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Nouveau: X Render, RandR 1.2, FB, KMS Suspend Done

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  • Nouveau: X Render, RandR 1.2, FB, KMS Suspend Done

    Phoronix: Nouveau: X Render, RandR 1.2, FB, KMS Suspend Done

    A week ago we shared a status update on the Nouveau driver to clarify an earlier posting that the Nouveau driver is not dead. In the past few days though the Nouveau Wiki Feature Matrix was updated to reflect the latest changes in this open-source, third-party NVIDIA graphics driver. According to the feature matrix, RandR 1.2, NouveauFB, X Render, and Suspend in a KMS environment is now supported across the spectrum of NVIDIA GPUs that are implemented within this driver: the NV04/05, NV10, NV20, NV30, NV40, and NV50 series...

    Phoronix, Linux Hardware Reviews, Linux hardware benchmarks, Linux server benchmarks, Linux benchmarking, Desktop Linux, Linux performance, Open Source graphics, Linux How To, Ubuntu benchmarks, Ubuntu hardware, Phoronix Test Suite

  • #2
    AWESOME! just need the 3d textures now and dual link dvi for my desktop to convert to nouveau! My laptop just needs texture support. TV-out isn't that important if I can use dualhead to output to a HDTV!

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    • #3
      And I'm waiting for powersaving

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      • #4
        So would this mean that it will work on my old Nvidia FX 5600?
        Its powered by a old AMD Athlon XP 2600 and 1.5gb ram.

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        • #5
          Originally posted by DMJC View Post
          My laptop just needs texture support.
          and powersaving. I wouldn't try to run a laptop GPU without it. At best it gets noisy, at worst it'll overheat and get damaged (if your GPU is affected by the bumpgate defects).

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          • #6
            Nouveau is getting rapid improvements

            Originally posted by DMJC View Post
            AWESOME! just need the 3d textures now and dual link dvi for my desktop to convert to nouveau! My laptop just needs texture support. TV-out isn't that important if I can use dualhead to output to a HDTV!

            Red Hat's Ben Skeggs is working full time on the Nouveau driver and he is making rapid progress. Fedora 11 already has replaced Nv driver (Nvidia written obfuscated code) with Nouveau by default. In Fedora 12 (Beta coming up shortly), you will already see a lot more features. 3D support is work in progress but bound to happen soon. Patience!

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            • #7
              i wonder how they are going to pull it off without documentation from NVIDIA

              it took about a year to get to something usable with ATI cards and the devs had documents

              seems pointless

              i still cannot find any reason why someone should buy an Nvidia card if he wants to use only open source software

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              • #8
                Originally posted by 89c51 View Post
                i wonder how they are going to pull it off without documentation from NVIDIA

                it took about a year to get to something usable with ATI cards and the devs had documents

                seems pointless

                i still cannot find any reason why someone should buy an Nvidia card if he wants to use only open source software
                Yes, it took a year for AMD cards, but it has already taken much longer for nouveau and it still lags behind, So it is true that progress without documentation is slower, but it is still possible to do something without docs as was shown by nouveau team and previously by r300 reverse engineering project.

                Also, Gallium3D is easier to program for compared to classic Mesa so nouveau devs had some advantage here compared to r600 devs. C.f. r300g was started much later than nouveau, and it is almost finished.

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                • #9
                  Progress without documentation

                  Originally posted by 89c51 View Post
                  i wonder how they are going to pull it off without documentation from NVIDIA

                  it took about a year to get to something usable with ATI cards and the devs had documents

                  seems pointless

                  i still cannot find any reason why someone should buy an Nvidia card if he wants to use only open source software
                  When users buy hardware, they don't necessarily but it with Linux in mind. Also, Nouveau is already way more advanced that the Nv driver it replaces. To give you an idea of a similar thing, think about Pidgin. Pretty much all the protocols it supports has been reverse engineered without any documentation. Ideally you would only be using things like Jabber/XMPP but in the real world but support for all those proprietary protocols in Pidgin has of course enormously benefited us. So has support for proprietary protocol in Samba and a proprietary documentation format in OpenOffice.org. Nouveau is very similar. The combined support of Intel and ATI with documentation and code along with the pressure of a reverse engineered driver getting more and more features will hopefully get Nvidia to change their minds. There are many good examples of this. Java going GPL is a recent case.

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                  • #10
                    I just hope it'll support GeForce 8200 GPUs, like the one built into my motherboard, an Asus M3N78-VM. I use a RadeonHD 4550 with the latest git driver stack, but I'd be willing to try Nouveau if it supported my hardware.\

                    That was one reason why I bought the ATI card in the first place: xf86-video-ati never had issues with it. At the time I got the motherboard, Nouveau didn't support 8xxx chips at all, same for nv, and the binary nvidia-drivers were unusable, they ran so poorly. ATI saved the day.
                    Last edited by nightmorph; 19 October 2009, 12:54 AM.

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