S3 Graphics Releases Linux Driver With OpenGL 3.0, VA-API

[deanjo]

So they lied. Nvidia drivers replace much of X, so I don't think they were/are waiting for FOSS.

No because they do support OGL3.

[deanjo]

Thats the problem though, due o the windows monoculture all other cpu archs have gone under, even the last holdout in the consumer market, Apple with the IBM Power4 derived G5 gave up and went to x86. The only place you're seeing other archs these days in the consumer market is in stand alone devices like game consoles like the Cell in the PS3.

Nviida already has the ARM based Tegra platform http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nvidia_Tegra but you won be seeing that powring anything more powerful then your next cellphone.

As far as my stated 5 year mark, yes, that is an eternity in tech years, but with curent trends the CPU is becomming less and less important, while the GPU is becoming more and more essential. I do't see why the couldn't though have a version of the Nano die shrunk between 55-45nm and at least dual core running 2.5Ghz within a year, which would at least get them in the door at the low end with the Pentium dual core a few of the low end C2Ds and the AMD X2 line. The would be able to hold onto their gpu position for a while as well to remain profitable while they claw their way up. The real challenge though is if they can get it into the OEMs, nvidia has had little trouble getting their GPUs and chipsets into the OEMs for the last few years, I've seen more of them recently there then I've seen Intel GPUs and AMD gpus when poking around the laptops at the local worst buy.

But seriously you don' think t'd take close to 5 years for them to get a cpu that would be within a few flops oft the best that AMD and Intel have to offer at the time? By then we'll be up to 12-16 core CPUs pushing something close to 4.5Ghz a core. It's not something anyone could build over night.

Maybe someday soon we'll get multicore multicore cpus that will have several different archs running oon the same die ith some level of interpreter that decides what arch to execute what code fore some truly amazing cpu power. But alas, I think the difficulty of making such a cpu will leave it an infeasible pipedream...

No matter what it's an uphll battle for both nVidia and VIA since its now much harder to pull out an antitrust on Intel for monopolistic practices since AMD bought ATI. The only thing we can hope is that AMD has something up their sleeve to retake the cpu market and maybe a new chipset that can give us at least 4x16xPCIe slots, or even better, a 7x16xPCIe chipset with 2x CPU sockets, anything to get them more market space ahead of Intel. Just think if you could get a 14 way crossfire mobo with 2x 4-4.5Ghz OCd quads and 12Gb of tri channel DDR3. Sure theres no real reason for it, but it would get AMD more much neded advertising all over the web on various tch forums and it'd allow them to just brute force games like Crysis Warhead into actually running lol.

If via has a history of anything it's making crappy chipsets and buying once competitive companies for their tech and then totally fscking them up. *cough*S3*cough* *cough*IC Ensemble*Cough*, *cough* Cyrix *cough*

[kraftman]

No because they do support OGL3.

As someone mentioned before they don't fully support OGL3.

[Zhick]

lol.. as if highend has anything to do with it..

Actually it quite clearly has. Their GPUs are obviously not competing with AMD/nVidia performance-wise. So they don't have to be afraid to lose some kind of super-duper-special-secret-technology which gives them maybe 2-3 FPS in current games by opening up their driver.
What they are competing in (or would like to be competing in) is features, like video-acceleration, 2d and OGL3. Things that would actualy be easier to implement by integrating into the X Framework and opening up the driver (not to mention x86_64 and current Xorg and Kernel support).
Still there is the issue of DRM which seems to make it impossible to simply open up the closed-drivers (same for AMD/ATi).

[Duo Maxwell]

Actually they do have allot to lose, they still have technologies that they are licensing to their competitors, as well as have several technologies that they are licensing themselves. It would cost them allot in legal-fu to do what AMD are doing to have devs and lawyers go over all of their driver code to release it. Not everyone does things with the intention of ever releasing the docs, let alone have most of their code easily readable by anyone other then the devs that wrote said code. Remember this is VIA/S3 they aren't very profitable as it is...

It'd be interesting to see if bridgeman could get us some number on how much it's actually cost AMD to release all of the docs they've done so far., including dev time and pay, and lawyer time and pay.

As for VIA's history of failing at technology, who says vIA stays the one in control? Nvidia already had the GPU and chipset down already, all they need VIA for is VIA's x86 license, call the new company nVIAdia if you like, they could easily then work on what they already do best while trying to hammer out a CPU to go with their chipset and GPU. You also forget that the massive amount of patents that nVidia and VIA have accumulated over the years, they could, possibly with a little help from AMD, start to lean on Intel till they can get their CPU tech on it's feet.

Remember, the only real competitions thats going to matter for all of them is Intel, they're the 800Lb gorilla in the room that is within a stones throw of being the only game in town. When your only choice for new hardware is one company you can bet that the prices are going to be far and away more for what you're getting then if there was some competition. Theres no way that the Chinese knockoff cpu would be allowed in the US or most EU nations, I forget the name of it, it was a few years ago, but I do remember that someone got one and benched it and it was slower then a P2 or something like that...

[Redeeman]

Actually it quite clearly has. Their GPUs are obviously not competing with AMD/nVidia performance-wise. So they don't have to be afraid to lose some kind of super-duper-special-secret-technology which gives them maybe 2-3 FPS in current games by opening up their driver.
What they are competing in (or would like to be competing in) is features, like video-acceleration, 2d and OGL3. Things that would actualy be easier to implement by integrating into the X Framework and opening up the driver (not to mention x86_64 and current Xorg and Kernel support).
Still there is the issue of DRM which seems to make it impossible to simply open up the closed-drivers (same for AMD/ATi).

those excuses are null and void.. the only reason not to make open drivers is if you either violate others patents, or have inferior stuff.. The simple fact is, they dont want to do opensource.

[Veerappan]

those excuses are null and void.. the only reason not to make open drivers is if you either violate others patents, or have inferior stuff.. The simple fact is, they dont want to do opensource.

Not quite. If you happen to have licensed IP from another company, opening up your drivers with the licensed code intact will probably end up violating the patent licensing agreement you have in place, making you the target of a shiny new lawsuit.

I'm not saying that S3 couldn't be doing an open source driver, or that they shouldn't, but the amount of work necessary for them to create a closed driver (and not have to remove all the proprietary/licensed IP) was probably much less than creating a new open source driver from scratch with no licensed/proprietary IP.

Of course if they're claiming that their driver is licensed under the GPL, I'd hope to see source code real soon now, or someone else will probably be filing suit against them.

[Chrome-Center]

I've just tested the driver with Chrome 430 GT: It's faster than Windows with Nexuiz 2.4.2!!

http://www.chrome-center.net/index.php/en/articles/211-driver-comparison-linux-vs-vista-chrome-400500-series