HDMI Forum Closing Public Specification Access Is Hurting Open-Source GPU Drivers

[Guest]

I've heard packets travel slightly quicker on HDMI than DisplayPort, notably when talking about VR headsets. No idea how true that is though.

I've never seen a gaming laptop with DisplayPort, and I've had around 5 laptops (Intel Skylake / NVIDIA Maxwell and Pascal) over the years.

Well my ThinkPad has mini-DisplayPort and it's no gaming laptop.

[mdedetrich]

One major advantage to HDMI is that the maximum cable length is 30m instead of just 3m, something that of course is not relevant for most PC setups on the other hand...

good luck getting a 30m cable that can support the full 48 Gbps, it will probably need a repeater of some sought.

[Guest]

Someone have a thin skin

Hey, if devs are more or less the same and Wayland is the "future", wouldn't be more logic that the petition was done/backed instead by Wayland than the "defunct" X ?

...or maybe actually , besides only inside some limited circles, Wayland have ZERO WEIGHT and the devs have to "still" use the "defunct" X to have the hope to get a bone from HDMI ?

X.org foundation is just the name of an organization that oversees a lot of Linux graphics stuff. I guess a rename would be a good idea.

This isn't about X vs Wayland , it's not X.org devs petitioning, it's X.org foundation members. They work on both X11 and Wayland.

[Guest]

I thought Wayland developers were still part of X.org, and there is no separate "Wayland.org".

The X.org group covers a lot more than just X. Think of it as "free desktop" rather than "X" and it will make more sense - FDO and X.org are separate organizations as far as I know but in practice they overlap a lot.

IMO they should just merge. Or call it the *nix graphics/display foundation.

[ix900]

Only useful for you.

If you're only using your computer in a pure office/gaming experience, maybe.

If you're using it as a multimedia device for office, gaming, photo editing, movies, music, etc..., you'll need an AV receiver and/or a TV. Then HDMI it is.
My RX 560 is hooked to an AV receiver (TV pass-through and 5.1) in HDMI for entertainment (in the couch) and in DP to the PC monitor for office stuff (on a desk) with no sound (no monitor speakers).

Its been done a long time before hdmi came around and you can do it today as well without it. But, once hdmi came around I would never go back. Its much easier and comes free with the gpu and sometimes the motherboard and is only one cable.

All I have to say here is that people who expect everything to be open source, can't have everything. Life doesn't work that way.

[coder]

VESA is behind display port not HDMI, so VESA has nothing to say about this

Yes, I got the standards bodies mixed up. Thanks for the correction.

However, it doesn't invalidate my conjecture, as HDMI is the one requiring royalties. I wonder if they have a legal presence with any teeth, in China.

Also, cool username - I maintain that dice are the original hardware random number generators! I keep a set in my desk drawer, though I haven't had to use them much.

[mhalano]

That should be illegal. Today HDMI is a standard available across many devices. I connect my external display to a dock using HDMI. Fortunately my display also has a DisplayPort (not over USB type-C, just the regular one) so my next machine I will consider vital to have DisplayPort on the GPU.

[gukin]

Well don't I feel stupid. If I'd read about this stuff I wouldn't have gone out and bought a cheap 55" Hisense TV at Costco and a PWAY 4K HDMI USB KVM (x4) switch to connect a bunch of my computers together with all the sound going through HDMI. BTW the Hisense TV had and audio out which connected to my ancient Logitech Z4 speakers (luck).

And I was stupid because it all magically worked even though the switch was only supposed to work at 30 FPS at 3840x2160 even though everything but my Raspberry PI 400 can do that resolution at 60 FPS. The poser for me is that my Raven Ridge (Forever!) can run at 3840x2160 at 60FPS but if I plug in my Radeon RX570, I can run the same resolution but the sound comes through at double speed (chipmunks) while the on motherboard Vega doesn't have that issue.

I was really lucky because it all works pretty well, except for the chipmunks with the RX570 at 4K, and as nice as 4K is for screen real estate trying to watch videos or anything else at 30Hz is pretty annoying.

I'd better pay more attention since "video just working" isn't a guarantee.

Wayland doesn't have any issues with 3840x2160 @ 60FPS other than the well known Wayland issues.

It's better to be lucky than smart.

[spstarr]

Well don't I feel stupid. If I'd read about this stuff I wouldn't have gone out and bought a cheap 55" Hisense TV at Costco and a PWAY 4K HDMI USB KVM (x4) switch to connect a bunch of my computers together with all the sound going through HDMI. BTW the Hisense TV had and audio out which connected to my ancient Logitech Z4 speakers (luck).
...

Hmm, well, I just did the same thing.. my old display finally died, and I went all-in on HDMI, though the new display has DisplayPort later standard, the KVM switch is HDMI only but it can do very high refresh rates.

We'll find out of I made a lucky choice..when it all arrives...

Otherwise, I need a DisplayPort KVM ....

or AMD, you can get FreeSync on HDMI... or I'll have to remain in Windows for gaming until Linux gets treated properly for gaming by GPU companies...

[qarium]

but if I plug in my Radeon RX570, I can run the same resolution but the sound comes through at double speed (chipmunks) while the on motherboard Vega doesn't have that issue.

i had the doublle speed chipmunks sound problem to the solution was: the display was set at HDMI1.1 and had the option of HDMI2.0 i set the monitor to HDMI2.0 and the sound was right again.