ATI reps - Let's have an update on the HD5850 open sources status

[linux5850]

To ATI reps,

Let's have an update on the HD5850 open sources status. Is the specs and docs still on schedule?

And more importantly will we, the open source community, get all the info we need to enable us to use the absolute full capabilities of our 5850 cards?

In other words will we be get all the info needed to control and program every minutest detail of our cards (except for Digital Restrictions Manager UVD crap)?

I stated the question that way so that there's no misunderstanding if we're getting full specs to potentiality create an open source driver that surpasses either windows or proprietary closed source drivers.

[bridgman]

Relative to the update I gave a few days ago ? Not much has changed...

Relative to the initial estimates we made in late 2009, I would say progress is running ~2 months behind those initial estimates. We are roughly where I expected we would be in June.

I don't think there has ever been a plan to get you "all the info needed to control and program every minutest detail of your cards", but if you are actually part of the open source driver development community then you know that there's probably at least a community-year of work required to take full advantage of the level of information that has been released already, and that based on past experience by then we will probably have released more information.

The model is "enough information to write drivers with high functionality and high performance" not "all the information". There are blocks all over a modern GPU which relate to DRM in various ways, and we need to sanitize the information for all of those blocks before release.

If the question is "will you get enough information to potentially create an open source driver that surpasses either windows or proprietary closed source drivers (presume you mean "windows or linux ?" I think the answer is yes, but that is not the same as "all the information".

EDIT - I probably should mention that the community goal is probably better stated as "making useful, maintainable open source drivers which meet the needs of most users", a task which is perhaps 1/10th the effort required for "creating an open source driver that surpasses either windows or proprietary closed source drivers". The open source drivers are *already* better than the proprietary drivers in certain ways (video playback, for example), but (a) the proprietary drivers will continue to improve as well, and (b) there are some aspects to the driver (high performance OpenGL, mostly) where a *big* driver development team is hard to beat

[rohcQaH]

Evergreen DRI and KMS support is already included in recent kernels.

Userspace drivers are expected "Q3 2010", which would be within the next ~6 weeks.

The userspace drivers are currently undergoing legal review, which is a requirement for full documentation. They need to determine what information is needed to write a driver, then check if all of that can be released.

There's quite a bit of documentation already here.

The "full capabilities" of your 5xxx card? They only commited to specs needed for gfx drivers.
For one, assume that the video decode part cannot be opened for legal reasons (DRM). The official word sounds like "If we're able to open UVD, we'll tell you. Until then, stop asking!"
I don't know if the released documentation will be sufficient for openCL support. The last information I heard was that AMD hadn't discussed opening hardware specs for openCL support yet.
Given that they're busy finishing evergreen, then preparing for fusion, I wouldn't expect that to change soon. But AFAIK openCL support in gallium isn't usable yet, anyway.


...and bridgman ninja'd me. Hi bridgman!

[bridgman]

The official word sounds like "If we're able to open UVD, we'll tell you. Until then, stop asking!"

Yeah, that sums it up very well.

I don't know if the released documentation will be sufficient for openCL support. The last information I heard was that AMD hadn't discussed opening hardware specs for openCL support yet. Given that they're busy finishing evergreen, then preparing for fusion, I wouldn't expect that to change soon. But AFAIK openCL support in gallium isn't usable yet, anyway.

We had an internal discussion a few days ago and decided that we would try to support compute in open source drivers, resources permitting.

...and bridgman ninja'd me. Hi bridgman!

Hey... it's what I do

[linux5850]

[QUOTE=bridgman;143057]Sorry haven't read any update from a few days ago and thanks for the quick reply.

Perhaps I should have stated the question this way:
The HD5850 card is advertised as having certain capabilities like DX11 and Opengl 4.0. Will we get the specs to take full advantage of those capabilities?

I don't think getting the specs to be able to use all the DX11 and OpenGL capable features in the card is under DRM restrictions or am I wrong? Otherwise the whole hardware is a DRM restrictions nightmare.

P.S. The open source drivers regarding the 5850 Evergreen cards do not do video scaling well. I assume that's cause some details haven't been released to enable offloading of some functions to the card.

[linux5850]

The "full capabilities" of your 5xxx card? They only commited to specs needed for gfx drivers.
For one, assume that the video decode part cannot be opened for legal reasons (DRM). The official word sounds like "If we're able to open UVD, we'll tell you. Until then, stop asking!"

If you read my original post I specifically excluded the UVD DRM stuff. Not interested in MPAA DRM restrictions.

[bridgman]

Sorry haven't read any update from a few days ago and thanks for the quick reply.

I started looking for the last post but there are just too many threads going on. In a nutshell the status is that 2D and 3D acceleration are both working (albeit with bugs) in isolation, that we are seeing random lockups when 2D and 3D are used together, and that Alex and Richard are working together to find the problem.

We have been through a couple of passes of IP review and I think we are down to a fairly short list of things that need to be taken out before we can release the current code.

Perhaps I should have stated the question this way:
The HD5850 card is advertised as having certain capabilities like DX11 and Opengl 4.0. Will we get the specs to take full advantage of those capabilities?

I don't think getting the specs to be able to use all the DX11 and OpenGL capable features in the card is under DRM restrictions or am I wrong? Otherwise the whole hardware is a DRM restrictions nightmare.

I don't expect there will be any problems releasing the info required for a GL 4.0 implementation other than the known issues discussed here :

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=NzU3Nw

P.S. The open source drivers regarding the 5850 Evergreen cards do not do video scaling well. I assume that's cause some details haven't been released to enable offloading of some functions to the card.

I think the issue there is that you simply don't have hardware acceleration of *any* functions yet, including video scaling. The first code release should take care of that.

Right now the released code includes kernel and user modesetting, shadowfb acceleration, and the kernel driver portion of the hardware acceleration code. The userspace driver portions (ddx, Mesa HW driver) are in IP review now.

[agd5f]

The HD5850 card is advertised as having certain capabilities like DX11 and Opengl 4.0. Will we get the specs to take full advantage of those capabilities?

You should be able to, although no one has implemented this in any open source drivers yet, so if we miss anything, we'll release it as needed.

P.S. The open source drivers regarding the 5850 Evergreen cards do not do video scaling well. I assume that's cause some details haven't been released to enable offloading of some functions to the card.

The open source drivers don't support acceleration at all at the moment on evergreen (HD5xxx) cards. This will change when we release the accel code.

[Blacksmith]

Many thanks for the info, most helpful.

[Panix]

So, what's the plan for 2D features, then? No timetable or planned implementation date?

2D Features
DRI2
2D Acceleration (EXA)
Xv
Video Decode - XvMC etc.
UVD