AMD to open up graphics specs [LWN.net]

AMD to open up graphics specs

Posted Sep 5, 2007 17:31 UTC (Wed) by pkern (subscriber, #32883)
In reply to: AMD to open up graphics specs by AWJ
Parent article: AMD to open up graphics specs

In my laptop there's a X1400 (sadly enough; the sadness may well disappear when there is a free driver), and that's a R530. (ThinkPad FWIW; and I know quite some others which have a R5xx GPU.)

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AMD to open up graphics specs

Posted Sep 5, 2007 18:35 UTC (Wed) by tajyrink (subscriber, #2750) [Link]

They're not integrated as such, meaning integrated on the same chip as north bridge. Though I'm not sure what was meant in this case.

Newer integrated ATI graphics include Xpress200 (RS480/RS482) that has X300-derived graphics (RV3xx series) and Xpress 1250 (RS690) that has X700-derived graphics (RV4xx series). "V" is for eg. value and means it's R300/R400 series with a refined manufacturing process and cheaper / more mainstream parts.

There's currently no R500 series integrated graphics, even though RS690's graphics are touted to be "X1200" (and X1000-series is generally thought to be R500-derived, though it's not completely).

AMD to open up graphics specs

Posted Sep 5, 2007 19:02 UTC (Wed) by AWJ (guest, #47173) [Link]

Yeah, by "integrated" I meant GPUs built into a northbridge without any dedicated video RAM. Mobility Radeons are functionally discrete cards, they're just clocked slower and have more aggressive power-management capabilities than desktop cards.

Both ATI and Nvidia have been guilty at various times of breaking the "first digit indicates the GPU family" rule, though ATI has done it more often. ATI currently sells a discrete card called "X1050" that's R300-based--it's effectively a rebadged X300. Radeon 9n00:n <= 2 were rebadged R200-family cards, not R300-family cards as the model number implied. And who can forget the "GeForce 4 MX" cards which (as far as 3d capabilities went) were rebadged GF2's, quite unrelated to the real GeForce 4.

AMD to open up graphics specs

Posted Sep 6, 2007 0:26 UTC (Thu) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]

It's going to take a long time to get good 3D drivers.

It's going to cost AMD money and time to release specs for their hardware. Remember that they have other people's IP in there, probably including some of Microsoft's hardware experience.

They'd probably like developers to focus on newer stuff. Stuff that people are going to be using by the time these drivers are ready to go mainstream.