AMD Releases 3D Programming Documentation 94
Michael Larabel writes "With the Free Open Source Developers' European Meeting (FOSDEM) starting today, where John Bridgman of AMD will be addressing the X.Org developers, AMD has this morning released their 3D programming documentation. This information covers not only the recent R500 series, but goes back in detail to the R300/400 series. This is another one of AMD's open source documentation offerings, which they had started doing at the X Developer Summit 2007 with releasing 900 pages of basic documentation. Phoronix has a detailed analysis of what is being offered with today's information as well as information on sample code being released soon. This information will allow open source 3D/OpenGL work to get underway with ATI's newer graphics cards."
Re:Makes me ask (Score:4, Interesting)
Yeeha!!!! (Score:5, Interesting)
I've been using only Nvidia cards since 2000 because they had
the best 3D graphics card for my Linux box. I was willing to deal
with binary drivers because there was nothing else available to me
at my price range (loooow budget) for 3D graphics.
But.... over the years I would get burned every now and then
when
1) I would upgrade the kernel and then the X server would get borked
because the Nvidia kernel module didn't match the new kernel, or
2) Some funky memory leak in the binary Nvidia module would lock
up my box hard because of some damn NvAgp vs. Agpart setting or
some funky memory speed setting. Of course, this didn't happen with
every Nvidia driver so of course I wouldn't bother writing down
what it took to fix the problem.
Finally when I switched to Debian Linux in fall 2004 and had
beautiful apt-get/synaptic take care of all of my needs I thought
I was done
driver releases with kernel releases so if I wanted to upgrade
my kernel painlessly with apt-get/synaptic I would have to
wait for Nvidia to get off it's damn rocking chair playing their
damn banjo and release a driver to go with the newer kernel.
The final straw for me was when all of my 5 nvidia cards were
now listed in the "legacy driver" section. Can you guess what
"legacy driver" means about Nvidia fixing their closed source
driver? Yeah, that's exactly the point.
That's when I started looking around for open source 3d drivers.
I know about Nouveau for Nvidia, but frankly I'm too pissed off
about Nvidia to consider them. Ati had a long history of treating
Linux customers like second class scum. Intel on the other hand
earned the "golden throne" by providing full open source for their
graphic chipsets. So now that I'm looking for getting a dual core
64 bit cpu + 3D graphic chipset the only viable choice was intel,
which I was happy to do business with.
Now that Ati has decided to come forth with 3D documentation I'm
willing to give an intel/ATi or AMD/Ati combo serious consideration.
Way to go ATI!!!!
I would think that's more reason for specs.. (Score:5, Interesting)
I find an interesting perspective being hinted at by AMD in this context. That they approach a common open source layer at the low level, and plug in their proprietary 'good stuff' as a replacement for higher layer things. As an example, they feel their powerplay stuff isn't top secret, so putting it at a layer where everyone can bang on it and improve it is ideal for everyone. Same with things like display handling. AMD and nVidia both do bizarre things requiring proprietary tools to configure display hotplug, instead of the full xrandr feature set, which has grown to include display hot plug.
In general, there are *many* things AMD has historically gotten wrong in their drivers. Mostly with respect to power management, suspend, stability with arbitrary kernels/X servers. One thing they seem to do better relative to the open source community is good 3D performance if all the underlying stuff happens to line up. If they can outsource the basic, but potentially widely varying work to the community, it would do wonders if their driver architecture lets them leverage that. And by giving open source 3D developers a chance to create a full stack, it's the best of all worlds. I would be delighted to see the Open Source 3D stack surpass the proprietary stack, but wonder what patents stand in the way of that being permitted...
Re:Yeeha!!!! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Too late (Score:3, Interesting)
I've been lamenting for years that the R300 card in my G4 (now a G5, long story) would never get specs. I figured they'd start releasing only specs for R500 and up. So when I read this story, I LITERALLY jumped for joy. I'm so happy that I'm switching from nVidia to ATI in my next custom Linux box.
-:sigma.SB
Re:H.264 acceleration included? (Score:5, Interesting)
ATI's cards that have h.264 acceleration (and all kinds of other good stuff like smart de-interlacing all collectively branded as "UVD") are unlikely to ever have the specs for UVD disclosed because they integrated the good stuff with the bad stuff (DRM) and are afraid the exposing how to use the good stuff in UVD will also expose how to circumvent the bad stuff on microsoft windows systems.
So, once again, those DRM apologists who say that DRM is purely optional, that if you don't want to use it, it won't hurt you, are proven wrong again.
On the plus side, the next gen cards will have the DRM broken out into a separate part of the chip so that they can feel safe in publishing the specs for good video stuff while leaving the bad stuff locked away.
One of many such statements by ATI/AMD. [phoronix.com]
Re:What's left?-experience (Score:4, Interesting)
Using the gpu to decode h264 etc is something I see as quite possible, but it is likely that it is something we have to implement ourselves (something I think we are capable of).
Re:One Moment While I Go blow hot air. (Score:4, Interesting)