No, AMD Will Not Be Opening Up Its Firmware/Microcode

[starshipeleven]

With some effort WineHQ can run Windowz drivers like USB drivers.

did this change? https://www.winehq.org/pipermail/win...ay/056541.html

All I see is people hacking around and getting SOME devices to work because the device itself as recognized by linux has a similar enough interface to be recognized also by the "windows" system in wine.

Also a full GPU pass-through (ready technology) can be implemented to any program, not just Virtual Box and similar programs. I don't understand why you thoughts are so limited.

No duh you can go on the moon if you want too.
Point is that it's not easy, and in this case even outside of the scope. Wine isn't supposed to virtualize hardware nor emulate it, it's not full virtualization.

The only thing it does is translating software calls into other software calls so you can run *software* on a different OS.

[Adarion]

I could heat my house during winter with the flames of this thread... Or get some corn and pop it up closer to the flames, sit back and watch.

Either way, I understand that it isn't easy for AMD/ATI to open up everything just like that, and surely they have to obey "other markets" and restrictions that come from 3rd parties (content mafia and their wish to keep people from playing their correctly licensed content...) - but on the other hand I'll still hope that one day we may see a freedom replacement for the little blobs that still remain.

[starshipeleven]

(content mafia that still fails to keep people from playing pretty much any pirated content...)

fixed.
The DRM restrictions are mostly because the content providers have this weird retrograde belief that this stuff has any effect on protecting their content.

but on the other hand I'll still hope that one day AMD will produce hardware without closed blobs with RISC-V ISA.

fixed.
As that's the only thing that can realistically happen. Move all DRM management to shit you can keep closed to appease the idiots abovementioned and all the decoders and other stuff that people actually want to use stay fully open in a businness model where hardware design is open for all parties so "losing hardware IP and trade secrets" ceases to make sense.

[bridgman]

11. Remove DirectX 12 support from your drivers. Focus entirely on Vulkan instead. The world does not need yet another proprietary graphics API which only benefits Microsoft and forces consumers into buying/using Windows 10. Supporting DirectX 12 is only contributing to this. It is evil. AMD, please do good things instead.

You're really trying to get rid of us, aren't you ? No DX12 means no WHQL certification, which in turn means no sales into new systems other than Apple or Linux. Buh-bye.

Okay, good. So, are you going to arrange that to happen please? Will you do it?
May I ask what position you inherit at AMD? Are you able to pull this off?

I'm an architect in the SW engineering group, currently focusing on getting Linux driver development happening before we have silicon, ie getting them written and tested earlier using remote emulators rather than waiting for real chips. Also involved with other driver strategy & planning areas, and working on getting dGPU support for amdkfd upstreamed. Nothing to do with marketing although every couple of years I hunt down whoever is currently seeding hardware to review sites and work with them to get Phoronix back on the list.

No consumer likes DRM. Maybe let that sink in for a moment.

Nobody implements DRM because consumers like it - they implement it because the industry requires it. More specifically, content providers require it from OS vendors as the cost of licensing them the algorithms to decrypt DVDs & BluRay, and in turn OS vendors require it from OEMs.

If we don't implement the required DRM capabilities then our sales into new systems running any OS other than Linux drop to zero immediately and we effectively cease to exist as a GPU vendor. Let that sink in for a moment.

[pq1930562]

You're really trying to get rid of us, aren't you ?

No, just hoping to get rid of proprietary OSes and graphic APIs which are required to run pretty much any game.

Nothing to do with marketing

Can you forward it to marketing though?

they implement it because the industry requires it.

Yes, and manufacturers seem to be happy to fulfill their "needs". Wondering what would happen if manufacturers would show some balls...

Anyway, heres the next point:

12. Push harder on FreeSync. It's still not available on Linux. And it's still not available in TVs.

Gaming is not just limited to small monitors. Gaming is also happening on TVs. About time FreeSync becomes also available for big TVs.

Maybe you could even enable FreeSync for PlayStation and Xbox (they are using AMD Radeon technology after all) to push it even harder.

[starshipeleven]

No, just hoping to get rid of proprietary OSes and graphic APIs which are required to run pretty much any game.

That would just give the lion share to NVIDIA, dumbass. What you think most people on Windows will do?

If you want to kill a graphics API you need to make something better and outcompete it. For Windows you just need to wait as MS is doing a pretty good job at killing it on their own.

Yes, and manufacturers seem to be happy to fulfill their "needs". Wondering what would happen if manufacturers would show some balls...

That they don't sell, and bankrupt shortly thereafter.

[bridgman]

Problem is that pretty much all of your suggestions result in us going away, at least as a GPU vendor. Maybe that would be enough to prompt some kind of change but probably not... more likely outcome would be the remaining vendors thinking "we're not going there in case what happened to AMD happens to us".

AFAIK we have been the only vendor willing to even speak out against mandatory DRM, and I haven't seen any signs that is changing.

Freesync on Linux is happening if you follow the news... should hit one of the upcoming hybrid releases first. We have been pushing hard on that for the better part of a year now.

[bridgman]

Yes, and manufacturers seem to be happy to fulfill their "needs". Wondering what would happen if manufacturers would show some balls...

Remember that manufacturers are publicly owned and are expected to do what the majority of shareholders want. That generally does not include getting involved in high risk fights for what would be primarily an idealogical gain.

If you want to see change, make some proposals that show clear and substantial shareholder benefit if successfully implemented.

[pq1930562]

dumbass.

Michael :

Is there any way to report a post? Don't see a button for it.

What you think most people on Windows will do?

They'd happily replace it with Ubuntu probably (considering gaming developers go along and also release games exclusively for Linux and for Vulkan only and so on).

If you want to kill a graphics API you need to make something better and outcompete it.

There's Vulkan. But Microsoft still made DX12, and developers are already starting to use it...

For Windows you just need to wait as MS is doing a pretty good job at killing it on their own.

It doesn't matter. As long as any major PC game is coming out exclusively for Windows 10 and as long as Windows 10 gaming performance stays much superior compared to Linux, people will happily use Windows.

And that closes the circle. As long as users are using Windows, Adobe probably sees no reason to release Photoshop for Linux and so on and so on and so on...

We have been pushing hard on that for the better part of a year now.

Yet there's still no TV screen available that supports it... unfortunately...

Oh, and another point:

13. Release the Qt Radeon Settings for Linux ASAP. How a open-source dedicated GPU manufacturer can develop a Qt based graphics control panel and then only release it on Windows is beyond me. It should have been released on Linux first, not the other way around.

Don't think that would result in you going away.

[Luke]

One question is this: is the firmware even written in a medium to higher level language a C programmer could understand, or is the language used something closer to assembly? To understand a disassembled binary one must understand the instruction set of the device it runs on. The assembly from which it is made might be considered a source code in the literal sense but without the instruction set tells you nothing.

As I've said before, from my perspective its auditablity and trust that are the concerns. If the firmware itself comes from a source the user trusts (as in can the US military trust AMD or Intel not to have a single worker who also works for Daesh), then it's a matter of downloading it once, verifying a signature by hand (as with Trobrowser), and dropping it something that can be made read-only like an SD card with the slide switch to load it from. Repeat if the firmware turns out to have a performance-affecting problem, like you could have done if the Pentium math bug had been on a firmware and not hard-wired.

If the vendor is too big to trust every employee, than one or two GPUs could be produced with opened firmware that could be subject to audit by mutually opposing parties. This would show the firmware not the be the source of any backdoors but might not be very useful if the hardware cannot also be audited. The NSA gets around this by simply fabbing their own chips when it really matters. I