpipe

Please file a bug (https://bugs.freedesktop.org Product: DRI, Component: DRM/Radeon) and attach your xorg log and dmesg output.

[droidhacker]

I would hardly call the possibility that we may not be able to support UVD on a few older asics a lack of commitment to open source. We support just about every feature of the hw with the exception of UVD on a few older parts and even then we may be able to release older UVD support once the review is done. There are features on older asics that Intel has chosen not to support as well.

Though disappointing that the <=2.0 UVD isn't done, I agree. And the older UVD actually affects me. I have two machines with RS880 that would benefit from this.

[gradinaruvasile]

Well, it worked on my HD4000 laptop using MPlayer-vaapi.

The HD4000 series have UVD2 and that was the firtst generation supported by xvba and the OSS radeon too.

I never used xvba - only vaapi.

VAAPI uses an xvba backend on AMD cards and vdpau backend on nvidia, and something on Intel too, maybe Intel uses it directly?
The problem is that vaapi doesnt use xvba directly and cannot use it to its full potential performance wise (has much higher CPU usage) plus you get texture corruption etc with it. Using xvba directly (xbmc's FernetMenta branch can do it) is another matter, it runs much better.

[sotos4421]

Please file a bug (https://bugs.freedesktop.org Product: DRI, Component: DRM/Radeon) and attach your xorg log and dmesg output.

I do not ship it with today's update the dpm works again

[pchristy]

I would hardly call the possibility that we may not be able to support UVD on a few older asics a lack of commitment to open source. We support just about every feature of the hw with the exception of UVD on a few older parts and even then we may be able to release older UVD support once the review is done. There are features on older asics that Intel has chosen not to support as well.

ANY support - open source or not - would be welcome! And as for it being an "older part", I had only just bought it - in a newly released laptop - when support was withdrawn! Indeed, the laptop was so newly released that I had to hunt around to find anyone who had one in stock! I thought I was buying something that was "future proof" for a good few years! How much further wrong could I have been!

The hardware is absolutely perfect for my needs. I don't want a touch screen - this is for video work and I don't want grubby fingerprints all over the screen. I DO want HD video and HDMI support in a compact unit. The hardware is perfectly capable of this. Your software is not! At least, not in a stable, modern form. There is no software under windoze that meets my needs - and anyway, I have no wish to make the world's richest man even richer at my expense! Linux fits the bill perfectly. The only thing that doesn't is the AMD drivers - open-source or otherwise!

I'm sorry if I sound angry, but I definitely feel that I've been sold a pup. And as the old saying goes, "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me!"

--
Pete