Tweet
It would be a surprise if they really would work on major improvements and only maintan the old fglrx a little here and there. It seems like fglrx is supporting many features but they're all broken somewhere 
-
-
Originally posted by d2kx View Post
Interesting comment... The State of ATI Linux 2007 will be out later this week.Michael Larabel
https://www.michaellarabel.com/Comment
-
great! can't wait to read it!
thank you!
greetsComment
-
Did anyone notice the driver feedback formular from ATIs linux driver crew?
Comment
-
Originally posted by Huenengrab View Post
Yes, it's useless to fill out in 99% of the cases.Michael Larabel
https://www.michaellarabel.com/Comment
-
Basically, Matthew Tippet's bunch knows that there's problems, but because of manpower and other resource issues, there's little he can do to FIX the problems going on.Originally posted by Michael View PostComment
-
Let's cut the BS and understand the real reason drivers are so bad in linux land : Both Nvidia and Ati are afraid to let each other know anything about their hardware.
In a perfect world, Nvidia and Ati would just throw their hands down, and release all the information neccessary to write a fast and complete driver for their hardware, along with releasing as much of their driver's source as they can feasibly manage. (basically anything they have the right to release under the GPL.)
However, this would level the playing field between them, as both their driver teams could look at the best bits of code between them, and optimize their own drivers to the fullest. At that point, there'd be no BS, it would really be up to the hardware itself to determine who's got the best.
Neither company is willing to risk such a scenario, because when it comes down to it, neither one knows which hardware is the fastest in a truly optimized OpenGL context.
However, that aside, I really wish they'd take the John Carmack approach. Release as much as you can, fully, for hardware you're no longer selling. For Carmak it's always the last generation of game engine, but for Ati/Nvidia it'd probalby be closer to two gens back. So why not? The Radeon X800 and GeForce 6800 get opened drivers as perfect as the big two can manage them. With little to risk they could find out which of the two pieces of obsolete and no-longer-manufactured cards are faster. What's the danger involved? A purchase surge when one card wins out?
Oh, there would be a purchase surge all right, but not for customers who want the now-better-written-for cards. It'd be for Linux users who now see cards that are open source poster children. The 6xxx/Xxxx generations would be the new Radeon 8500 or Intel Card. And it'd go both ways, with people getting into Linux after hearing that their rig from 2004 will run that cool crap they saw in the Compiz/Beryl youtube vids out of the boox in Ubuntu 7.x/8.xLast edited by mukiex; 24 July 2007, 04:26 PM.Comment
-
i'd say linux kernel is changing too fast for developers to keep up. maybe.Both Nvidia and Ati are afraid to let each other know anything about their hardware.
well it's not really like that.The Radeon X800 and GeForce 6800 get opened drivers as perfect as the big two can manage them. With little to risk they could find out which of the two pieces of obsolete and no-longer-manufactured cards are faster. What's the danger involved? A purchase surge when one card wins out?
- they likely have 3rd party code in their drivers. it's not theirs. so they would have to strip it out on release, leaving the code messed up and not-functional,until somebody would write a replacement.
- their cards are not revolution but an evolution from a previous generation. they're still similar. that's why it was pretty easy to figure out R300 based on previous generation specs.
- their codebase sucks. it would be embarrassing to show it to public. well, just a guess :]Comment
-
Heh...
1) Both NVidia and ATI have a pretty good idea what the other is doing.
2) It has less to do with the kernel changing and more to do with lack of available resources in the case of ATI (NVidia's doing a damn good job of keeping up, right?)- this is not reflecting on the people that are doing the work, it's reflecting on the upper management.
3) They probably DO have a bit of third party code in the drivers; but not as much as they're implying.
4) They very likely think keeping this info is a competitive advantage, and must be protected like any other trade secret- blame the intellectual property attorneys for THAT particular lark.
5) You've got it dead-on as far as revolution/evolution goes. Techincally, anything R300 on is little more than a sophisticated in-parallel execution stream processing engine. Ditto the NVidia equivalent. It's all largely software, running on a stream processor now.
6) I'll refrain from commenting on commercial source codebases, especially those of device drivers...heh... I'd cut off a good part of my revenue source, I would...
Comment
-
That's pretty much right. There are a number of patents and other things also regarding opengl graphics acceleration. SGI owns stuff, they sold 'IP' to other companies (for example: Microsoft). There is some serious issues when it comes to texture compression and patents that are owned by S3.- they likely have 3rd party code in their drivers. it's not theirs. so they would have to strip it out on release, leaving the code messed up and not-functional,until somebody would write a replacement.
ATI and Nvidia almost certainly has code and licensing agreements with these companies, each other, and more.
That's why it's a waste of time to get them to open source their drivers. Convincing them to support open source driver developers is about the only way this is going to happen, not unless they start from scratch for driver development.. which wouldn't make much sense really since Mesa3D/DRI drivers are fairly modern. The latest Mesa release was in June and it supports OpenGL 2.1 and has it's own GLSL compiler among other things.
Still then due to patent issues Nvidia and ATI will never realy be able to give all the features.
Plus they have to deal with Microsoft. Microsoft has some nasty DRM requirements for hardware manufacturers to follow when it comes to getting proper Vista 64bit driver support.
- their cards are not revolution but an evolution from a previous generation. they're still similar. that's why it was pretty easy to figure out R300 based on previous generation specs.
Yes. Most people are unaware how little actual 'hardware acceleration' is going on.
Plus Nvidia and ATI have some VERY serious hardware design bugs. For people to all of a sudden realise how badly rushed-to-market these cards are it would have a detrimental effect. Especially if one company tends to have more buggier hardware then the other. It would be bad.
- their codebase sucks. it would be embarrassing to show it to public. well, just a guess :]
I've read occasionally X developers would get code from some big OEM to fix a bug with server hardware, which often has some sort of old ATI or Nvidia onboard card since server motherboards don't tend to have onboard graphics. Presumably this stuff originated from ATI/Nvidia. Invariably this code is very badly written and is specific to one or another model. In effect.. completely worthless for OSS drivers.
For something like this were everything is rushed to market and it's closed source there are going to be very ugly things going on. This is natural and normal in closed-source-land. It's just not ment to be looked at by 3rd party developers...
And there are several other possiblities...
* ATI/Nvidia are possibly using patents they own to license themselves a market share. Other 3rd party developers like XGI or S3 that try time to time to get into the market need access to these patented features in order to be compatable with newer games and such in Windows. ATI/Nvidia make sure that they don't get very good access to these patents and related code in order to avoid any threat to their market.
Santa Clara graphics-chip maker Nvidia has received a subpoena from the U.S. Department of Justice in connection with an investigation into possible antitrust violations related to graphics processing units and cards, the company said Friday.
Sunnyvale chip maker Advanced Micro Devices announced late Thursday that it had also been subpoenaed. AMD entered the graphics chip market when it acquired ATI Technologies in October.
No specific allegations have been made against either company, both of which said they plan to cooperate with the investigation.
Nvidia said its subpoena came from the San Francisco Office of the Justice Department's Antitrust Division.
Nvidia shares had fallen $1.02 to $35.97 as of 9:10 a.m.
This was last year. These things very rarely go to court. If they settled with another company this is all your going to hear about it. This is the sort of reality they operate in. They don't cooperate to make software like you do with Linux. You use 'IP' as weapons against competitors. Especially if your involved in a lawsuit or dispute it isn't the time to open up code.
* Another possibility is that ATI and NVidia violate IP laws themselves, or are at least scared that they do. Software patents are a mindfeild.. it's financially impossible to hire enough lawyers and pay enough licensing fees to make sure you don't violate somebody else's stuff.
It's very possible that ATI or Nvidia know or suspect that they violate other people's 'IP', but they can get away from it because it's obscured enough.
* Another possibility is that they have agreements with Microsoft or other companies that specificly forbid them from reveiling details about their hardware or source code.
Remember that both Nvidia and ATI produce video cards for Microsoft's Xbox. Although Microsoft is a software company they do have substantial hardware design experiance and probably have licensed their hardware and software to both companies.
It could be that Microsoft or somebody else has licensed them technology that specificly affect how the software _interacts_ with the hardware. That the softare-hardware interfaces are owned by somebody else. In this case it's very bad...
Or more then likely it's a combination above.
I feel the best we can hope for is for Nvidia and ATI to submit patches and some engineering expertise to already existing open source drivers. Expecting them to open up their own drivers just isn't something that is going to happen.
In this case ATI has the most to win because their existing drivers are very shitty. Nvidia's drivers, in comparison, are more advanced then either Mesa/DRI's or ATIs so going open source would be a setback.Comment
Comment