AMD Creates Radeon Technologies Group To Focus On Graphics

[Kano]

Maybe it helps to focus AMD on the GFX part. GF seems to have problems with 14 nm - Zen will take longer. Would be interesting to see if the 2nd generation of HBM from AMD will beat Nvidia's first try..

[bug77]

Maybe it helps to focus AMD on the GFX part. GF seems to have problems with 14 nm - Zen will take longer. Would be interesting to see if the 2nd generation of HBM from AMD will beat Nvidia's first try..

Yup, I'm pretty sure AMD knows best what works for them. We're just commenting here based on bits and pieces we know from the press, but they do have the whole picture.

[Slartifartblast]

Anyhow, I see no reason to focus either on Windows or proprietary drivers here. This is a Linux website, after all. We should focus on open source software and participate as much as we can if we're unhappy with the current state of things.

Let's deal with a couple of those points:

1) There are probably NDA agreements with Microsoft and other parties regarding drivers so that's why FOSS get saddled with a firmware + some opensource code drivers which are always miles behind feature wise and always will be because it still requires the whim of the manufacturer to supply that firmware and documents.

2) AMD dropped Xorg support like a stone for HD4000 only a couple of years or so from releasing the HD4000 and the FOSS drivers were a sorry sack of sh1te at the time.

3) The Linux graphics stack is a fragmented nightmare to support.

[bridgman]

1) There are probably NDA agreements with Microsoft and other parties regarding drivers so that's why FOSS get saddled with a firmware + some opensource code drivers which are always miles behind feature wise and always will be because it still requires the whim of the manufacturer to supply that firmware and documents.

The only obligation to Microsoft and other OS vendors is not including their NDA driver development kit IP or derivatives in our open source drivers, but that pretty much requires that we have a separate code base for OSS drivers. We can ship code-shared drivers in binary form, which is why you see "Hybrid Pro" as well as "All-Open" in our driver roadmaps.

2) AMD dropped Xorg support like a stone for HD4000 only a couple of years or so from releasing the HD4000 and the FOSS drivers were a sorry sack of sh1te at the time.

Yeah, drivers are code shared across multiple OSes so unfortunately when decision to drop support for the OS with ~90% of market share happens (which is relatively easy because that OS has a stable driver ABI) the other OSes (which may not have stable driver ABIs) have to go along for the ride whether they like it or not.

Things would be easier if Linux had 90% of the market or at least had equivalent ABI stability to Windows, but unfortunately neither are true. On the other hand I think it is fair to say that the OSS drivers caught up fairly quickly after Catalyst Linux support was dropped.

[duby229]

The only obligation to Microsoft and other OS vendors is not including their NDA driver development kit IP or derivatives in our open source drivers, but that pretty much requires that we have a separate code base for OSS drivers. We can ship code-shared drivers in binary form, which is why you see "Hybrid Pro" as well as "All-Open" in our driver roadmaps.



Yeah, drivers are code shared across multiple OSes so unfortunately when decision to drop support for the OS with ~90% of market share happens (which is relatively easy because that OS has a stable driver ABI) the other OSes (which may not have stable driver ABIs) have to go along for the ride whether they like it or not.

Things would be easier if Linux had 90% of the market or at least had equivalent ABI stability to Windows, but unfortunately neither are true. On the other hand I think it is fair to say that the OSS drivers caught up fairly quickly after Catalyst Linux support was dropped.

Yeah, I have to agree about the stable driver interface. I don't think it should never change, but I do thin it should be version controlled at major revisions.