ARM Talks Up Wayland For Mali

[robclark]

You're right! Thanks for the correction.
It looks like they're all Acer and 32bit. I hope they bring out Denver in various form factors soon. I'd love to play around with the new isa, not to mention the dynamic, native code optimization tech they licensed from transmeta. Those old transmeta chips were long gone before I got involved with programming: (

tbh, I don't think 32b vs 64b is nearly as important as the gpu (plus FOSS driver to utilize it). if you want a FOSS ARM laptop, just go out and buy one of the current TK1's.. don't hold your breath and always wait for the next thing.

[liam]

tbh, I don't think 32b vs 64b is nearly as important as the gpu (plus FOSS driver to utilize it). if you want a FOSS ARM laptop, just go out and buy one of the current TK1's.. don't hold your breath and always wait for the next thing.

Normally, yeah, 32/64 not so interesting, but the new armv8a has some nifty additions (and I thought this is nice chance to dive into assembly---last years arm flock talks by Jon and Peter really got me interested in this area). That, plus the transmeta tech seems partcularly exciting. So, for me, this isn't a case of waiting for the Next New Thing, but patiently awaiting something I've been following for awhile.
I'm keeping an eye out for the snapdragon 805 boards (ifc6540), as I've wanted an adreno I could more easily play with (dealing with the one in my phone just was feasible since I USE the phone), and this includes the new arch (whatever that means since qualcomm just reveals almost nothing about their gpus).

[TheBlackCat]

tbh, I don't think 32b vs 64b is nearly as important as the gpu (plus FOSS driver to utilize it).

I think the big issue is memory (32b is limited) and number of registers 64b brings, rather than the 64b itself.

[brad0]

And still an intel cpu will do what you describe (casual stuff) and also run things like the ones mentioned before (cad etc). Also does steam (games and software) run on 64bit ARM?

How many avg joes run CAD? How many avg joes play such hardcore games? It's like you completely missed the whole point of his post even though it was painfully obvious.

[robclark]

Normally, yeah, 32/64 not so interesting, but the new armv8a has some nifty additions (and I thought this is nice chance to dive into assembly---last years arm flock talks by Jon and Peter really got me interested in this area). That, plus the transmeta tech seems partcularly exciting. So, for me, this isn't a case of waiting for the Next New Thing, but patiently awaiting something I've been following for awhile.

yeah, if you are specifically interested in armv8 then I guess wait.. although not sure how quickly they will trickle into chromebooks

I'm keeping an eye out for the snapdragon 805 boards (ifc6540), as I've wanted an adreno I could more easily play with (dealing with the one in my phone just was feasible since I USE the phone), and this includes the new arch (whatever that means since qualcomm just reveals almost nothing about their gpus).

I happen to know a bit about it ;-)

Haven't really dug into the new features yet (full DX11 pipeline).. it does seem to have a few tweaks in the shader core to improve IPC, bit of cmdstream related fine tuning here and there, looks like it has framebuffer compression (increasingly important as resolutions go up), increased limits here and there (more vbo's and attributes, etc), and ofc the new pipeline stages. Should be a nice incremental improvement. The really big thing I'm looking forward to is the memory bandwidth on snapdragon 805 (apq8084)... omg!

Fortunately for a4xx, I can share the compiler with a3xx. Unfortunately basically all the registers change and/or move. I've done most of the initial r/e already (ie. enough to draw some triangles... but there will be more to do still). Still need to write a bunch of gallium code for the new gpu.

[robclark]

I think the big issue is memory (32b is limited) and number of registers 64b brings, rather than the 64b itself.

True, once you go beyond 2 or 3G (depending on SoC) you start needing LPAE which adds some overhead. Still, I don't think even the x86 chromebooks ship with any more than 4G, which can certainly be supported on current crop of 32b SoC's with LPAE.

[89c51]

How many avg joes run CAD? How many avg joes play such hardcore games? It's like you completely missed the whole point of his post even though it was painfully obvious.

I don't know how many but if someone wants to do it he should be able to. As plain as that. You shouldn't exclude users.

[smitty3268]

I don't know how many but if someone wants to do it he should be able to. As plain as that. You shouldn't exclude users.

Who's excluding users? No one is saying x86 hardware should be banned, just that ARM is likely good enough for a significant chunk of people now.

Personally, I'm one of those power users who really needs an x86 compatible CPU that goes really fast, but i don't think I'm a typical user and if someone chooses to buy an ARM cpu who are you to say they can't just because someday they might hypothetically want something else?

[WorBlux]

So when is the day that I can buy an ARM ultrabook and use my favorite DE on it?
That is, when there are good enough GPU (and everything else as well) FOSS drivers for at least one of those SoCs?

http://elinux.org/File:A10_eoma_pcmcia_laptop.png

http://aseigo.blogspot.com/2013/11/introducing-improv.html

So you have the CPU module, so just design the motherboard, select the battery and display, and create a 3-D model of the case suitable for 3-D printers or cnc processes.

[TheBlackCat]

So you have the CPU module, so just design the motherboard, select the battery and display, and create a 3-D model of the case suitable for 3-D printers or cnc processes.

Oh, is that all?