Intel Releases 965/G35 IGP Documents

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Intel Releases 965/G35 IGP Documents

At the Linux.Conf.Au conference today, Intel has announced NDA-free programming documentation covering the 965 Express and G35 Express integrated graphics processors (IGPs). Intel's display driver has long been open-source, but up until now, they have not been releasing the programming documentation for these products to the public. This move comes months after AMD announced their new open-source strategy and began releasing register documentation on their R500 and R600 GPUs.

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=11765

[yoshi314]

one could say "two down, one to go" when speaking of those major video card companies ;-)

[remm]

I can already assert my next video card will not be an NVidia

[ivanovic]

Thank you AMD/ATI for making this possible. Without you opening the specs, this would probably never have happened...

Looks like this year might become another great year for open source. The success of the EeePC will increase Linux usage numbers in all the statistics (since those tend to mainly count "copies sold", which is generally not a way prefering open systems like linux and bsd). And those statistics might lead to more companies considering cross platform development.

[chrisr]

So how good is the i965 graphics chip?

Are we talking equivalent R200? R300? R400? Similarly for NVIDIA?

Which version of OpenGL can it support?

[val-gaav]

Thank you AMD/ATI for making this possible. Without you opening the specs, this would probably never have happened...

true ... but guys at AMD should really speed up this process, as intel right now is taking a lead (it has docs and good opened driver) ...
It would be really bad if radeonhd wasn't completed and Nvidia did something alike intel ... bad for AMD.

[moonboots]

I can already assert my next video card will not be an NVidia

Don't be too quick to count NVidia out, it depends wether they adapt to these changes or not. The ball is in NVidia's court ...

[Svartalf]

I can already assert my next video card will not be an NVidia

I will be...hesitant...to make that remark just yet.

Intel's still not QUITE credible for the high-end (Though they ARE getting closer to that...), and if you're honest about it, neither is AMD right at the moment. The future's bright for both parties- very bright. And if your plans are 6-12 months out for purchase, you can probably make that claim without worries or concerns. But if you're buying right now, you're buying to reward their show of faith, not buying something that'll be truly usable yet if you're gaming or doing 3D visualization work. The GMA X3500 shows some real promise of being usable on the low-end for that and light duty gaming. On paper the R600 rocks.

The reality, though, is that NVidia's kind of largely the only robust play on the mid-to-high end right now.

I don't exactly like that any more than anyone else here- but that's how it is. I'm keen on seeing what comes of the next 6-12 months on the front now that Intel's stepped up to the plate along with AMD. No good reason for NVidia to not do the same thing, to be honest. If only there were more good things showing on the fglrx driver story or there were some solid 3D answers in the open source solutions for AMD past R300/R400, then I'd be leaning the same way you are.

[val-gaav]

If only there were more good things showing on the fglrx driver story or there were some solid 3D answers in the open source solutions for AMD past R300/R400, then I'd be leaning the same way you are.

IMHO AMD should drop the development of fglrx for some time and focus on doc and code releasing. Last fglrx driver seems to be quite nice already so people shouldn't complain if they know that AMD for the time being is focusing on the docs and open drivers...

In the long run AMD should drop fglrx for good and just develop some blob module for open drivers for things that couldn't be opened like h.264 hardware decoding or other DRM things... It's a waste of resources to develop both open and closed drivers.

[Svartalf]

Are we talking equivalent R200? R300? R400? Similarly for NVIDIA?

Which version of OpenGL can it support?

According to Mesa's site, they're advertising 2.1 support where it's available and since the bulk of support isn't in the driver layer but in the API layer...

I'd be positive of 1.5 support, I'd suspect strongly of 2.1 support with provisos on what ARB extensions they advertise being available.