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AMD Releases New 3D/Compute GPU Documentation

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  • AMD Releases New 3D/Compute GPU Documentation

    Phoronix: AMD Releases New 3D/Compute GPU Documentation

    AMD published this month new programming guides and register documentations for the 3D/Compute engines on their Evergreen, Northern Islands, Southern Islands, and Sea Islands graphics processors...

    Phoronix, Linux Hardware Reviews, Linux hardware benchmarks, Linux server benchmarks, Linux benchmarking, Desktop Linux, Linux performance, Open Source graphics, Linux How To, Ubuntu benchmarks, Ubuntu hardware, Phoronix Test Suite

  • #2
    Great, this something I'm really missing in the opensource driver. Since I use darktable quite allot.

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    • #3
      I recently switched to NVidia. I'll return to AMD when their open source driver catches up, which should basically be anytime now. :P

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      • #4
        So their policy is to release the documentation two years after it has been written? I took a look at the documentation and is not exactly simple to understand, so it will probably take what... another two years for their open source programmers to write a full featured driver? By then, we will probably have two more generations of gfx cards to support... are you afraid of the competitors AMD? is this the reason you don't release documentation earlier? Are you afraid of the chinese? What the hell is going on there? Too many bureaucrats? We need more engineers AMD, more engineers, not marketing staff and other similar crap.

        My next gfx card will be Nvidia, because even though they don't release documentation, their gfx driver is of excellent quality, unlike your crappy blob.
        Last edited by wargames; 24 October 2013, 11:50 AM.

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        • #5
          Originally posted by wargames View Post
          So their policy is to release the documentation two years after it has been written? I took a look at the documentation and is not exactly simple to understand, so it will probably take what... another two years for their open source programmers to write a full featured driver?
          No, the driver has already been written. The documentation is released after the driver has been written.

          is this the reason you don't release documentation earlier?
          The AMD open source devs are the ones writing these documents. They have repeatedly stated that it's easier to figure out how things work first (a working driver) and then write it up than to write documentation first, then write the drivers. In the meantime, the open source drivers and the developers themselves serve as documentation for community developers.

          This documentation can only be written by developers. It takes away from the time they have to program the drivers.

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          • #6
            Originally posted by pingufunkybeat View Post
            No, the driver has already been written. The documentation is released after the driver has been written.


            The AMD open source devs are the ones writing these documents. They have repeatedly stated that it's easier to figure out how things work first (a working driver) and then write it up than to write documentation first, then write the drivers. In the meantime, the open source drivers and the developers themselves serve as documentation for community developers.

            This documentation can only be written by developers. It takes away from the time they have to program the drivers.
            Are you sure the AMD open source devs are the ones that write these documents? So what information do the catalyst driver developers use? It doesn't make much sense to me, you design a gfx card and then write the documentation for it? Are you serious?

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            • #7
              Originally posted by wargames View Post
              Are you sure the AMD open source devs are the ones that write these documents? So what information do the catalyst driver developers use? It doesn't make much sense to me, you design a gfx card and then write the documentation for it? Are you serious?
              Yes, I developed those guides. The hardware and software teams work pretty closely and much of the documentation that is available documents the deltas between generations rather than proper programming guides. There are also hardware and software design specs available that contain programming information, but, for the hardware specs, the programming information is mixed with hw design information (which we obviously can't release) and the software specs are catalyst focused. To get general purpose programming documentation for outside developers you have to clean and compile it from various internal sources.

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              • #8
                Originally posted by wargames View Post
                Are you sure the AMD open source devs are the ones that write these documents? So what information do the catalyst driver developers use? It doesn't make much sense to me, you design a gfx card and then write the documentation for it? Are you serious?
                The internal documentation is written before hardware is implemented, but it focuses more on "how the hardware is designed", and most of that information needs to stay internal. Catalyst developers work with the internal HW documentation.

                The open source team (mostly agd5f) creates "programming focused" guides based on (a) the internal HW documentation (aka how it's supposed to work) and (b) knowledge learned while making the Catalyst and open source drivers work on the hardware (aka how it really works).
                Test signature

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                • #9
                  Originally posted by bridgman View Post
                  The internal documentation is written before hardware is implemented, but it focuses more on "how the hardware is designed", and most of that information needs to stay internal. Catalyst developers work with the internal HW documentation.

                  The open source team (mostly agd5f) creates "programming focused" guides based on (a) the internal HW documentation (aka how it's supposed to work) and (b) knowledge learned while making the Catalyst and open source drivers work on the hardware (aka how it really works).
                  I see. Thank you for the clarification. I'm sure you are doing a great job!

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                  • #10
                    What's the point?

                    Just thinking...
                    Will we have better opensource AMD drivers as a consequence? What about old hardware, it will be really affected?

                    In example: I have a E-350 APU, so I download the docs and use it for optimize the driver for my GPU?


                    Obs.: anyway congrats to all devs for doing such a hard work, docs are very boring to produce and keep updated.

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