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Forget F/OSS drivers or specsForget F/OSS drivers or specsPosted Jul 25, 2006 17:03 UTC (Tue) by jmorris42 (subscriber, #2203)Parent article: What AMD's ATI acquisition means for Linux (and Macs) (Linux-Watch)
We won't be seeing any change on the 3D front. Because while we still don't know WHY both ATI & NVIDIA are so insistent on keeping all their stuff secret it is doubtful that AMD being the ultimate owner of ATI's tech will change it.
Almost every hardware component in a modern desktop PC has good Free drivers but no video vendor (excepting Intel) wants to release 3D specs. Seen lots of theories float, no idea which might be true.
Theory 1: Specs were hard to come by in the past, but ATI did help X in the past as did Nvidia at one point. But no company has released squat since the DirectX 9 level. So of course if one is a Microsoft conspiracy theorist the idea that MSFT imposed some sort of non-disclosure in the licensing to get on the DX9 bandwagon is a good one. But a non-disclosure so all encompasing that nobody can even admit it exists? Knowing that exposing it would almost certainly set off another round of DOJ action nobody has leaked anything?
Theory 2: All and sundry know they are violating the hell out of various patents and fear releasing specs or source would make that plain, releasing the dread legions of patent lawyers. This one has the advantage of partially explaining why Intel doesn't care as much, having cross licenses with darned near everyone and being big enough to unleash a bit of patent wrath of their own back on anyone foolish enough to tackle them. But they can somehow keep their violations secret just by keeping the Linux folk from seeing how it works? Nobody is capable of reverse engineering or corporate spying?
Theory 3: The 3D hardware isn't really all that interesting, just a lot of brute force that any Chinese fab could replicate in short order if there were free drivers available. Considering the continual problems with drivers ATI & Nvidia have this one is my fav. If most of the value proposition is in the software layer, allowing the Free Software community to create a generic 3D engine would be a death sentence.
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Forget F/OSS drivers or specs Posted Jul 25, 2006 21:26 UTC (Tue) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link] This guy seems to have some insights:http://voodoopc.blogspot.com/
His conjecture is that the ATI and AMD merger will remove the 'cut throat' style compitition between Nvidia and ATI.
This sort of 'cut throat' activity leads to a lot of buggy hardware and paranoid execuatives (which directly lead to closing off and going ultra-propriatory).
Now AMD that controls ATI Nvidia will have to work very close with it's previously biggest competitor. Whatever they do will have to be mutually benificial. If AMD and Nvidia fights then it will mean certain doom for Nvidia and AMD will loose a valuable business partner that helps make them lots and lots of money in the server and desktop markets.
So if anything it should foster more openness and cooperation.
Also the idea of integrating GPU technology directly into the silicon shared with the CPU is interesting. If that happens I don't see ANY point in keeping 3d acceleration programming interfaces a secret. How is requiring binary-only drivers for your CPU going to work out? I don't see how it does and Linux is valuable to AMD also. This is aiming for 2008 for this technology AMD or at least it seems that way.
However I still don't see AMD automaticly openning up documentation for ATI video cards. There is a lot of tech in those cards that ATI doesn't own. For instance somebody stated above that macromedia protection BS. Also with OpenGL there are a decent number of software patents you have to deal with. In order to support open source drivers you would have to forgo some binary compatability and loose a certain amount of performance with games and applications that were previously programmed to use the propriatory drivers.
Forget F/OSS drivers or specs Posted Jul 26, 2006 2:16 UTC (Wed) by wrobbie (subscriber, #39320) [Link] "Almost every hardware component in a modern desktop PC has good Free drivers but no video vendor (excepting Intel) wants to release 3D specs. Seen lots of theories float, no idea which might be true."
Hmm, I keep hearing that these days.. So, where can I download the programmer's reference for say a 855 or 915 chipset? The Intel site only offers more global GMCH specs. Or are these available only under NDA to selected parties? For the old 815 a good set of free documents is available.
Cheers!
Rob
Forget F/OSS drivers or specs Posted Jul 26, 2006 6:06 UTC (Wed) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link] Ya Intel is paying Tungsten Graphics to create open source drivers. Documentation is provided under NDA.
They do release specs for most other stuff though.
AMD is much better at it then Intel is. Intel is so-so. They do a good job providing good support for Linux on most stuff, but then they do stupid things like that binary daemon for controlling their new wifi card and making their firmware a download-from-intel-only affair.
I think that Intel wants to have good support for Linux and agree with Greg KH that binary drivers are illegal. Also binary only drivers are nearly impossible to support under Linux, by design.
Work for me, though. Intel isn't doing this out of the kindness of their heart, and I didn't buy a Asus motherboard with their chipset and cpu out of the kindness of mine.
Forget F/OSS drivers or specs Posted Jul 27, 2006 19:34 UTC (Thu) by shane (subscriber, #3335) [Link] Hmm, I keep hearing that these days.. So, where can I download the programmer's reference for say a 855 or 915 chipset?Did you even try Google? A search for "intel 915 programmer specifications" brought me immediately to this URL: http://www.intel.com/design/chipsets/915g/documentation915g.htm There is a 426 page PDF that describes the registers, memory, operation modes, and so on in complete detail.
Forget F/OSS drivers or specs Posted Jul 28, 2006 1:06 UTC (Fri) by wrobbie (subscriber, #39320) [Link] "There is a 426 page PDF that describes the registers, memory, operation modes, and so on in complete detail."
That is not the programmer's reference manual, but a much less detailed datasheet. We were talking graphics drivers -- if you look at the relevant sections in that manual you'll see there is no information at all. The register descriptions you speak of are mostly PCI config space registers etc.
Compare that to the 815's programmer's reference manual.
Cheers,
Rob
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