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Binary-only kernel modules may be bannedBinary-only kernel modules may be bannedPosted Dec 14, 2006 13:11 UTC (Thu) by drag (subscriber, #31333)In reply to: Binary-only kernel modules may be banned by tajyrink Parent article: Binary-only kernel modules may be banned
A comparision of open source R300 drivers vs Closed FGLRX is aviable at:
Very simplistic benchmarking, unfortunately.. but you get a 40-60% performance hit by going open source. (phoronix website is a bit of a ATI fanboy site sometimes, which makes life difficult to be Linux oriented I suppose)
But keep in mind that this is reverse engineered drivers, this has to be hugely difficult. As far as I am concerned this proves beyond a doubt that open source developers (or at least the guy reverse engineering this stuff!) can make 3d drivers.
But you can't do it without manufacturer assistance. At least not to the level of existing Nvidia drivers.
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Binary-only kernel modules may be banned Posted Dec 14, 2006 17:52 UTC (Thu) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link] I believe that the "we don't own all the source" is a smoke screen. OK graphics companies, if that's true then just release the source you DO own! Let's see if the community can fill in the missing bits (I'd bet money that it can).
No, I am convinced that the real reason that manufacturers don't want to open the specs is because then all their corner-cutting will be exposed for all to see. Graphics technology tends to hover at 110% of semiconductor technology:
http://techreport.com/etc/2001q4/radeon-q3/index.x?pg=1
Heck, I reluctantly wrote some "optimizations" for SuperMac ThunderII and Thunder/24 drivers in 1993 to cheat on Ziff-Davis benchmarks (look closely at those round-corner rectangles as they blit by; it was the second-to-last time I coded something against my morals). Companies have been pulling these shenanigans since day one.
The problem is, the market is set up so that companies are required to cheat like this. So it's 13 FPS slower, so what? You can't see the difference between 122 and 135 FPS! Well, that's how Anandtech readers choose what to buy. If you're 5% slower, you lose 40% of your sales.
I really hope that open source will encourage customers to not be so fickle and choose cards based based on more than absolute frame rate and artificial benchmarks.
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