AMD Already Has Open-Source Fusion Drivers

[phoronix]

Phoronix: AMD Already Has Open-Source Fusion Drivers

There's good news for those of you wanting to quickly go out and pickup an AMD Fusion system as soon as it's available: there's already open-source drivers for Fusion...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=ODc5Mw

[droidhacker]

The word "probably" in "probably unlikely" is redundant.

[droidhacker]

I also have to say that it is absolutely amazing how much you can elaborate on things when you see one vague sentence like that one... people obviously have gotta be real careful about what they say around you

[cl333r]

Yeah there's also folks with phd in all types of dialectics so watch out for them, but if seriously, it's impossible to write something that would please anyone, there must be someone that will at least pick on you because of a frigging typo.

[bridgman]

The Fusion parts use GPU cores derived from Evergreen, so the changes required to support Fusion graphics are mostly related to "the bits around the edges". There are still a lot of changes though, albeit mostly small ones.

Alex sent the rebased patches out for review yesterday, so it's not surprising that they are "under review" today

[d2kx]

I have been waiting for AMD Fusion for a long time so this is awesome.

[TechMage89]

This is great news! I'm glad AMD is finally approaching their goal of same-day driver support.

The Fusion parts use GPU cores derived from Evergreen

This is indeed interesting. I was actually wondering whether the Fusion GPU was derived from Evergreen or a new design.

Any comment on whether the DRM/decode entanglement has been solved?

I suppose with something as efficient as this, though, it wouldn't be that much of a penalty to do decode on the GPU's general-purpose execution units.

[Adarion]

I am so going to gift myself a new AMD CPU this xmas (gift myself and honor AMD). I wanted to wait with the switch from my 4850e (Athlon 64 x2) to the fusion type Bobcat/Bulldozer but inbetween I guess I'll have myself a socket AM2+ compatible AMD Athlon II x3 or the corresponding Phenom version. It might be affordable for my (sadly low) budget and a good intermediate solution til the Fusion arrives for that I'll probably better have an AM3+ board as well. Which also means new RAM.

But good to hear that day 0 support will be possible here that makes modern tech much better to adopt. Oh and with Bobcat we might see a real alternative in the close to embedded small devices market. I already imagine something like a new openmoko with working documented hardware and stuff... *sigh* *dreams on*

[r1348]

My next buy will be a Fusion netbook.

[smitty3268]

Does anyone know the release date of Fusion hardware? January, or will they have something out this year?

Hopefully this code doesn't get stuck too long in review. From past experience, it seems like it could easily take 6 months. Maybe less than that since it's based so heavily on Evergreen which is already working.