On Monday 14 August 2006 06:38, James Richard Tyrer wrote: > Lourens Veen wrote: > > > Now, AMD creates x86 processors, and the x86 instruction set > > changes once every couple of years when some new instructions are > > added. Graphics cards are evolving much more quickly. I wonder if > > AMD will be willing to spend the resources to publish a new set of > > documentation for three products every 6-8 months, to serve a > > platform that is a niche market for 3D (obviously a chicken-and-egg > > problem). > > They do it with their CPU chips.
Yes, but my point was that the economics are completely different. If they make their CPU docs proprietary then they have to write their own compiler and probably their own OS kernel. They'd lose their entire market, which wants to run Windows, Linux, or perhaps BSD. The cost would be enormous. The risk of relying on external suppliers is negligible; external implementations have proven their worth. Also, the CPU provides a generic abstraction; the coupling between the CPU and the OS is not at all specific (hence Linux runs on a whole lot of CPU architectures, and GCC can compile for them), so it is technically easy to separate the two. In contrast, the coupling between a video card and its driver is much tighter, the driver is essentially one half of the product. They already write drivers, and will have to keep doing so because the board producers aren't going to buy half a product, and open source developers aren't going to write Windows drivers. Opening up the drivers, or properly supporting various OSes other than Windows, only costs more money, increases (perceived) risk, and yields hardly any rewards, because anything other than Windows is a niche market for 3D. From this point of view, the business decision is a no-brainer. Of course they're going to keep the drivers and interface specs proprietary. Lourens
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