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Digging Deeper Into AMD's UVD Code Drop

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  • Thats a really good point. In the Case of AMD's OSS driver, it won't function without the firmware, so the ability to redistribute it legally is essential. What exactly is AMD stance on distributing the firmware for their cards?

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    • Originally posted by Deathsimple View Post
      I don't see a reason why it shouldn't work out of the box.

      The currently only problematic generations are RS780/RS880 and RV770/RV790.

      Christian.
      :c It didn't work for me. I downloaded a patched sources from git://people.freedesktop.org/~deathsimple/linux , the uvd-3.9 branch and a the patches for mesa-9.2 from the mail list.
      I would report this but i don't know where. because of DRM think.
      some info just in case someone can help (please):
      dmesg > http://upl.io/lrq31h
      glxinfo > http://upl.io/gknd2j
      /usr/src/linux/.config > http://upl.io/h0r3u8
      vdpauinfo > http://upl.io/3rpmbp
      Xorg.0.log > http://upl.io/hssbd7

      and when i play a video with mplayer2 i get http://upl.io/k3u57z
      and from dmesg http://upl.io/652q1s

      pd: i'm so sorry if somebody got a headache because of my english

      Comment


      • Originally posted by duby229 View Post
        Thats a really good point. In the Case of AMD's OSS driver, it won't function without the firmware, so the ability to redistribute it legally is essential. What exactly is AMD stance on distributing the firmware for their cards?

        From http://people.freedesktop.org/~agd5f...LICENSE.radeon
        REDISTRIBUTION: Permission is hereby granted, free of any license fees,
        to any person obtaining a copy of this microcode (the "Software"), to
        install, reproduce, copy and distribute copies, in binary form only, of
        the Software and to permit persons to whom the Software is provided to
        do the same, provided that the following conditions are met:

        No reverse engineering, decompilation, or disassembly of this Software
        is permitted.

        Redistributions must reproduce the above copyright notice, this
        permission notice, and the following disclaimers and notices in the
        Software documentation and/or other materials provided with the
        Software.
        <snip extra-long version of the standard "Don't blame us!" disclaimer>
        So yes, you're free to distribute and use it. You have AMD's explicit permission.

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        • Originally posted by hfernando View Post
          :c It didn't work for me. I downloaded a patched sources from git://people.freedesktop.org/~deathsimple/linux , the uvd-3.9 branch and a the patches for mesa-9.2 from the mail list.
          I would report this but i don't know where. because of DRM think.
          Did you get the new firmware too?

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          • I have just read this passionate discussion about software, firmware and hardware, and concluded that an essential element is still missing in this SOFT <-> HARD war. A proper definition of what firmware truly is. For me, firmware is exactly the interface between the code and the machine. A layer translating software into hardware, and hardware into software. Nothing more, nothing less. It doesn't matter where it resides. It is NOT software AND it is NOT hardware. It is up to authorities like Richard Stallman to decide whether it should be "free" or not. However, it definitely is not software, so it should not be bound by same set of rules as software.

            In this scientific light I can see a way out of this conflict. If current "microcode blob" contains code that does not serve the soft <-> hard translation purpose then move it out. Do what you want with the rest of code. If a market segmentation is required, do it in hardware. If there are too many models of products to manage that - manufacture less models. I keep wondering, why corporations like AMD keep pushing out so many different products which differ only a bit. I believe THIS is a waste of R&D. Why not put out just 3 new models in each new line (best performance, cheapest, balanced) and update previous models to newest tech without changing basic parameters? How about this?

            In this discussion I am sure on two opinions:
            1. Post-production limitation of hardware is bad practice.
            2. Firmware is neither software nor hardware, it is a completely separate unit which ties software and hardware together.

            Comment


            • Originally posted by Hirager View Post
              I keep wondering, why corporations like AMD keep pushing out so many different products which differ only a bit. I believe THIS is a waste of R&D.
              We usually only offer two variants -- consumer and workstation -- and those differ primarily in the binary drivers (although clock speeds, testing, components etc.. are usually also different).

              The rest of the variety comes from our board partners who buy chips from us and design/build their own boards starting with a reference design from AMD.

              The discussion about limiting functionality in microcode is hypothetical, offered as a possible reason for having more concerns about RAM-based microcode than equivalent ROM-based microcode. It doesn't really apply to open source drivers anyways since vendors can't "force" a microcode update on users, but it might help to explain some of the instinctive dislike.
              Test signature

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              • Well the drivers are not really much different. Usually you can fake workstation hardware with a simple fglrx kernel module hack as the check is in the open source part. It does not give you more game performance, just workstation benchmarks like specviewperf run faster.

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                • Excuse me, gentlemen, for slight hijacking into the topic. This is real-world use case.
                  I am looking for a good used notebook, preferably IBM. So I found "as new" T60. It has Intel chip, so I hope for good stable open intel graphics.

                  One of them is T60p - p="professional" meaning more advanced graphics. Then I see - "Ati FireGL5200". I decided to ignore it, because I know - its crap.
                  But still, I googled a bit. Confirmation: "Welcome to a world of pain."

                  "Performance" my ***...

                  Another 200$ going into Intel for good opensource blob-free working driver.
                  Have a nice conversation, excuse me for interruption.

                  Comment


                  • Originally posted by Hirager View Post
                    However, it [firmware] definitely is not software, so it should not be bound by same set of rules as software.
                    Why? Care to explain?

                    Comment


                    • Originally posted by brosis View Post
                      Excuse me, gentlemen, for slight hijacking into the topic. This is real-world use case.
                      I am looking for a good used notebook, preferably IBM. So I found "as new" T60. It has Intel chip, so I hope for good stable open intel graphics.

                      One of them is T60p - p="professional" meaning more advanced graphics. Then I see - "Ati FireGL5200". I decided to ignore it, because I know - its crap.
                      But still, I googled a bit. Confirmation: "Welcome to a world of pain."

                      "Performance" my ***...

                      Another 200$ going into Intel for good opensource blob-free working driver.
                      Have a nice conversation, excuse me for interruption.
                      To be fair, that post you found is from 2.5 years ago, and the OSS drivers have improved immensely in the time sense then.

                      I would still probably recommend sticking with Intel in any laptop you buy, but I don't think you can really draw many, if any conclusions about the current driver based on what it was like 3 years ago.

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