The Truth About AMD's Development Cycle

[cornelius]

Any updates on the slides Michael?

[emparq]

Just because they've redesigned them doesn't make for better drivers for us. We might get better drivers. We might not. To presume that they're going to be better because they re-worked them is setting yourself up for disappointment.

While I agree that being overly optimistic about anything can lead to disappointment, why would you doubt that these drivers (when and if they ever get released), wouldn't be 'better' at least in some regard (performance, stability, or added features)?

Development time costs money, and AMD/ATI wouldn't be allocating developer-hours to completely re-work an underlying subsystem of their drivers just to realize no improvement on any front. What would be the point in that?

At the very least, one would have to expect that with these new drivers, a brighter path towards higher performance, more features, or less instability problems would emerge.

[Svartalf]

I think that they can't help being better drivers by default. It's pretty evident that the entire architecture the original drivers are based on is completely outdated. There has been zero performance increases in how many releases now.. 10? No AIGLX support.. it most likely can't be supported with the drivers in their current state

Just because they've redesigned them doesn't make for better drivers for us. We might get better drivers. We might not. To presume that they're going to be better because they re-worked them is setting yourself up for disappointment.

[DarkFoss]

I think that they can't help being better drivers by default. It's pretty evident that the entire architecture the original drivers are based on is completely outdated. There has been zero performance increases in how many releases now.. 10? No AIGLX support.. it most likely can't be supported with the drivers in their current state
They remind me of ATI's Windows drivers pre-catalyst.. Cobbling on support for newer cards any improvement(s) seemed to break other parts of the drivers. They best drivers came from Cyborg and Omega mixing previous and leaked beta's rather than ATI's Official releases. All that changed with Catalyst.. I'm hopeful that it will be the same way for their Linux drivers once the new architecture is implemented.

I'm also looking forward to the day that I can participate in a thank you thread for the Linux Catalyst Drivers like there is for Windows. Right now it must be kind of discouraging to MTippett and the rest
of AMD's Linux staff, to work on the releases and see very few positive responses.. I'm sure it's hard work just keeping these functional.

[Svartalf]

Looking forward to both the article and better ATI drivers.

I'm looking forward to the article. Better drivers? Maybe. Maybe not. With all that's went on, I'm going to sit on the fence on that one- I'll believe it when I see it and it may be a while yet before we do.

[yoshi314]

it looks that everything going through "internal process to get authorization" takes the same amount of time (thinks about airlied's r500 driver proposal)

[DrCR]

Looking forward to both the article and better ATI drivers.

[emparq]

Good to hear. Thanks!

[Michael]

Hi Michael,

Any updates from AMD on when they'll release those slides? Did they push back another month?

The slides are now completed and they are now going through the internal processes to get authorization so that Phoronix can publicly write about it. I hope it will all be ready shortly.

[emparq]

Hi Michael,

Any updates from AMD on when they'll release those slides? Did they push back another month?