Initial R6xx/R7xx 3D Driver

[rohcQaH]

just curious: is someone allowed to tell me if this implementation will work with the RV740 when it's released? It's still 7xx, but you never know..

Those RV740 previews just look too good to not buy one soon, but I'd like to have working drivers before buying

[monraaf]

Are you sure you have the right drm ?

Yes I'm pretty sure. I only have 2 drms, the one shipped with Jaunty and the one I cloned from agd5f's repository.

$ git branch
  r345-cleanup
* r6xx-r7xx-3d

If I don't install the drm from agd5f's repository and use the one shipped with Jaunty and run glxgears the system doesn't hang and my dmesg gets spammed with:

[drm:radeon_cp_cmdbuf] *ERROR* bad cmd_type 0 at f050c000

If I do install and use the drm from agd5f's repository and run glxgears the system just hangs.

Finally, the code has only really been run on developer machines, ie we haven't done the "put card A in, test, fix, put card B in, test, fix, put card A back in, test, curse, fix the previous fix, put card B back in, test, put card C in, test, fix, put card D in, test, wow it works, put card E in, test, fix..." dance yet.

Oke, I'm using radeon HD 3200 (IGP)

[nanonyme]

just curious: is someone allowed to tell me if this implementation will work with the RV740 when it's released? It's still 7xx, but you never know..

Those RV740 previews just look too good to not buy one soon, but I'd like to have working drivers before buying

It will work with RV740 at least eventually, yes. It's just that no one yet knows exactly when you can expect reasonable functionality from it. Also as bridgman mentioned, developers haven't done extensive card testing with the code yet so it can't be guaranteed to work with all cards in the series. As said, this is only initial code and won't probably be of much use to end users yet except as a reminder (to me and other end users) that the developers are making progress. Most of the significance is that what exists is no longer behind closed doors.
In a nutshell this probably shouldn't influence purchase decisions if you expect to get something now. If you are fine with the fact that you have to wait before getting 3D out of the card and even then it will probably not be as powerful as the proprietary ones but mostly compares to the open drivers for the older cards, then it's fine. Those waiting for the performant drivers (read: with modern games) would be waiting for Gallium+LLVM, not this classic Mesa driver. :3

[tball]

Wau this is good news.
I wonder if it is the trouble worth trying it yet?

[Vighy]

nice, but I won't have a look at it, until it enters a branch like mesa/drm r6xx-r7xx-support don't know why, but it feels more "stable", at least the API

[rohcQaH]

It will work with RV740 at least eventually, yes.

yeah, "eventually" every card is going to be supported. Just wondering if the RV740 has some architectural changes that need lots of additional work, or if it can be driven by the existing code with slight modifications. In other words: will RV740 owners wait longer for 3D support than RV730 owners?

I've been waiting to ditch my 7600 GT for quite a while now. As soon as there's an ATI driver which allows 2 monitors, fast 2D, composite (kwin) and Diablo2 on wine (openGL), I'll buy. And since John and Michael keep talking about every tiny step that's been done, it's difficult to not get constantly excited

[nanonyme]

yeah, "eventually" every card is going to be supported. Just wondering if the RV740 has some architectural changes that need lots of additional work, or if it can be driven by the existing code with slight modifications. In other words: will RV740 owners wait longer for 3D support than RV730 owners?

Afaik there shouldn't be any architecture changes of consequence within r6xx-r7xx but bridgman might want to give a more authoritative answer on that. I unfortunately can't give any definitive data on about anything since most I do is listen to what other people have told about the current state; the information you seek is probably in the specifications AMD has published.
ps. I think this is legal-wise a significant step if not for any other reason.

[Michael]

Sorry about the delay. The news story is posted now.... I had written it up in advance, but when hospitalized it did not work out so well for posting the story

[Pfanne]

Sorry about the delay. The news story is posted now.... I had written it up in advance, but when hospitalized it did not work out so well for posting the story

sorry to hear that.
get well soon!

[Vighy]

Sorry about the delay. The news story is posted now.... I had written it up in advance, but when hospitalized it did not work out so well for posting the story

hospitalized? why? what happened?
Hope you'll be back soon and stronger