AMD Releases 900+ Pages Of GPU Specs

[MrPeach]

Are these documents the complete specs that a programmer would need to implement good quality free drivers? Are they real? Do they work?

Can I really buy ATI hardware now and expect free drivers for it reasonably soon, or is there going to be a post in two weeks saying "ATI Specs Incomplete / Useless"?

The specs are incomplete/useless.

(at least as far as doing any VIVO or accelerated gfx is concerned - the best these specs will do is get an image on the VGA display. After that it's basically framebuf time.)

[yoshi314]

The specs are incomplete/useless.

almost everyone is missing the point.

these are just initial docs from ati/amd. more will follow. of course you can't expect to see avivo or tv-out or full 3d specifications explained in them, for obvious reasons.

[Michael]

These initial specs are useful at this point for the driver... Look at the recent Avivo activity with all of the changes attributed to the specs.

[libv]

Are these documents the complete specs that a programmer would need to implement good quality free drivers? Are they real? Do they work?

Can I really buy ATI hardware now and expect free drivers for it reasonably soon, or is there going to be a post in two weeks saying "ATI Specs Incomplete / Useless"?

These docs are not complete, even for those parts of driver development they should cover.

They are, however, and this is an important distinction to make, all that can currently be dragged out of ATI. You have to understand that this is completely new for a company like ATI, and that it is very non-trivial to get this documentation and get it approved for release.

They are also not overly useful on their own, a lot of what my colleagues and i have been doing is poking and guessing until it somewhat worked. We just have these bare register specs and no actual programming documentation like there used to exist in the 90s and earlier.

[djdoo]

Hmm...
Let's hope that they will not stay there for a long time and release soon some "hotter" info...

Maybe they just prepare the new package of info right now, or discussing what info this will include...

Who knows?... Maybe Michael??

But I certainly have a good feeling! If policy changed completely about the approach of the community by ATI-AMD I believe we will see more and soon.

I am really tired of those nvidia guys bragging all the time about their linux advantage empire (full of bugs see Composite, Suspend, not even XvMC works bugless)...

Jim

[chrisr]

Talking about the Avivo driver...

These initial specs are useful at this point for the driver... Look at the recent Avivo activity with all of the changes attributed to the specs.

I have just tested the latest avivo driver from git and it still has the "screen is corrupt after you close the lid and then reopen it" bug. (The laptop's screen powers down when the lid closes, of course. However, it doesn't seem to reinitialize correctly afterwards.)

[libv]

Hmm...
Let's hope that they will not stay there for a long time and release soon some "hotter" info...

Maybe they just prepare the new package of info right now, or discussing what info this will include...

Who knows?... Maybe Michael??

But I certainly have a good feeling! If policy changed completely about the approach of the community by ATI-AMD I believe we will see more and soon.

I am really tired of those nvidia guys bragging all the time about their linux advantage empire (full of bugs see Composite, Suspend, not even XvMC works bugless)...

Jim

Well, i hope that the next doc drop will means that the modesetting and basic driver information is at least complete. 2D accel and especially 3D accel aren't even being discussed yet.

[djdoo]

@Luc:

I got your point my friend...
I am sure you know better than me

Are you one of the people that develop that open driver said to be developed by Novell??

[libv]

@Luc:

Are you one of the people that develop that open driver said to be developed by Novell??

Yes, SUSE is the linux distribution and service provider that is a daughter company of Novell, and i am indeed one of the developers of this driver

[butdie]

I have just tested the latest avivo driver from git and it still has the "screen is corrupt after you close the lid and then reopen it" bug. (The laptop's screen powers down when the lid closes, of course. However, it doesn't seem to reinitialize correctly afterwards.)

I got the same bug also. I use Ctl-Alt-F6 Ctl-Alt-F7 to get screen back.

Another missing feature of the avivo driver is XVideo support for video play back. right now, I have to use mplayer -vo gl2, which is slow