Imagination Posts Original Driver Code For PowerVR Series 1 GPUs As Open-Source

[yoshi314]

i would assume they are moving forward from their oldest hardware. definitely more recent codebases might require much more legal screening prior to eventual release.

[libv]

This series is so old that I'm sure there's no practical relation between it and the architectures found in ARM chips. That would be like Nvidia releasing the source code for the Riva TNT and somehow using that to figure out how to make open source Ampere drivers (or really, any GPU Nvidia made within the past decade).

PCX is fixed function hardware. The SGX is the one that is still somewhat relevant for older arm SoCs is shader based, and it is the major generation before RGX or rogue, for which mesa code was released.

[ezst036]

i would assume they are moving forward from their oldest hardware. definitely more recent codebases might require much more legal screening prior to eventual release.

That's my thought or at least hope too.

If this is just a one-time code drop of fossilized hardware, it's not that big of a deal. But if it's followed by newer, and newer, and yet still newer code kind of like how AMD did it, until all of Imagination hardware is on open source, this is pretty amazing news.

[microcode]

LoL, better late than never I suppose.

Joking aside, seems like a fun thing to look at.

[mlau]

This is for retro hw only, 1996-1997 pci add in card, competing with the voodoo1/2, and rendition verite.

Could it work with the dreamcast graphics processor? It's also a very early PowerVR, right?

[CommunityMember]

Hell has frozen over!

More like Imagination Technologies is trying to pivot to new opportunities after Apple "modified" the very lucrative deal for their iPhone GPU tech when Apple decided to design their own GPU (although it certainly appears that some IP may still be being licensed based on how a lawsuit was settled).

[sinepgib]

Stuff that was licensed to 3rd parties is probably the hardest to FOSS it might require their approval.

Isn't generally the other way around? If you own the IP you can very well do whatever you want, it's when you're the licensee that you've got your hands tied, right?
Besides, I don't see Intel opposing, considering they seem to be the most open source friendly GPU manufacturer out there.

[CommunityMember]

Isn't generally the other way around?

As with all else, it can be complicated, as if you create/modify an IP core for a specific customer that customer may have some ownership rights to the modifications. Only the parties involved will know who owns what. And whenever two parties with (very expensive) lawyers have to agree on (re)licensing, things take time (a lot of time).

[crystall]

Could it work with the dreamcast graphics processor? It's also a very early PowerVR, right?

The Dreamcast used a Series 2 PowerVR so it's the generation right after this one. The homebrew Dreamcast scene has already mostly reverse engineered it.

[c117152]

As with all else, it can be complicated, as if you create/modify an IP core for a specific customer that customer may have some ownership rights to the modifications. Only the parties involved will know who owns what. And whenever two parties with (very expensive) lawyers have to agree on (re)licensing, things take time (a lot of time).

Yap. Hardware licensing are often cross-patenting and licensing affairs involving the customer and their customers making changes and improvements to both the hardware and software. Even worse, some licenses are extended between architectures instead of just finalizing and signing a completely new deal so you could be looking at decades worth of history... It's usually not so bad though since the lawyers make sure that every contribution is wavered when upstreamed... But sometimes, especially where graphics, video and DRM are concerned, there's exceptions.