Unigine Engine Advances, But No Linux Heaven Yet

[deanjo]

Were are on 10.2 and on to 10.3. The guy was talking about 9.11/9.12 (and most likely referring to support found on earlier releases still). The drivers could have gotten better by now, or not. Point is that the quote is old and you really can't use it now; a lot in the driver has been fixed and even broken since those releases. I want a statement from either AMD or Unigine that says that as of now the drivers are too broken so Heaven on Linux has been delayed until further notice.

Considering that Phoronix is running the engine internally, makes mention of "Unigine Heaven on Linux internally and it's a beautiful tech demo / benchmark to say the least even without a bug-free tessellation experience. " and the only hardware out there right now is ATI's offerings then the mention of "We don't yet know whether the Linux build will make its public debut at that time or whether ATI Catalyst 10.3 for Linux will finally be the golden egg for Unigine Corp, but the Unigine Engine does continue picking up new features. " It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what the delay is. To conclude anything but ATI holding up the release is wishful blind thinking.

[Melcar]

Did you not read the "way to broken" quote from Denis?

Were are on 10.2 and on to 10.3. The guy was talking about 9.11/9.12 (and most likely referring to support found on earlier releases still). The drivers could have gotten better by now, or not. Point is that the quote is old and you really can't use it now; a lot in the driver has been fixed and even broken since those releases. I want a statement from either AMD or Unigine that says that as of now the drivers are too broken so Heaven on Linux has been delayed until further notice.

[mirv]

Don't get me wrong - I'm sure that's what's going on still, but the developers from Unigine delaying because they feel AMD's drivers aren't stable enough and AMD asking Unigine to delay it are completely different. It's the the whole being asked by a hardware vendor thing that's put some confusion into the matter, and I'm wondering if the article isn't more a conclusion reached by Michael from trying the demo out with AMD's drivers than by talks with Unigine.

[deanjo]

Nvidia has been releasing videos of The Fermi with what appears to be a "1.1" Heaven build, so it's obvious that they do have the hardware and software to run it. Really, there is no indication that at this point it's AMD that's holding back the demo. Could be, but as long as someone at Unigine comes out saying just that, it's all speculation.

Did you not read the "way to broken" quote from Denis?

[Melcar]

Given that Phoronix and unigine are on pretty good ground dialog wise and phoronix also has a unreleased version of it I would say that the info that ATI is holding up the release is pretty good. Especially since ATI is the only vendor out there that currently has hardware that supports hardware tessellation.

Nvidia has been releasing videos of The Fermi with what appears to be a "1.1" Heaven build, so it's obvious that they do have the hardware and software to run it. Really, there is no indication that at this point it's AMD that's holding back the demo. Could be, but as long as someone at Unigine comes out saying just that, it's all speculation.

[deanjo]

Well, again that's all speculation. I'm not completely up to speed on the opengl tessellation side of things, and it's also rational to assume that nvidia would like the demo to be released along with Fermi (they have after all been using it quite heavily to show off Fermi).

Well not really,

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

Unigine Corp's CEO, Denis Shergin, told Phoronix this afternoon that Heaven for Linux should be available in one to two months. According to Denis, the Linux build of Unigine Heaven is done, but they are waiting for new drivers to be released before pushing out this impressive tech demo. OpenGL on the AMD side is "way too broken" so it looks like Unigine will be waiting for the Catalyst 9.11 or 9.12 driver releases before pushing out Heaven. The Unigine Heaven Linux version will carry full tessellation support enabled, we're told.

Notice the "way to broken" quote from Denis?

[mirv]

Well, again that's all speculation. I'm not completely up to speed on the opengl tessellation side of things, and it's also rational to assume that nvidia would like the demo to be released along with Fermi (they have after all been using it quite heavily to show off Fermi).

[deanjo]

Actually, last month it was stated that a "hardware vendor" was holding things up but failed to mention which one. At least that was from Unigine - phoronix has been filling in the rest all on its own. Is there any confirmation that it is currently ATI holding things up?
I'm all for speculation, so I'm sure ATI's drivers are still holding it up, but I'd just like something a bit more official.

Given that Phoronix and unigine are on pretty good ground dialog wise and phoronix also has a unreleased version of it I would say that the info that ATI is holding up the release is pretty good. Especially since ATI is the only vendor out there that currently has hardware that supports hardware tessellation.

[mirv]

Actually, last month it was stated that a "hardware vendor" was holding things up but failed to mention which one. At least that was from Unigine - phoronix has been filling in the rest all on its own. Is there any confirmation that it is currently ATI holding things up?
I'm all for speculation, so I'm sure ATI's drivers are still holding it up, but I'd just like something a bit more official.

[patstew]

Surely just releasing it and adding a check for nvidia drivers would pressure ATI into fixing their driver faster than not releasing it?