Re: [Dri-devel] Radeon 8500, what's the plan?
What you say is true, it isn't all that difficult for you and I, but compare that to Windows where you have one driver set for a whole range of adapters and all the user has to do is download and click. That is why Windows is so popular. It is simple. Just because you can say something like 'it can be done without too much difficulty' doesn't mean that people will use it. If you want people to switch to Linux or use Linux as a desktop/gaming platform you better make it as nice and easy to use as what they are using now. Telling people to RTFM is a cop out, the real solution is to make it so they don't have to RTFM. David From: John Tobin [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [Dri-devel] Radeon 8500, what's the plan? Date: Wed, 3 Oct 2001 00:14:16 -0500 You know that there is a reason why they provide the tar.gz file so that people using different kernels can use the driver. The RPMs are simply there for the people that don't o upgrade the kernel and stick with what Redhat gave them, making it easier for them. I don't think that compiling and installing the driver from the tar.gz is terribly hard. As far as knowing the difference between packages, it is the end-user's responsibility to know what hardware/software he has installed on his system so that he gets the right thing. If all else fails RTFM. -- John Tobin [EMAIL PROTECTED]; AOL IM: ogre7929 http://ogre.rocky-road.net http://ogre.rocky-road.net/cdr.shtml On Tue, 02 Oct 2001 18:05:02 -0700 D Take a look at NVIDIA's linux driver website. D http://www.nvidia.com/view.asp?PAGE=linux Is that confusing D to a D non-technical user or what? Is the average user going to know D the D difference between Redhat 7.1 SMP Kernel vs RedHat 7.1, one D CPU, D uniprocessor kernel vs RedHat 7.1, enterprise kernel? D Sorry, but that is D rediculous. D If you guys really want to see Linux become a gaming platform D go out and D solve these issues. Develop the driver infrastructure so that D the kinds of D things above don't happen. Develop the driver infrastructure D that makes it D easy for the hardware manufacturers to develop drivers and D support their D users. That is how you will take Linux to the next level and D make Linux a D viable desktop/gaming platform. D David ___ Dri-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/dri-devel _ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp ___ Dri-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/dri-devel
Re: [Dri-devel] Radeon 8500, what's the plan?
Um in addition to saving power in notebooks, you'd probably also end up creating a lot less heat. Though this might not be the case with NVidia cards ;-) Most reviewers of the Radeon came to the conclusion that the fan was purely for looks, something that I couldn't even say about my K6-2. Peter Surda wrote: On Wed, Oct 03, 2001 at 01:17:03AM +, David Johnson wrote: Actually I think SiS offers an idct solution as well but beyond protecting intellectual property there are potential legal issues with exposing how ATI decodes copy righted, copy protected DVD. I don't understand what this fuss about hardware accelerated idct is. In which situation you actually get use of it? When I play DVDs on my Duron 650 I get over 50% free CPU time with a software-only dvd decoder (vlc), the card only does yuv-rgb and scaling. It really only helps on older computers, but why would anyone buy a radeon 8500 and put it in an old computer? It may or may not be an issue but I understand why they don't want to necessarily play those games. There are similar issues with releasing TV Out information. Yes, there are problems about macrovision, i.e. the manufacturer shouldn't give out the docs if they can't ensure control of macrovision. Fortunately there has been some progress lately in the area of undocumented TV-Out features, thanks to me g. Hmm isn't this dri-devel? Shouldn't we be talking about stuff like how to do DMA efficiently and what new functions to add instead? Brings me back to what I wrote a couple of weeks ago, there is no function in DRI that is able to transfer data from the card to system memory and such a beast could really come in handy when doing video capturing. David Bye, Peter Surda (Shurdeek) [EMAIL PROTECTED], ICQ 10236103, +436505122023 -- To boldly go where I surely don't belong. ___ Dri-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/dri-devel
Re: [Dri-devel] Radeon 8500, what's the plan?
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [Dri-devel] Radeon 8500, what's the plan? Date: Tue, 2 Oct 2001 17:19:53 -0400 (EDT) Well, we (GATOS) do have the docs, under similar NDA. I believe PI/VA was more doc-rich ;) But (looking in them) they document at least basic 3d functionality (don't know about TL and stuff, have not looked thoroughly enough). Keep in mind that what we get is much better than nothing but not as good as we would like. Probably, when ATI writes drivers internally they rely on talking to their hardware people too much. I think you probably got the same docs that PI/VA got and those docs are fairly complete. The advantage of ATI engineers is that they can talk directly to the people who designed the chip. PSS Doc-rich refers to them allegedly having documentation for iDCT. Now, for conspiracy people, consider this: Loki had iDCT docs and they are in trouble, PI/VA got them - and VA is downsizing.. ;) Just kidding.. Loki didn't get low level (i.e. register level) idct docs. They got an idct library with docs on how to use that library. I don't think PI/VA got them either. There is some seriously proprietary stuff with idct that for legal reasons ATI wouldn't want to expose. David _ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp ___ Dri-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/dri-devel
Re: [Dri-devel] Radeon 8500, what's the plan?
On Wed, 3 Oct 2001, David Johnson wrote: There is some seriously proprietary stuff with idct that for legal reasons ATI wouldn't want to expose. That is one of the most ridiculous statements I have heard. Substitute some equivalent terms in there: There is some seriously proprietary stuff with the Pythagorean Theorem that for legal reasons ATI wouldn't want to expose. There is some seriously proprietary stuff with the quadratic equation that for legal reasons ATI wouldn't want to expose. -jwb ___ Dri-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/dri-devel
Re: [Dri-devel] Radeon 8500, what's the plan?
Jeffrey W. Baker wrote: On Wed, 3 Oct 2001, David Johnson wrote: There is some seriously proprietary stuff with idct that for legal reasons ATI wouldn't want to expose. That is one of the most ridiculous statements I have heard. Substitute some equivalent terms in there: There is some seriously proprietary stuff with the Pythagorean Theorem that for legal reasons ATI wouldn't want to expose. There is some seriously proprietary stuff with the quadratic equation that for legal reasons ATI wouldn't want to expose. Okay then... I think what David's suggesting is that ATI's implementation of an iDCT in hardware is pretty cool, and they're not about to go and tell everyone how they did it. Last time I checked, they were the only vendor to offer such a solution, and thus you may want to consider their position on the matter. -- Gareth ___ Dri-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/dri-devel
Re: [Dri-devel] Radeon 8500, what's the plan?
From: Gareth Hughes [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Jeffrey W. Baker [EMAIL PROTECTED] CC: David Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [Dri-devel] Radeon 8500, what's the plan? Date: Tue, 02 Oct 2001 18:02:16 -0700 Jeffrey W. Baker wrote: On Wed, 3 Oct 2001, David Johnson wrote: There is some seriously proprietary stuff with idct that for legal reasons ATI wouldn't want to expose. That is one of the most ridiculous statements I have heard. Substitute some equivalent terms in there: There is some seriously proprietary stuff with the Pythagorean Theorem that for legal reasons ATI wouldn't want to expose. There is some seriously proprietary stuff with the quadratic equation that for legal reasons ATI wouldn't want to expose. Okay then... I think what David's suggesting is that ATI's implementation of an iDCT in hardware is pretty cool, and they're not about to go and tell everyone how they did it. Last time I checked, they were the only vendor to offer such a solution, and thus you may want to consider their position on the matter. Actually I think SiS offers an idct solution as well but beyond protecting intellectual property there are potential legal issues with exposing how ATI decodes copy righted, copy protected DVD. It may or may not be an issue but I understand why they don't want to necessarily play those games. There are similar issues with releasing TV Out information. David _ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp ___ Dri-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/dri-devel
Re: [Dri-devel] Radeon 8500, what's the plan?
On Wed, Oct 03, 2001 at 01:17:03AM +, David Johnson wrote: Actually I think SiS offers an idct solution as well but beyond protecting intellectual property there are potential legal issues with exposing how ATI decodes copy righted, copy protected DVD. I don't understand what this fuss about hardware accelerated idct is. In which situation you actually get use of it? When I play DVDs on my Duron 650 I get over 50% free CPU time with a software-only dvd decoder (vlc), the card only does yuv-rgb and scaling. It really only helps on older computers, but why would anyone buy a radeon 8500 and put it in an old computer? It may or may not be an issue but I understand why they don't want to necessarily play those games. There are similar issues with releasing TV Out information. Yes, there are problems about macrovision, i.e. the manufacturer shouldn't give out the docs if they can't ensure control of macrovision. Fortunately there has been some progress lately in the area of undocumented TV-Out features, thanks to me g. Hmm isn't this dri-devel? Shouldn't we be talking about stuff like how to do DMA efficiently and what new functions to add instead? Brings me back to what I wrote a couple of weeks ago, there is no function in DRI that is able to transfer data from the card to system memory and such a beast could really come in handy when doing video capturing. David Bye, Peter Surda (Shurdeek) [EMAIL PROTECTED], ICQ 10236103, +436505122023 -- To boldly go where I surely don't belong. PGP signature
Re: [Dri-devel] Radeon 8500, what's the plan?
On Tue, 2 Oct 2001, Gareth Hughes wrote: Jeffrey W. Baker wrote: On Wed, 3 Oct 2001, David Johnson wrote: There is some seriously proprietary stuff with idct that for legal reasons ATI wouldn't want to expose. That is one of the most ridiculous statements I have heard. Substitute some equivalent terms in there: There is some seriously proprietary stuff with the Pythagorean Theorem that for legal reasons ATI wouldn't want to expose. There is some seriously proprietary stuff with the quadratic equation that for legal reasons ATI wouldn't want to expose. Okay then... I think what David's suggesting is that ATI's implementation of an iDCT in hardware is pretty cool, and they're not about to go and tell Or it could be that the iDCT core was not developed by ATI, but by someone else, and ATI just licensed it. This could explain why they are so adamant about not releasing the docs. As for TV-out they might be afraid that releasing the specs could be consired equivalent to providing Macrovision circumvention device. Or, perhaps, they are under contract with Macrovision.. Vladimir Dergachev everyone how they did it. Last time I checked, they were the only vendor to offer such a solution, and thus you may want to consider their position on the matter. -- Gareth ___ Dri-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/dri-devel ___ Dri-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/dri-devel
Re: [Dri-devel] Radeon 8500, what's the plan?
Loki didn't get low level (i.e. register level) idct docs. They got an idct library with docs on how to use that library. I don't think PI/VA got them either. There is some seriously proprietary stuff with idct that for legal reasons ATI wouldn't want to expose. Would you know which legal reasons ? I.e. is that only ATI will get into trouble if the publish the docs, or anyone that figures out how iDCT works is liable ? I don't recall all the reasons, or even if they were legally valid, but it was just a potentially messy situation, especially at that time when MPAA was suing everyone. David _ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp ___ Dri-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/dri-devel
Re: [Dri-devel] Radeon 8500, what's the plan?
Or it could be that the iDCT core was not developed by ATI, but by someone else, and ATI just licensed it. This could explain why they are so adamant about not releasing the docs. As for TV-out they might be afraid that releasing the specs could be consired equivalent to providing Macrovision circumvention device. Or, perhaps, they are under contract with Macrovision.. That is the exact reason for TV Out. Without being able to ensure that a macrovision protected incoming video stream is also macrovision protected going out it could be viewed as ATI releasing a macrovision circumvention device (or helping others create one). That might put ATI in some hot legal water. There are similar things with DVD decoding that ATI must protect so I understand fully if they want to be overly cautious. Their core business depends on it. David _ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp ___ Dri-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/dri-devel
Re: [Dri-devel] Radeon 8500, what's the plan?
Around 3 o'clock on Oct 3, Peter Surda wrote: I don't understand what this fuss about hardware accelerated idct is. In which situation you actually get use of it? When I play DVDs on my Duron 650 I get over 50% free CPU time with a software-only dvd decoder (vlc), the card only does yuv-rgb and scaling. It really only helps on older computers, but why would anyone buy a radeon 8500 and put it in an old computer? Hardware accelerated iDCT and motion compensation saves energy on laptops. For my machine it should be the difference between not quite finishing a two hour movie and having battery left for hacking before and afterwards. When you're running on batteries, performance can often be measured in joules instead of seconds... [EMAIL PROTECTED]XFree86 Core Team SuSE, Inc. ___ Dri-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/dri-devel
Re: [Dri-devel] Radeon 8500, what's the plan?
On Thu, 27 Sep 2001, Dacobi Coding wrote: Hello people! I was just wondering, what's the plan regarding Radeon 8500 DRI support? I been hearing rumors about ATI switching to a unified driver structure much like Nvidia's. Can anyone verify wether this is true or not, and if it is true, how it will affect the DRI project? 283. Support Radeon 7500, 8500 and Rage128ProII (#4941, ATI Technologies). That's from the XFree86 changelog. I don't know more about that.. - Pasi Kärkkäinen ^ . . Linux /-\ Choice.of.the .Next.Generation. ___ Dri-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/dri-devel
Re: [Dri-devel] Radeon 8500, what's the plan?
On Thursday 27 September 2001 19:55, you wrote: Dacobi Coding wrote: Hello people! ... Not to say that ATI won't switch to a binary-only driver as well, but anyway... But are they planing to, or have they allready releaced the specs for the new Radeon chips? And I mean full specs complete with V/P Shaders and TL? -- Gareth -- /* Jacob Kolding / [EMAIL PROTECTED] / DADSys */ /* My other shoe is a penguin... */ ___ Dri-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/dri-devel
Re: [Dri-devel] Radeon 8500, what's the plan?
Dacobi Coding wrote: But are they planing to, or have they allready releaced the specs for the new Radeon chips? And I mean full specs complete with V/P Shaders and TL? Did they ever release specs for the original Radeon? No. One would guess the same policy will apply in this case as well. -- Gareth ___ Dri-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/dri-devel
Re: [Dri-devel] Radeon 8500, what's the plan?
From: Gareth Hughes <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [Dri-devel] Radeon 8500, what's the plan? Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 12:05:13 -0700 Dacobi Coding wrote: But are they planing to, or have they allready releaced the specs for the new Radeon chips? And I mean full specs complete with V/P Shaders and TL? Did they ever release specs for the original Radeon? No. One would guess the same policy will apply in this case as well. They did release specs (under NDA) to many people (including yourself through PI/VA Linux). David Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com ___ Dri-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/dri-devel
Re: [Dri-devel] Radeon 8500, what's the plan?
On Thursday 27 September 2001 21:05, you wrote: Dacobi Coding wrote: But are they planing to, or have they allready releaced the specs for the new Radeon chips? And I mean full specs complete with V/P Shaders and TL? Did they ever release specs for the original Radeon? No. One would guess the same policy will apply in this case as well. -- Gareth Ok I see, I just thought that they had indeed releaced the full specs for the old Radeon chip. Pardon my ignorance. -OJ Kolding ___ Dri-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/dri-devel
RE: [Dri-devel] Radeon 8500, what's the plan?
They did release specs (under NDA) to many people (including yourself through PI/VA Linux). Keep in mind that ATI was paying VA Linux to develop Radeon Linux drivers at the time. - Daniel Vogel, Programmer, Epic Games Inc. ___ Dri-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/dri-devel
Re: [Dri-devel] Radeon 8500, what's the plan?
From: Gareth Hughes <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [Dri-devel] Radeon 8500, what's the plan? Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 12:56:53 -0700 David Johnson wrote: They did release specs (under NDA) to many people (including yourself through PI/VA Linux). Sure, but not to people in the general open source community, and with the demise of PI/VA, I would say the chances of a driver done by anyone other than ATI are slim to nil. Isn't that what we're talking about? Sure, that is a valid point but we need to remember that in the past ATI has not been adverse to supporting open source drivers or to releasing specs to qualified people. I have no clue what ATI's plans are for supporting Linux for new chips but should some 3rd party come along capable of producing a driver I think it is reasonable to assume they might make the information available. David Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com ___ Dri-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/dri-devel
Re: [Dri-devel] Radeon 8500, what's the plan?
On Thursday 27 September 2001 21:56, you wrote: David Johnson wrote: They did release specs (under NDA) to many people (including yourself through PI/VA Linux). Sure, but not to people in the general open source community, and with the demise of PI/VA, I would say the chances of a driver done by anyone other than ATI are slim to nil. Isn't that what we're talking about? -- Gareth Well that's what I was talking about anyway. I just hope that they do release a working driver near the release of the new Radeon, since I find it sad that the GeForce 3 currently is the only next gen 3d card supported in Linux. -OJ Kolding ___ Dri-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/dri-devel
Re: [Dri-devel] Radeon 8500, what's the plan?
On Thu, Sep 27, 2001 at 08:19:46PM +, David Johnson wrote: Sure, that is a valid point but we need to remember that in the past ATI has not been adverse to supporting open source drivers or to releasing specs to qualified people. They are very friendly actually. They provided me mach64 and r128 docs (under NDA) within 24 hours after I registered with them (last week). Although I must confess I've been recommended, it still shows that they are completely OK. I don't see any problems on the communication level, perhaps now that less people get paid for developing the drivers the pace will slow down, but not stop. What developers can do is to recommend ATI cards to end-users, so there is larger need for the drivers and larger chance someone would be willing to pay for them. Bye, Peter Surda (Shurdeek) [EMAIL PROTECTED], ICQ 10236103, +436505122023 -- Dudes! May the Open Source be with you. msg01779/pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: [Dri-devel] Radeon 8500, what's the plan?
On Thu, 27 Sep 2001, Peter Surda wrote: On Thu, Sep 27, 2001 at 08:19:46PM +, David Johnson wrote: Sure, that is a valid point but we need to remember that in the past ATI has not been adverse to supporting open source drivers or to releasing specs to qualified people. They are very friendly actually. They provided me mach64 and r128 docs (under NDA) within 24 hours after I registered with them (last week). Although I must confess I've been recommended, it still shows that they are completely OK. I don't see any problems on the communication level, perhaps now that less people get paid for developing the drivers the pace will slow down, but not stop. What developers can do is to recommend ATI cards to end-users, so there is larger need for the drivers and larger chance someone would be willing to pay for them. It seems to me that Linux drivers are an area where ati can claim some advantage over nvidia. If ati developed a really hot linux driver package for the 8500, and released the source code, they would probably claim a very large share of the Linux 3d and game market, such as it is. Today, there is absolutely no reason to buy the radeon 8500 if you use linux. 2d is barely there, 3d is definitely not there. If your choice was limited to geforce3 and the radeon 8500 for 3d, you would definitely go with the geforce, because it is the only one that currently works. Problem: I don't think the linux game and 3d market can support the driver development. Let's pretend that 1 full-time employee could produce the radeon 8500 driver in 6 months. Let us also pretend that it costs, in total, US$250,000 to employ this genius. Finally, let's assume that an open driver buys ati 100% of the linux market. Is that market big enough to offset the $250,000? Depends on ati's margins but my instinct says no, or maybe barely. -jwb ___ Dri-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/dri-devel
