Gernlinden, Gaming, OpenCL, & OpenGL 3.2

This week at Phoronix began by learning that Compiz is now running on ATI R600/700 GPUs when using the latest open-source Mesa / DRM stack. Owners of ATI Radeon HD 2000/3000/4000 series graphics cards are now just a step away from finding "out of the box" open-source 3D acceleration support. On that same day there was also the release of the OpenGL 3.2 specification, but that didn't come as a surprise.

A day later there was more news from AMD and Linux and that was enabling RS880/785 acceleration support on the same day as the launch of this new Radeon HD 4100/4200 IGP. AMD also released an OpenCL SDK for x86 CPUs. AMD ended out their week by publishing new documentation concerning their newer motherboard chipsets. We also reviewed the AMD FirePro V8750 2GB workstation graphics card.

On the opposite side of the field, NVIDIA introduced a Linux compatible ray-tracing engine and it was found that Intel will not provide a Poulsbo driver for Ubuntu 9.10. In the Ubuntu world it was also determined that Ubuntu 9.10 will not ship with X Server 1.7 due to the untimely delays.

This week we exclusively learned from Epic Games that the Linux client for Unreal Tournament 3, a game that was released for the PC nearly two years ago, is slowly being worked on but without any ETA. We also learned about the state of Gallium3D with regards to its state trackers and drivers. In other open-source news, KDE 4.3.0 was released along with Wine 1.1.27.

On Tuesday we also released version 2.0 Sandtorg of the Phoronix Test Suite. This update to our open-source testing software brought over 100 test profiles, many new testing features, and many other features. Phoronix Test Suite 2.0 was also released with PTS Desktop Live 2009.3, which is our own Linux distribution designed for automated benchmarking from a live Linux DVD/USB device. Go give both of them a try! Also check out the results from others on Phoronix Global.

If you are looking to celebrate the release of Phoronix Test Suite 2.0, all of the AMD news this week, or are just looking to enjoy the weekend, why not have a beer? If you do, consider trying out the Be Open Bottle Opener. This is a very innovative and easy-to-use bottle opener for your soda or beer, but not quite as fun as using computers to open beer. The crew at Foodstruments (another property of ours) also reviewed a corn zipper, adjust-a-cup, and bagel guillotine.