The X.Org Plans In Ubuntu 11.04, Again

[marek]

If the average end user can't decode video with it or play their shiny new OpenGl 3/4 game then we can't really expect them to report relevant bugs either.

There are some patent issues holding back OpenGL 3 development. Not to say that there would be an actual OpenGL 3/4 game for Linux... or is there?

[smitty3268]

There are some patent issues holding back OpenGL 3 development. Not to say that there would be an actual OpenGL 3/4 game for Linux... or is there?

Unigine requires GL3, their Oil Rush game was supposed to come this quarter although it could have been delayed. I believe the only thing they need to get working is that floating point stuff that's patented.

Valve games could potentially use it as well, i suppose, if the rumors about a Steam port ever come to pass. But I think Macs are still limited to GL2, right? So they probably wouldn't use more than that anyway.

[jakubo]

how about the free of root x server?
or did they finally drop it in favour of others doing the work and wayland in future?
kubuntu wouldnt use opengl3? i thought kde had some use for it
besides... could it be a political thing to force gallium to exert some pressure on intel devs to finally get hacking on gallium? i thought the i915 was supposed to be an example of a gallium driver....
if that works i guess it would be good.
11.04 alpha will be out on 2nd of dez... still some time to wait

[bridgman]

re: running X without root privileges, last I heard was that the output side was now OK with KMS, but that there were a couple of input-related issues which still needed root privileges. Don't remember the details though...

[TemplarGR]

There are some patent issues holding back OpenGL 3 development. Not to say that there would be an actual OpenGL 3/4 game for Linux... or is there?

You are wrong on this one. This is a catch-22(or whatever you english speakers call it) situation. For games and other applications to use OpenGL 3/4, there has to be support first. Of course there are the binary blobs, especially NVIDIA's(let's admit it, Catalyst sucks), but this is Linux we are talking about... Besides the fact that blobs aren't installed by default on most distros and some people don't want them anyway, they are an alien body for the rest of the ecosystem, no matter how well written, there will always be problematic in one way or another.

Except this, there is also Wine to consider. Wine could use newer OpenGL versions. KDE will need GL 3 soon. It is time to modernize this stack.

So we need it now. The question is, when we will be able to get it. Since you mentioned patent issues that hold back OpenGL 3, are there any news on this front? What could be a realistic timeframe to expect it for the end user?

[Ragas]

For what it's worth, we are planning to only implement acceleration support for Northern Islands and future GPU cores in the r600g code base. This is obviously only a minor point since the community could backport support to the classic driver, but I believe the development community is strongly committed to the r600g code base.

Does that mean all of the 6000 Series will be able to be run by the r600g driver?
Sweet this would mean almost instant open-source driver support.
If that is really true one of the 6900 Cards will be mine.

[TemplarGR]

Does that mean all of the 6000 Series will be able to be run by the r600g driver?
Sweet this would mean almost instant open-source driver support.
If that is really true one of the 6900 Cards will be mine.

Not a really bright idea...

What do you need a 6900 for? Heavy gaming? Use windows then.

If you are going to dual boot, then these news shouldn't influence your decision much. You could use Catalyst or an early form of 2D 6xxx support for your linux needs while its opensource support matures. You shouldn't concern yourself with 3d support, you won't really need it.

Also keep in mind that this beast should need proper powermanagement support, and i seriously doubt it will arrive that soon in the opensource drivers. My HD3870 still doesn't work with the dynpm option(meaning it doesn't lower its clocks and its fan at all), and my only option for keeping it quiet is the low power profile, which isn't exactly convenient...

There is a better option. If you have the money to spend on such a luxury and unneeded at the moment item(unless you game in 2560x1600 resolutions with all filters on), just create another machine. I am planning to do this. Creating a quiet machine for everyday work with Linux and a "console-pc" with windows for gaming. If you spend your cash on 6900, then it shouldn't be expensive for you...

[bridgman]

Does that mean all of the 6000 Series will be able to be run by the r600g driver? Sweet this would mean almost instant open-source driver support. If that is really true one of the 6900 Cards will be mine.

Using the r600g driver won't save much time over using classic, we still have to work out how to program the chip and make the appropriate driver changes for each chip in the family.

If we were writing a new driver from scratch, rather than building on the existing Evergreen support in r600g, then using the Gallium3D framework instead of the "classic" HW driver framework would save relatively more time.

[Ragas]

Not a really bright idea...

What do you need a 6900 for? Heavy gaming? Use windows then.

If you are going to dual boot, then these news shouldn't influence your decision much. You could use Catalyst or an early form of 2D 6xxx support for your linux needs while its opensource support matures. You shouldn't concern yourself with 3d support, you won't really need it.

Also keep in mind that this beast should need proper powermanagement support, and i seriously doubt it will arrive that soon in the opensource drivers. My HD3870 still doesn't work with the dynpm option(meaning it doesn't lower its clocks and its fan at all), and my only option for keeping it quiet is the low power profile, which isn't exactly convenient...

There is a better option. If you have the money to spend on such a luxury and unneeded at the moment item(unless you game in 2560x1600 resolutions with all filters on), just create another machine. I am planning to do this. Creating a quiet machine for everyday work with Linux and a "console-pc" with windows for gaming. If you spend your cash on 6900, then it shouldn't be expensive for you...

Actually it shouldn't concern you too much why exactly I want one.
Maybe I'm just a fu**** retard that wants one because I like it.

But open source 3D-support is essential since I want my compositing running. Actually I can use fglrx for that at first but on the long term the binary grapics drivers are a pain in the ass.

[Ragas]

Using the r600g driver won't save much time over using classic, we still have to work out how to program the chip and make the appropriate driver changes for each chip in the family.

If we were writing a new driver from scratch, rather than building on the existing Evergreen support in r600g, then using the Gallium3D framework instead of the "classic" HW driver framework would save relatively more time.

Thanks for the clarification. So I hope it won't take to long.