NVIDIA 304.30 Supports FXAA, X Server 1.13, K10

[phoronix]

Phoronix: NVIDIA 304.30 Supports FXAA, X Server 1.13, K10

The NVIDIA 304.30 Linux graphics driver is available this Monday afternoon. There's several exciting changes to this latest NVIDIA Linux driver for the 304 series that's still in beta...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=MTE1MDM

[Vadi]

Wonderful. Thanks

[boast]

their developers are certainly welcome here too

ROFL, good one.

[uid313]

ABI

Nvidia is up to latest ABI and supports the latest X.org server before it is even released.
Why cant AMD do the same?

[johnc]

Thanks for posting updates Michael.

[allquixotic]

Nvidia is up to latest ABI and supports the latest X.org server before it is even released.
Why cant AMD do the same?

Because they have a retarded release cycle that synchronizes releases between all the platforms that their Catalyst-based drivers support. And since Windows only breaks its graphics ABI about once every 5 - 8 years, the Windows team isn't under a constant threat to keep updating the driver to make sure it works with Windows. And since Windows is the platform where the vast majority of their users are installed, they have no desire to cater to Linux users.

Nvidia may support Xorg releases well, but they don't support extremely common things like Optimus, SLI, or KMS, and they likely won't support Wayland unless/until it's been Ubuntu's default display server for 2 to 3 years. So in that regard they are no different than AMD -- except it'll probably take AMD 4 years.

With AMD it comes down to this: their company is run a bunch of cheapos who have absolutely no problem with laying off engineers if it makes their bottom line look better. It's a suicidal strategy, because the fewer engineers you have, the worse you're going to be in the future... but they're thinking about profits only on a quarter-to-quarter basis.

And AMD has been laying off people left and right. If they were instead hiring, and trying to expand the quality and usefulness of their drivers by making Linux a first-rate supported platform, their sales would improve. But instead they'd rather cut their budget as their sales continue to tank.

The sad fact is that it's just less expensive for them to run quarterly releases that are synchronized with Windows. This lets Linux "piggyback" on existing work that's being done for the 98% of their customer base in the first place -- almost as an afterthought.

Also, AMD employees continue to advance the ridiculous argument that, by keeping Linux in lock-step with the Windows releases, they're actually doing us a favor. They're making the driver better for us because we receive all the feature and performance work that Windows does. It's an out-an-out lie! If they knew the first thing about providing proper support on the Linux platform, they'd perform out-of-cycle releases for things like new Xorg and kernel support; they'd support older GPUs for longer; they'd do a lot more work on 2D and overall rendering smoothness/responsiveness (both xf86-video-vesa and the open source drivers absolutely murder fglrx on 2D performance and screen update latencies); and they'd get to work on long-awaited features that never have a chance of arriving under the current process.

The fglrx situation is hopeless unless AMD changes leadership at the top and starts making investments in the future rather than trying to cut expenses until there's nothing left to cut.

On the other hand, and we might as well be talking about a completely different company, the open source graphics team is doing fine -- as far as their vision and overall strategy goes. Their execution could use a lot of work, but the lack of progress is mainly due to their manpower shortage (or outage depending on when you ask), which... goes back to the point abou ttheir management. But their technical vision for -- eventually -- providing great open source 3d drivers is, while perpetually "too little too late", still a good strategy.

So it's a no-win situation for AMD owners. fglrx is perpetually obsolete and unbearably slow at anything besides running Unigine Heaven. r600g/radeonSI is either too little too late (radeonsi) or providing good support for cards that already have quite a lot of dust on them (r600g) -- neither of which are good things.

With Intel, you can have your cake and eat it too. You can even eat it three times. The drivers are open source; they support the latest graphics stack and kernel; they're appreciably fast and stable; and functional (though not necessarily fast/bug-free) support is there on release day even for releases of GMA that undergo major architectural changes. Only downside being how relatively uncompetitive the Intel hardware is compared to discrete GPUs.

So, crap. No matter which way you go, you lose. Red (AMD), green (Nvidia), or blue (Intel). It's like the Mass Effect 3 ending. Pick your color of shit.

[kokoko3k]

Still missing...

The tty will still be blank and the efi bios that boots into a vesa mode will not work...
Oh... my.

[schmidtbag]

Nvidia is up to latest ABI and supports the latest X.org server before it is even released.
Why cant AMD do the same?

They might be sucking up to us after linus made them look bad and that chinese company decided to ditch them for AMD.

[RealNC]

They might be sucking up to us after linus made them look bad and that chinese company decided to ditch them for AMD.

They've doing this kind of early support forever.

[uid313]

Because they have a retarded release cycle that synchronizes releases between all the platforms that their Catalyst-based drivers support.

They really ought to have a beta drivers between the the stable releases then to bring up latest ABI support.

they'd do a lot more work on 2D and overall rendering smoothness/responsiveness (both xf86-video-vesa and the open source drivers absolutely murder fglrx on 2D performance and screen update latencies);.

Wow that is really sad... even slower than xf86-video-vesa, god damn.