AMD Is Hiring Two More Open-Source Linux GPU Driver Developers

[oleid]

Since these threads are full of people complaining, let me state for the record:

Kayden: I appreciate the huge amount of work you guys have done and are doing for mesa.

Bridgman: The fact that AMD is pursuing open drivers and diverting resources to do so gives me a warm fuzzy feeling inside. I appreciate it, and buy AMD cards because of it.

Ilia: The work you've done with Nouveau driver is hugely impressive, especially given the lack of support from Nvidia. Much appreciated.

I love you all!

I totally agree! I'm desperately waiting for AMDs new CPU generation (I'm still on a Phenom X4 945, as I couldn't upgrade within the same socket anymore) and probably will buy one of the new 3xx cards, when they get released.

[Kano]

If you board uses DDR 3 memory all you would need is a BIOS update to support the FX CPUs, but those are too expensive compared to the low single core speed.

[oleid]

If you board uses DDR 3 memory all you would need is a BIOS update to support the FX CPUs, but those are too expensive compared to the low single core speed.

Being able to use an FX would be really nice, I could use the extra cores. Yet, Gigabyte doesn't provide an BIOS update, I checked that already.

[Kraut]

If you board uses DDR 3 memory all you would need is a BIOS update to support the FX CPUs, but those are too expensive compared to the low single core speed.

You also need a board that supports 125 Watt! Many boards are 95.

[pingufunkybeat]

Since these threads are full of people complaining, let me state for the record:

Kayden: I appreciate the huge amount of work you guys have done and are doing for mesa.

Bridgman: The fact that AMD is pursuing open drivers and diverting resources to do so gives me a warm fuzzy feeling inside. I appreciate it, and buy AMD cards because of it.

Ilia: The work you've done with Nouveau driver is hugely impressive, especially given the lack of support from Nvidia. Much appreciated.

I love you all!

Hear hear!!!

[justmy2cents]

Since these threads are full of people complaining, let me state for the record

i think you misunderstood the fact that most of us (-1 who thinks that whole driver should bend to his strange views on what matters) are saying that amd team is on the right track and they should stick with it. even the fact they pushed mantle followed with mantle>vulkan says everything here that amd is betting on next gen where drivers are simpler and they don't start with disadvantage they inherited from ati

as for me personally, i stated more than one time that they are doing awesome job and i would love nothing more than run OSS driver as long as it gives what i need (4.2+vulkan once it is finished). at that point i couldn't care less if blob is 3x faster for 1/2 the price... OSS simply has more value

[artivision]

times are changing. in one year almost linux got up to almost 1000 games. also, the reason why engines didn't support it by default:
- posix is the least of trouble when porting. engine would be biggest one, while middleware is close second
- ps3 runs PSGL, not OpenGL (and do check what PSGL is)
- ps4 doesn't run any kind of GL at all
- OSX now barely holds any advantage in number of games compared to linux. and most games on OSX are not developed by original developer but rather ported after the fact by companies like Aspyr or Feral, same as linux now
- engines were expensive and linux way less popular, so some engines didn't support it for numbers and smaller engines couldn't afford to support it
- GL was a mess that is hard to support due to driver and implementation differences, where directx was much easier target. even now you have NVidia at 4.5, amd at 4.4, Mesa at 3.3, OSX at 4.1. then, there are performance differences. something running awesome on one vendor might run like crap on another. not to mention GL on mobile is GL ES, so you can't have one one source for both and optimized at the same time
- GLSL shaders had to be deployed in source, which most developers didn't like it
- GL are complex drivers, this is why mesa has hard time keeping up
- not to mention ms claiming they wont support gl and longpeak fiasco.
- also, which engines did have GL? only ones that had it were ID and latest UE3 (where UE3 development didn't really work well for backporting)

vulkan is addressing all those problems and all big engines already pledged to provide support.

keep your ultimate user software. at best i see it as last resort which should be avoided if possible. if i (and probably many people who run linux) wanted to run windows software, i go and buy windows instead running it crippled

1) All PS3 games are builds from OGL-ES2 shader sources with bytecode extensions for NV-CG to understand, rarely you see those renderers on a Windows game so to use with Wine. OGL-ES its universal with no vendor differences. Even ports like FFXIII are poor D3D rewrites.

2) PS4 its a lower level OGL4, it abstracts with builds from GLSL4 sources to - normally, (all todays PS4 games), but not with builds from HLSL sources. Rarely OGL renderers on PC.

3) OSX has OGL renderers without caring for driver differences, but not PC, porting companies don't rewrite renderers to OGL mother companies do. Regardless of that they should be included on Windowz games to use with Wine, but not.

4) Engines cost per title not per renderer.

5) You will see Vulcan games only on Steam and after 3 years as Steam devs say. So stop playing Final Fantasy already.

[vaudevillian]

why waste resources? unless i got it wrong, CrossFire/SLI is pointless with new APIs and even nine is only supported on some OSS drivers. why write something that will only be legacy when there are enough legitimate tasks?

Crossfire is not pointless, I use crossfire and eyefinity on 4 machines in my house. How is crossfire pointless? Just because you don't use it does not mean its pointless.

[duby229]

Crossfire is not pointless, I use crossfire and eyefinity on 4 machines in my house. How is crossfire pointless? Just because you don't use it does not mean its pointless.

Maybe pointless was a bad choice of word. But a very low proirity anyway. Most of the hard work for crossfire is already done. Someone just has to implement it.

[justmy2cents]

1) All PS3 games are builds from OGL-ES2 shader sources with bytecode extensions for NV-CG to understand, rarely you see those renderers on a Windows game so to use with Wine. OGL-ES its universal with no vendor differences. Even ports like FFXIII are poor D3D rewrites.

2) PS4 its a lower level OGL4, it abstracts with builds from GLSL4 sources to - normally, (all todays PS4 games), but not with builds from HLSL sources. Rarely OGL renderers on PC.

3) OSX has OGL renderers without caring for driver differences, but not PC, porting companies don't rewrite renderers to OGL mother companies do. Regardless of that they should be included on Windowz games to use with Wine, but not.

4) Engines cost per title not per renderer.

5) You will see Vulcan games only on Steam and after 3 years as Steam devs say. So stop playing Final Fantasy already.

1, most games had to use Cell on ps3 which is hardly portable, very rare actually relied on NVidia it self since bottleneck between system ram and vram was too obvious.

2. ps4 introduced GNM api with GNMX engine on top of it. it also features PSSL custom shaders. read here http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/di...-playstation-4 . GNMX is closer to dx than to anything else

3. look how many games were ported by Aspyr and Feral for OSX (like most AAA titles are theirs), then try asking Aspyr and Feral how does that work out for them

4. actually this gen one has a choice. UE4 with 5% royalty per game after you pass 3000 per quarter, Unity 5 free or one payment license or Source 2 which will be royalty free.

5. we will see same people also said that it will be 3 or more years to finally see something