NVIDIA Releases A Bit More Open GPU Documentation

[phoronix]

Phoronix: NVIDIA Releases A Bit More Open GPU Documentation

Last month NVIDIA announced they would begin providing open-source GPU documentation and ultimately supporting the reverse-engineered open-source Nouveau graphics driver project for their Linux desktop customers. NVIDIA released some basic documentation in that initial push and now they have followed up with a tiny bit more documentation...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=MTQ5NDY

[RoboJ1M]

Wow, I missed the other news item about that.
That's exciting, it may not be the full disclosure that AMD/ATI originally did but it's a start.
I always wondered how long it would take nvidia to follow suit.
Now all I have to wait for is the mobile GPU world!

[Danny3]

Good job nVidia, please continue!

[r_a_trip]

Good job nVidia, please continue!

Yes, if they keep this up, I might have to consider two vendors when I get my next graphics card.

[computerquip]

Good on them, going as far as revealing a possible mind teaser in their own software. +1 on nVidia rep.

[log0]

Don't get the excitement. They've just posted docs on a single register. So assuming they continue their commitment, we might see a complete register spec in about... 10 years?

[GreatEmerald]

Don't get the excitement. They've just posted docs on a single register. So assuming they continue their commitment, we might see a complete register spec in about... 10 years?

Hey, that's infinitely better than getting it never!

[pingufunkybeat]

Don't get the excitement. They've just posted docs on a single register. So assuming they continue their commitment, we might see a complete register spec in about... 10 years?

I'm cynically guessing that this might be the strategy here. I really hope I'm wrong.

Opinion on some online forums has already swung from "AMD good, Nvidia bad" to "Both good, both release docs", and "my next card will be Nvidia because of the docs".

I welcome the change and sincerely hope that they release all the docs. But if they want to reach the "Both good, both release docs", they should release as much as AMD and write as much Mesa and kernel DRM code as the AMD folks.

[korrode]

pretty cool stuff happening in Linux this year ey.

[Gusar]

Don't get the excitement. They've just posted docs on a single register.

It may be just a single register, but it's about exactly the kind of stuff the nouveau devs need. Common stuff, they figure out eventually. But chipset-specific errata, that's hard.

BTW, if you check the nouveau mailing list, Nvidia released other info as well, about how to make MSI reliably work. Again the same kind of chipset-specific stuff that's not so easy to figure out.