Free software drivers for the Intel 965GM Express Chipset [LWN.net]

Free software drivers for the Intel 965GM Express Chipset

Posted May 13, 2007 4:41 UTC (Sun) by keithp (subscriber, #5140)
In reply to: Free software drivers for the Intel 965GM Express Chipset by elanthis
Parent article: Free software drivers for the Intel 965GM Express Chipset

> "support only limited functionality"

The big ticket items on the list for graphics are OpenGL 2.1 and hardware accelerated video playback. Other than that, the new drivers expose quite a bit more of the hardware than the 1.3 version, with native mode programming for everything we could get our hands on.

OpenGL 2.1 support is largely a matter of working with the Mesa project to add needed functionality to the library and DRI subsystem in the kernel. We're busy on both fronts there; Zou Nanhai is busy taking the new GLSL compiler and generating Gen4 instructions, and Eric Anholt is working on the TTM memory system to finally provide for FBOs and other necessary features.

For media playback, Xiang Haihao is working on XvMC support. Adding iDCT support and H.264 decode support is also on the list, but those are limited by the lack of any API capable of exposing them to applications. We're working with some of the media playback developers to figure out what might work here.

There's lots of work to do just to get things functional; beyond that, we've got plenty of low-hanging optimizations that should keep everyone busy.

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Free software drivers for the Intel 965GM Express Chipset

Posted May 13, 2007 11:36 UTC (Sun) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]

Wonderfull.

You guys working on this stuff definately deserve praise. It's going to be great when nobody can accuse 'Open Source Graphics Drivers' of being 'Second Class Graphics Drivers'

Every time I look at projects like OpenCroquet, Beryl, OpenRT, and other such things.. and relatively lack of stability of drivers (closed and open source) it just makes me think about how much all this ultra-proprietory attitude is realy holding back progress.

The technology X is now able to bring to the table is amazing. You have things like DMX for X sessions spreading across multiple computers. Chromium for distributed OpenGL acceleration.

Then support for multiple pointers in MPX. Then you have Multi-seat support in X, for true multi-user PC environments. The ability to migrate applications across displays with xmove.

Seriously, using Blender over a encrypted ssh with hardware acceleration thanks to AIGLX makes me giggle.

People talk about oh web2.0, but I don't think that the web's REST architecture is realy suitable for what people are trying to do with hosted applications and such.. but FreeNX allows me to use my desktop quite well over the internet. X on a modern 'broadband' internet, I think, has real potential.

And all sorts of stuff like that.. it's all very exiting and compelling. But it's all limited by the lack of very good drivers for most people.

Right now Intel 945g chipset is the only graphics that have stable 3D and 2D acceleration support out of box for Linux.

If Intel is able to get things stable and help/let you guys keep/get things open for the high-end graphics that people say are coming in a couple years then I think that we can start expecting very wonderfull things with X, Linux, OpenGL, and Intel.