ATI R600g Gains Mip-Map, Face Culling Support

[glisse]

[...]
Why not just adapt to the changes in the open drivers?
The Linux kernel has an approximately 3 month release cycle, which should give time to prepare at least a Linux-only update for any ABI changes.
Also, incompatible changes to the ABI tend to be frowned upon (see the Nouveau ABI break debate for instance).
[...]

I don't think the closed source driver kernel module will ever want to merge upstream with linux kernel, there is an ABI/API freeze that comes with linux kernel, it's a good thing for most of the kernel as 99% of the others driver have simpler API/ABI interface and most of them goes through a common interface that abstract hw details.

GPU on the other hand is quite unique (i might be lacking knowledge on some part of the kernel here so feel free to correct me) each hw is exposing its own API to the userspace, each API is different and close to the hw. As it's we big chunk of code we never get the API right the first time, if i were to redo KMS today there is few major things i would change.

Take in this into account, i am pretty sure closed source people want to keep their freedom of changing the API from one version to the other (fglrx bundle kernel + userspace alltogether) if they had to keep backward compat it would likely endup with a kernel module with several different path and quickly grows like a monster blob.

[bridgman]

When, in 2020? I see you already add support for the Llano and Ontario APUs to XvBA but you could not even fix the Evergreen bug .

Apples and oranges. Support for new GPUs comes at least semi-automatically as a result of code sharing across multiple OSes. Bug fixing in Linux-specific code has to be done the old fashioned way. We'd kinda like to finish and release XvBA before anyone complains that we're not fixing bugs fast enough. Remember that XvBA hasn't actually been announced outside of the embedded market, and we don't *have* an embedded Evergreen part.

[bridgman]

Make that "we don't have an embedded Evergreen part *yet* ..."

Stinkin' edit limit.

[monraaf]

Apples and oranges. Support for new GPUs comes at least semi-automatically as a result of code sharing across multiple OSes. Bug fixing in Linux-specific code has to be done the old fashioned way. We'd kinda like to finish and release XvBA before anyone complains that we're not fixing bugs fast enough. Remember that XvBA hasn't actually been announced outside of the embedded market, and we don't *have* an embedded Evergreen part.

It doesn't really matter if you have officially released it or not. People know that their AMD GPU has support for hardware accelerated H.264 decoding, and they know that unlike with products of the competition they can't make use of it in Linux. So they are going to complain, whether you like it or not .

So in my eyes even though you have not officially released XvBA, you have not fixed this Evergreen bug that has been plaguing me for over 6 months. Naturally I'm not very satisfied with this!

[bridgman]

Sure, complaining about us not releasing a consumer PC-oriented video decode solution is fair.

It's important that you complain about the right thing if you want anyone other than me to listen

[Agdr]

Even Nvidia is not like that!

On the other hand, nVidia would likely not even reply to queries like the ones being made here, and contributes essentially nothing to open source, while AMD does contribute the foundations for open source development both as documentation and code and seems willing to improve things if possible.

[Prescience500]

Sooooo...let's see. From what I am hearing, the best way to improve the situation with Linux for Linux enthusiasts like myself is to change the market. Converting as many individuals who are likely to be satisfied with Linux is a good start. That way, there will be less Windows/Mac market share which would reduce the benefit to firms like ATI to keep certain parts of their drivers closed.

[V!NCENT]

Sooooo...let's see. From what I am hearing, the best way to improve the situation with Linux for Linux enthusiasts like myself is to change the market. Converting as many individuals who are likely to be satisfied with Linux is a good start. That way, there will be less Windows/Mac market share which would reduce the benefit to firms like ATI to keep certain parts of their drivers closed.

No that wouldn't help, or is not the problem.

The problem is not enough developpers that do optimisation work. If you want to imrpove the Linux situation then... well... go contribute.

The docs are out there.

Realy that's the only way to go right now...

[The_Monkey_King]

Sooooo...let's see. From what I am hearing, the best way to improve the situation with Linux for Linux enthusiasts like myself is to change the market. Converting as many individuals who are likely to be satisfied with Linux is a good start. That way, there will be less Windows/Mac market share which would reduce the benefit to firms like ATI to keep certain parts of their drivers closed.

And seduce them from Windows 7 how? You'll be telling them that the extra cash they shelled out for a discrete card will only get them 70% of the capabilities of a Windows driver, unless of course, they can convince 100 of their friends to switch. Then, only then, will ATI respond with a driver that meets or exceeds the Windows driver.

Uhm, yeah. That'll work.

[netkas]

latest r600g and ioquake3

http://mirror.netkas.org/r600g/q3_1.png

http://mirror.netkas.org/r600g/q3_2.png

http://mirror.netkas.org/r600g/q3_3.png