NVIDIA To Publicly Release Some Documentation

[Ex-Cyber]

It's possible they cannot release docs for their desktop card ASICS due to 3rd party IP restrictions. If they can bring the design work inhouse and use as little 3rd party IP as possible then they could be able to open up documentation for the 3d
parts.

They've made noises about integrating ARM on the desktop side too, which makes me wonder whether they might move the low-level stuff into an embedded firmware blob and document a higher-level host interface. Of course, the cynical side of me says that they'd then wrap that firmware in encryption/DRM and sell feature unlock codes a la carte (SLI? $25. Overclocking? $50. Autodesk-certified mode? $500. Full double precision compute performance? $1500.).

[DeepDayze]

Sorry, that was obviously wrong.
I messed it up while editing that line. :/
I wanted to express my disappointment about the docs covering
Tegra only and only a rather tiny fraction of the chip capabilities.

I agree it is a good thing, in terms of "not a bad thing",
but it really doesn't sound too promising to me.
Why don't they release more complete docs?
And why do they refuse to do the same for the desktop asics?

It's possible they cannot release docs for their desktop card ASICS due to 3rd party IP restrictions. If they can bring the design work inhouse and use as little 3rd party IP as possible then they could be able to open up documentation for the 3d
parts.

I concur with the poster above that nVidia should release documentation for their older cards that are at end of life so that we as a community can support ourselves by having an open driver so we can continue to use these cards

[halfmanhalfamazing]

Community support is better than no support.

Besides, it depends on how you define community. See:

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTA3ODc

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTAyMzU

In both instances I'm referring to R200. For anybody who may not know, this is 10+ year old hardware - debut 2001. (and see the discussions too, people still use these)

Community doesn't exclusively mean individuals anymore. If a 3rd party corporation sees a need to fix said bugs, they will be fixed. But this can only happen if the docs are released.

I am more than happy with 10 years of support. In fact, I encourage it!(for popular hardware, anyways. Which these were indeed popular) I can't tell you how happy it makes me to see guys like Marek running around here.

If I ran my own company like this, I probably wouldn't release docs for my newest generation, maybe the newest two. But in the context of nVidia there really isn't any reason for them to keep the docs for 3-5 year hardware under lock and key anymore. I'd bet AMD has something more advanced than GeForce 7s/8s. At this point, they're only pissing off their customers who are more than willing to provide their own support. It's bad customer support to not release the docs.

Nouveau is a testament to the fact that a) Linus was right with his FU nVidia and b) We are going to support ourselves anyways. They might as well just release the docs, and it appears that that message is sinking in.

[boast]

The community might then support it for the next 4 years.

community support isn't good. you are left up to a dev to decide what he wants to work on, and when you complain you get told to do it yourself. You have a bunch of people that want to work on features, but no one wants to work on the boring bugs.

[halfmanhalfamazing]

They are only doing this for free community work

I'm ok with that.

It makes sense that after a certain period of time, ________________________ corporation will stop supporting their products. That's entirely natural. If I had my own company, I wouldn't perpetually support it either. Be it 2 years, 5 years, 10 years, at some point it has to end.

By having the documents, we can support it ourselves and provide our own support. Yes, __________________ corporation makes the product and sells it to us, and for a period of years they provide the primary support. But after that we don't have to be locked into them. We are empowered. We can keep going.

We don't have to buy another product just because they say we have to. The product we own right now works perfectly fine, and I intend to keep using it. Let's put it into numbers. Let's say that _________________________ corporation provides 4 years in-house support. The community might then support it for the next 4 years.

8 years of support for a product I invest in? Sign me up!

[Lemonzest]

They are only doing this for free community work, they KNOW everyone wants the Desktop GPU docs, this is just teasing.

[halfmanhalfamazing]

Linus, thank you

Thank you!

(I know, it's only a start. The Wright Brothers did not fly on a rocket, you know. They flew at like 1 MPH. Gotta start somewhere.)

[toto1234]

they are not committed

I applied to be a developer on the Tegra zone three months ago. Never got a response, at all.

Then I searched on XDA and contacted a few people, and a couple nice guys provided me with the Tegra 2 TRM as well as the just released Tegra 3 TRM.

I can confirm there is no useful information on the 3D part at all, just a very high level description of the block. No description of registers, nothing.

Having the TRM is one thing, and it's nice to know the meaning of a few registers being used in the Tegra branch of the Linux kernel. However it is still very far from being open. Why doesn't Nvidia directly publish their TRM? There is exactly ZERO sensitive piece of information in it, it just describes how to interface with their SoC, and the juicy 3D part is not available.

[entropy]

From the article:
... the next version of the Tegra TRM (Technical Reference Manual) should provide the public with this (NDA-free) documentation covering the 2D engine.

NOTE: NDA-free.

He has previously been under NDA for Tegra documentation, but Nvidia is about to release some of it NDA-free. This is a good thing.

Sorry, that was obviously wrong.
I messed it up while editing that line. :/
I wanted to express my disappointment about the docs covering
Tegra only and only a rather tiny fraction of the chip capabilities.

I agree it is a good thing, in terms of "not a bad thing",
but it really doesn't sound too promising to me.
Why don't they release more complete docs?
And why do they refuse to do the same for the desktop asics?

[Veerappan]

I find it difficult to come to this conclusion from what you wrote.
Only Tegra docs under NDA - and apparently largely incomplete - sounds not too promising.

I find it difficult to come to this conclusion from what you wrote.
Only Tegra docs under NDA - and apparently largely incomplete - sounds not too promising.

From the article:
... the next version of the Tegra TRM (Technical Reference Manual) should provide the public with this (NDA-free) documentation covering the 2D engine.

NOTE: NDA-free.

He has previously been under NDA for Tegra documentation, but Nvidia is about to release some of it NDA-free. This is a good thing.