AMD to open up graphics specs [LWN.net]

AMD to open up graphics specs

Posted Sep 5, 2007 19:02 UTC (Wed) by AWJ (guest, #47173)
In reply to: AMD to open up graphics specs by tajyrink
Parent article: AMD to open up graphics specs

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.

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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.