AMD's New Gambit: Open Source Video Drivers

by Ryan Smith on 9/25/2007 12:00 AM EST
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  • gouyou - Thursday, September 27, 2007 - link

    I think you have to take a look at the move in a bigger context. Offloading processing function to GPUs and integrating CPU and GPU: not long ago ATI/AMD released ACML -a library to offload some mathematical computation to GPU- and AMD is talking for quite some times about fusion -putting a GPU core in the same package as CPU cores-.

    Having linux, thanks to open specifications, be able to use seamlessly both CPUs and GPUs would be great for a numer of people in the HPC community. A processor with both CPU and GPU cores seamlessly integrated with Linux might target a place in some of the top 500 computers in the worlds ...

    ... Just thoughts ...
  • floffe - Wednesday, September 26, 2007 - link

    I just want to point out that AMD has been good with releasing specs so that their CPUs can be fully supported by open source (for example when they launched amd64, Linux was ported before the hardware was actually available, but also several of the BSDs ran on x86-64 before a Windows port was released). ATi, on the other hand, has treated Linux as second-hand users, which is where they got the reputation for shoddy drivers. The fact that ATi executives now answer to AMD ones could have been a major factor in this change.
  • stevekgoodwin - Wednesday, September 26, 2007 - link

    There's nothing limiting drivers written to just Linux. Any operating system could be targetted. It should be possible to create cross-platform drivers from the same source code (assuming the low-level stuff can be abstracted away successfully).

    Laptop video drivers tend to be updated rarely to never; it'd be fascinating if this led to better Windows drivers for some users.

    OSS could result in new features that aren't commercially worthwhile (although given the amount of junk in ATI/nvidia drivers...), or control panels that are easy to use, or just plain better drivers.

    Maybe innovative features could result from people who experiment with the hardware -- anyone ever see a BBC micro running 2 screen modes at once (2/3 hi-res/low colour, 1/3 low-res/hi-colour)? Better OpenGL drivers. Drivers for out-dated OSes.

    This is potentially of interest to everyone. Be interesting to see how it pans out.
  • stmok - Wednesday, September 26, 2007 - link

    Have you even written drivers for Linux? What about Windows? You do realise they're completely different driver models, don't you? (This is especially the case with Vista when MS changed the spec, which had both AMD and Nvidia scrambling to bring out something stable).

    You can't just write a driver for all OSs willy-nilly. It has to be seriously well-thought out in design. No one would bother given the fact that there is not a need or demand for such an approach.

    Then again, why would the Linux driver community help Windows? That's what the AMD/ATI driver team is for!

    The OSS driver isn't some super fancy thing. Its just gonna provide the bare essentials. If you use the existing "radeon" xorg driver with older Radeon cards, don't expect miracles. It won't be fast as the proprietary one, but it will have bugs resolved quickly. As well, it will NOT have all the goodies of the binary one from AMD/ATI.

    All AMD has done is provide specs and some resources to establish a foothold for their future project. ie: Fusion.
  • rebturtle - Tuesday, September 25, 2007 - link

    How nice would it be to have a driver that allowed 1 card for general graphics, and a second for number-crunching/ scientific data calculation / game physics from that older GPU you have left over from your last upgrade? Imagine crunching BOINC units in seconds.....
  • BurnItDwn - Tuesday, September 25, 2007 - link

    I saw something about this posted to Dailytech a while before this. This is VERY good news. While the % of users who run *nix on their desktop machines is very small, many of us can not stand having to use a BLOB for a driver. This should make for much less buggy drivers and much better functionality within X and possibly even allow for some better gaming support too. (But I'm not about to put any money on the last part.)
    Anyhow, I think this move by AMD showing that they support the Open Source ideology and that they will start to cater a bit more to Open Source users will gain them a lot more support then the potential IP losses to their rival Nvidia. I think this will give them a little boost to sales when they really need it. I had been planning on replacing my old 939 x2 4000+ with an Intel Q6600, but because AMD is doing so much to cooperate and support the Open Source sector, I am going to give them a chance and wait for them to release something that can compete with the Q6600. I also was thinking of replacing my X1800xt with an Nvidia 8800GTX once the prices come down a bit, but perhaps the X2900XT will interest me instead.

    PS all the comments about "windows can do it better" or "command lines are so 80s" are false. Windows can sometimes do some things better, but generally, OpenBSD or Linux can do most things using less resources and with less frequent problems. Also, there are things that are much better left to a GUI, but there are also things that are much quicker and more efficient when left to a CLI. Just because something has a learning curve doesn't mean it's bad.
  • smitty3268 - Tuesday, September 25, 2007 - link

    quote:

    Last but certainly not least, David Airlie is the developer behind the original R500 2D driver, but was never permitted by AMD to release the source-code. David Airlie is also involved with the Radeon driver and recently has been working on the Nouveau driver as well. David does blog about some driver developments on his Live Journal. Below are his comments.

    This effort from AMD seems very genuine to me, they've worked with me very closely for the past 3 months and I've had a large number of talks with them over the past couple of days at XDS, including a lift to the airport this morning. They seem to be gaining a greater appreciation for the community developers since meeting them at XDS.

    People need to understand this is a lot more about AMD internal processes being setup and methods for divulging the information than it is about just dropping the specs into a vacuum. So far the specs are being cleaned manually by one or maybe two AMD staff members, and they are being released as soon as the legal department allows (I got given the CD about 10 minutes after AMD legal signed off).

    So the reason AMD started an open source GPU strategy was purely due to 2 things:

    1.) Lost CPU sales due to lack of open source GPU support at an OEM level.
    2.) Future CPU/GPU combination projects would require opening info on the GPU portion to allow uptake.

    They didn't do this due to a community backlash, or boycott, or any member of Linux community persuading them it would be a good idea (I keep hearing oh Chris DiBona made them do it, he didn't.) [Google & Open-Source ATI/NVIDIA Drivers]

    So on that note NVIDIA has no reason to follow suit, the AMD reasons are due to the merging of CPU and GPU in the future and also to do with lost CPU sales due to lack of open source GPUs to work with them. This incentive can't work for the NVIDIA case so I can't see this having much effect on them, maybe some of the other methods might be more useful in that situation. I personally will just keep helping out nouveau in any way I can whenever I can.
  • yyrkoon - Tuesday, September 25, 2007 - link

    that a lot of people are missing a lot of points here.

    First, not only can AMD use this as a recruiting tool for potential new driver devlopers(which really, who is going to prove they are qualitfied enough by proving that they can turn on a video card, and render a minor 2d polygon?), they can also use this as a free way to have others improve their drivers for them.

    Second, this can be viewed as AMD trying to improve their relations with the OSS movement, getting their foot in the door so to speak, in anticipation that perhaps Win Vista may drive more users to the Linux side of the camp. Sharing minor details such as turning on a video card, drawing a 2d polygon, and whatever else that does not hurt them technology wise cannot really hurt them, because the Linux/BSD communties are already doing this right now. SO, this greatly improves their appearance with the *NIX people, perhaps raising their market share slightly in anticipation that their CPUs of current may actualy loose them money.

    Thirdly, it should not be all that hard for a seasoned/good developer with knowledge of how drivers work to reverse engineer even their most current driver technology. It would be the implmentation without permission of said features that would be the problem. So, this is not a magic bullet that will immedaitely solve all ATI/AMD driver problem with *NIX, at least, not right away.

    All in all, I think this could be a step in the right dirrection, and if AMD is sucsessful in this endevor, nVidia will surely have to follow suite. That being said, AMD still holds claim to being the first to do so. IF AMD does release much more information on their video cards, it could even work out as being a win/win situation for everyone. At the same time, this *can* open doors of all sorts in the realm of system exploitation, but there is really nothing a malicious developer cannot already do with enough knowledge / time on his hands to begin with . . .

    I would be very interrested to see what the OSS community could come up along the lines of unified shader technology capable drivers for *NIX, *if* AMD ever made this data public. Although I am not sure who actualy holds patents on this information/technology so, I am not sure this is even legally possible. It would be great if other vendors, including those with various other hardware types would eventually do the same thing as driver support is one of the few things that has kept a stranglehold on Linux/BSD for a while now.

    With this hurdle finally passed(eventually), perhaps this would make Microsoft more compeditive in the OS field, and possibly dump things like DRM, and the other stupid tactics we who use Windows because it is currently more solid have to put up with.
  • HiThere - Tuesday, September 25, 2007 - link

    This article is full of detail, but lacks polish...it reads like someone who is intentionally wordy, in the hopes that the audience mistakes verbiage for intellect.

    Example: "As the computer hardware industry has matured, it has established itself in to a very regular and predictable pattern."

    How about: "The maturing computer hardware industry has established a predictable pattern."

    Or: "The maturing hardware industry has established a pattern of..."

    You could trim a good portion of the article and not loose any useful content.
  • Araemo - Tuesday, September 25, 2007 - link

    Who knows, maybe they're paid by word count? :P
  • gochichi - Tuesday, September 25, 2007 - link

    Truth be told, I think Linux should be budging and not the other way around.

    I've gotten strong results from my Radeon 8500, Geforce 6200, and only decent results from an ATI X800. Miserable results from Nvidia 8600GT... though I think it's also my motherboard.

    There is something really cool about recompiling the Linux kernel with the NVIDIA driver though.

    The thing that is really interesting here, is opening the full feature set of ATI graphics cards while not doing it themselves, is that it would allow for a pretty serious Media Center style Linux. It would also allow for some not-quite legal uses (thinking playing HD DVDs Bluray, etc.) I think it would, could be wrong.

    I don't think that NVIDIA would have to see their hand forced into releasing open source drivers if they didn't want to. I get the sense that NVIDIA could do so at the drop of a hat if they chose to though. NVIDIA already has a pretty good gig going with Linux, and all they would have to do is provide more of the same to compete with ATI.

    Another thing that gets me going about this is that Mac OS X is very similar to UNIX ... in a lot of ways including how Open GL is the main deal. So maybe this is ATI merely letting others clean up their driver mess at no cost to them.

    One more thing... they may be comfortable with opening their "secrets" to NVIDIA because NVIDIA has better hardware anyway, but I wonder if this doesn't ensure that NVIDIA always has the edge. (I imagine, that it's not really much of a secret and that neither company is far more knowledgeable than the other.)

    ATI is making a big bid with opensource stuff. They do a lot of advertising for LINUX, and yet, when I think good LINUX rig I think intel/NVIDIA... or just plain intel since they've had open source drivers for their graphics for a while now.

    2 years seems like way too long a development cycle for these drivers. They've been long teasing about a completely redone driver for LINUX, I can't imagine why you'd need two years to release a LINUX driver. I think that undermines the skills of the LINUX community. Heck LINUX users can make ATI hardware work with ATI's crappy driver, I can only imagine what LINUX developers can do.
  • Kishkumen - Tuesday, September 25, 2007 - link

    I've been a linux user for a few years now and the high quality NVidia driver has been one of the key reasons I have been able to remain as one. I use linux because I have work to get done and even the occasional game to play. And I can do it better on the GNU/Linux platform than other platforms available to me, not because I have some idealistic philosophy about how the technology world should work. I wish more of my fellow Linux users spent less time debating the minutia of GPL v3 and more time improving the user experience or offering advice on how to better utilize the already excellent tools available to them. Thus while AMD's open specification strategy is probably the best (and realistically the only) option available to them at this point to remain competitive on Linux and to meet the demands of OEMs offering Ubuntu, I think the best anyone can hope for is an adequate driver that's merely more stable than the current version, but remains vastly inferior to NVidia's binary driver. Therefore NVidia will continue to power my Linux hardware for the foreseeable future.
  • andereandre - Tuesday, September 25, 2007 - link

    the article mentions that making their own code available would break licensing agreements.
    Why would that be? Would AMD via ATI not own the code? If a 3th party was involved would that not be fully payed for as there is no other use for the code? Can they not cry if they want to?
  • Araemo - Tuesday, September 25, 2007 - link

    Neither ATI nor nVidia own all the IP in their drivers. For example, the S3TC texture compression that is a requirement of directx, and many other games require(Such as UT2k4, even when not running under directx), is built into the drivers, and ATI/nVidia have to pay S3(or intel, or whoever owns it) licensing fees to use it, and agree not to publish the code..

    And that is just one straight-forward example.. there may be companies that have patented ways to recompile shader programs on the fly that ATI has to pay to use just-in-time shader recompilation... Even if ATI came up with the same algorithm in-house, if someone else patented it before they came up with it, they have to pay(and agree to licensing terms) if they want to use it.

    And remember, paying for code does not imply you have ownership of the code- merely usage rights(Especially when the contract explicitly spells out what you are and aren't allowed to do with it)
  • weft - Tuesday, September 25, 2007 - link

    There is open source and there is free software and they are not the same thing. The free software community does not dislike AMD. AMD has always been relatively helpful with releasing information about their hardware to help develop the free bios and this is nothing new. I am glad that we will finally have good free 3D video drivers. You should really do your homework before you write an article like this.
  • strikeback03 - Tuesday, September 25, 2007 - link

    I don't think they said that the free software community dislikes AMD. What they said was:

    quote:

    Meanwhile the poor quality of the binary drivers has as a result given AMD's graphics division a poor name in the open source community.


    Which is true, the general recommendation is to avoid the ATI/AMD video cards if possible.
  • PrinceGaz - Tuesday, September 25, 2007 - link

    If they're releasing enough information to build an open-source Linux driver, presumably drivers could also be created for other OSs- even Windows despite the fact official drivers already exist.

    It could also be a good way for them to find potential new employees. They could actively follow the development process and see who is showing the most ability and potential in developing the drivers, then offer them the chance to join the official development team and work for AMD.

    In any case it is a positive step, but as you say, documents covering the rest of the chip (and indeed the other GPU cores) need to be released before we know they are serious about this.
  • drebo - Tuesday, September 25, 2007 - link

    Linux seems great, until the people using it grow up and realize that there's nothing Linux can do that Windows can't do better.
  • stmok - Tuesday, September 25, 2007 - link

    quote:

    Linux seems great, until the people using it grow up and realize that there's nothing Linux can do that Windows can't do better.


    *sarcasm dial turned to 100*

    You're right.

    (1) Windows has the ability to accumulate, retain, and spread malware across the web. We're trying to emulate that in Linux, but we seem to be failing in this regard. Its a real head scratcher! If not for Windows, our firewall logs wouldn't be filled with attempts by malware trying to infect other Windows systems. Thank god for Windows!

    In another view, it's unfortunate. Because companies like Symantec, Trend Micro, Kaspersky, and all those other "security" companies won't be able to make money in the Linux market. Man! I really wanted to install third party crap just to maintain my system!

    (2) The US Govt monitoring software only works on Windows. Linux users are unfortunate enough not to have this privilage. That's too bad, because we really wanted the Govt to spy on us! I seriously get turned on when someone is watching me doing things on my PC!

    (3) Windows does it best with its "anti-piracy" features! Its SOOOOOOO good, that "Genuine Advantage" programs aren't found in any Linux distro! Gee, I really wish I could get to call a commercial Linux distributor just to get the OS on my system working! I really love it when I pay to get my balls grabbed like that!

    (4) You know what I really missed the most about Windows? Its the regular maintenance to keep the box running! I love those wasted hours of my life! Anti-spyware, Anti-virus, Anti-rootkit, registry cleaning, defrag, etc. It really sucks that you can't do that in Linux. Its really bad because I have time to go outside!

    (5) And the price! Oh man! I missed the days of getting ripped off by a mega corporation! There's nothing more orgasmic than paying for Windows that comes with a system (even though I don't need it!) Its an AWESOME feeling!

    (6) Vista? Oh man! That is SOOOO cool and is under so much demand that Lenovo, Fujitsu, Dell, Toshiba, etc had to bring back WinXP to make up for the limited availability of Vista! I missed out on my copy. :(

    (7) And what about MS Office 2007? Excel 2007 gives an awesome result of 100000 when you multiply 850 by 77.1! Its too bad OpenOffice's Calc can't provide the same result of 65,535.

    *sarcasm dial turned to 0*

  • dare2savefreedom - Tuesday, September 25, 2007 - link

    Where did you get that crack?
    Seriously, I want some.

    You can have 16x16x16 desktops on windows? - what's the name of that program on windows?

    You can have viruses on windows? -wait what's a virus? Complete n0o85 come and ask me for a virus scanner because ...blah.blah...blah... and I tell them it's called "GNU/linux"

    You can play files without drm breathing on you? what's the name of that on windows?

    On vista you play an mp3 and it throttles down your network connections - that's better than GNU.linux? I think !.

    Your comment started great until you didn't realize that corporations are bending you over and calling you their byotch.

    I want to keep my freedom to read and my freedom for it to be my own computer.
    Windows can't do that better.
    If windows has it's way you'll rent a computer and never really own it.

    I hope you grow up and see the real world-
    It's about corporations paying off the government to get the things they want.
    m$,riaa/mpaa all own or "lobby" or bribe your government to get things like the dmca.
    Did you vote for that?
  • JKflipflop98 - Wednesday, September 26, 2007 - link

    quote:

    Where did you get that crack? Where did you get that crack?
    Seriously, I want some.

    You can have 16x16x16 desktops on windows? - what's the name of that program on windows?

    You can have viruses on windows? -wait what's a virus? Complete n0o85 come and ask me for a virus scanner because ...blah.blah...blah... and I tell them it's called "GNU/linux"

    You can play files without drm breathing on you? what's the name of that on windows?

    On vista you play an mp3 and it throttles down your network connections - that's better than GNU.linux? I think !.

    Your comment started great until you didn't realize that corporations are bending you over and calling you their byotch.


    Why do you need 16x16x16 desktops? Thats just stupid.

    Linux has viruses too, ya know. It's not invincible.

    DRM doesn't breath. And it only activates when you play a HD-DVD/Blu-Ray disc.

    Vista doesn't throttle your network when listening to an MP3. You are stupid.

    I'd rather get bent over by someone with cash than some broke-ass hippie free-love antiestablishment commune.

    Sorry guys, Windows is just better. There's a reason they can't even give it away - it sucks.
  • dare2savefreedom - Wednesday, September 26, 2007 - link

    >> Why do you need 16x16x16 desktops? Thats just stupid.

    Some people drive pintos(u) and some people drive 4x4s with lift kits.

  • n0nsense - Wednesday, September 26, 2007 - link


    "Why do you need 16x16x16 desktops? Thats just stupid."
    Normally you don't need it, but if you DO need them, you CAN have them.
    after all it's about you freedom to choose.


    "Why do you need 16x16x16 desktops? Thats just stupid"
    Yes there is about 60 (yes only 60) viruses for Linux. and only ~60,000 for windows.
    and it's only viruses.

    "Vista doesn't throttle your network when listening to an MP3. You are stupid."
    But it does a lot of other things. Anyway, Vista hardware requirements is so low, that you have to buy new computer with double CPU power, double memory amount, hi-end graphics just to run Vista. NOT for your applications. And it's bad for me that beside my hi-end box, i (or other family members that don't need C2D @ 3.0GHz + 4GB of RAM and raid arrays for 2500$) can use 4-5 years old computer (or just a new ~300$ computer) and enjoy from better (more advanced, more beautiful, more user friendly) interfaces, better performance of applications, better stability etc.

    "Sorry guys, Windows is just better. There's a reason they can't even give it away - it sucks. "
    And this one just proves how stupid you are.
    Your Linux experience=0, but you shouting that it's bad, and windows much better.
    Windows (or any other MS product) is much better for MS and hardware makers. Each $ MS get from you, hardware makers get 18.
    Or, and by the way. Linux community is NOT much more educated/skilled in computer sciences, IT, programming and all other computer related things than Windows users.
    On the other hand, MS is good as competitor and concept and idea generator. Sometime they do think of something good, but generally brake it with poor implementation.
  • elpresidente2075 - Wednesday, September 26, 2007 - link

    I guess if you say it enough it becomes true, huh?

    I like both systems. Both have their good points. Windows has lots of easy to use softwares/hardwares. Linux is rock solid (if properly managed) and has lots and lots of little softwares for it. Windows offers a single platform to develop for, greatly reducing the dev time/resources for new programs, etc. Linux offers a very free environment that is not restrained to single packages or built-in system commands.

    Simply put:
    Windows is for those that use their computer,
    Linux is for those that use their computer.

    It's the difference between working with and working on one's computer.
  • n0nsense - Wednesday, September 26, 2007 - link


    "Why do you need 16x16x16 desktops? Thats just stupid."
    Normally you don't need it, but if you DO need them, you CAN have them.
    after all it's about you freedom to choose.


    "Why do you need 16x16x16 desktops? Thats just stupid"
    Yes there is about 60 (yes only 60) viruses for Linux. and only ~60,000 for windows.
    and it's only viruses.

    "Vista doesn't throttle your network when listening to an MP3. You are stupid."
    But it does a lot of other things. Anyway, Vista hardware requirements is so low, that you have to buy new computer with double CPU power, double memory amount, hi-end graphics just to run Vista. NOT for your applications. And it's bad for me that beside my hi-end box, i (or other family members that don't need C2D @ 3.0GHz + 4GB of RAM and raid arrays for 2500$) can use 4-5 years old computer (or just a new ~300$ computer) and enjoy from better (more advanced, more beautiful, more user friendly) interfaces, better performance of applications, better stability etc.

    "Sorry guys, Windows is just better. There's a reason they can't even give it away - it sucks. "
    And this one just proves how stupid you are.
    Your Linux experience=0, but you shouting that it's bad, and windows much better.
    Windows (or any other MS product) is much better for MS and hardware makers. Each $ MS get from you, hardware makers get 18.
    Or, and by the way. Linux community is NOT much more educated/skilled in computer sciences, IT, programming and all other computer related things than Windows users.
    On the other hand, MS is good as competitor and concept and idea generator. Sometime they do think of something good, but generally brake it with poor implementation.
  • strikeback03 - Tuesday, September 25, 2007 - link

    well, the lightweight distros use way less resources than any modern version of Windows, and it's free, both of which make it good for turning old computers into file servers.
  • smitty3268 - Tuesday, September 25, 2007 - link

    Except for playing video while moving something across the network, of course.
  • Griswold - Wednesday, September 26, 2007 - link

    Yea, he is an idiot and all, but your example is only valid if its an gigabit network - and only until MS' network team pulls their collective finger out of their asses and fixes the situation.
  • Dfere - Tuesday, September 25, 2007 - link

    Not being a techead... This seems to indicate either AMD does not consider it is losing much in secrecy or is gaining sdomething significant.

    I think this means either corporate espionage and reverse engineering mean there are not that many secrets between AMD and Nvidia, or AMD expects some significant benefit.

    If the latter- what is the benefit? The ability to learn from the Linux community? Future changes at the company? Possibly some benefit from open source and Fusion? Other avenues the company hopes to leverage from open source involvement?

    Knight advances and takes no pawn?..... hmmmmm.
  • stmok - Tuesday, September 25, 2007 - link

    AMD needs to quickly establish a developer community that will support future CPU/GPU implementations (ie: AMD's Fusion). Opensource is highly adaptable to new implementations when a hardware maker is generous about it. They did the same with AMD64. (The result was that Linux was way ahead of Windows in adopting AMD64).

    To provide most of the low level details to opensource community is a double bonus for AMD.

    (1) AMD will be seen as opensource friendly. (great PR).
    (2) Opensource folks will be more enthusiastic in going with AMD/ATI video card than a Nvidia one. (hardware sales)

    I guess everybody wins.

    As a side note, I doubt Nvidia will be doing the same thing. They are in a different position. (GPU maker, not CPU/GPU...So they have no reason to release specs).
  • Araemo - Tuesday, September 25, 2007 - link

    I really hope they eventually extend this back to release specs of the older chips(Particularly R250 derivatives, in my case..)

    Many older laptops have non-R500/R600 derived parts that can't be upgraded, but the rest of the laptop is perfectly serviceable.. I'd love to get a decent-performance open-source driver for my M9+ Mobility Radeon 9200. The Binary driver does NOT support my card anymore.. the older binary drivers don't support compiz, and the older open source driver doesn't play nice with the M9+ w/ compositing yet.
  • elpresidente2075 - Tuesday, September 25, 2007 - link

    ... if the Linux drivers ended up being more stable and powerful than their Windows counterparts?

    That aside, I would like to mention something that I was thinking through the whole article regarding AMD's possible motive that I don't think was addressed. It could be that AMD is just tired of trying to make and fix the Linux drivers (which was mostly a benevolent endeavor anyway, I believe), and to cut costs, they're just moving the development to an "outside source", which happens to be the open-source community. A clever way to do business, surely, but it will be interesting to see how/if they are able to actually pull it off without releasing too much information about their architecture.

    Oh well, good luck AMD, and good luck open-source community! May your work be fruitful and your collaboration long.
  • nullpointerus - Tuesday, September 25, 2007 - link

    This was a very informative article covering the details of the state of the new ATI open source drivers and what we can expect. That's quite a bit different from the political arguments of open source and ATI/nVidia zealots trying to twist certain facts to fit their "message." Thanks Anandtech!
  • smn198 - Tuesday, September 25, 2007 - link

    Yes thanks!
    quote:

    Consequently AMD has invested a lot of money over the years in to researching technologies such as anti-aliasing filters and just-in-time compiling for shader programs, none of which it appears they'll be able to contribute to their open source driver. We're generally concerned that even among the brilliant minds in the open source community, there may not be the knowledge and experience to replicate these driver features, or replicate them to the extent where they can perform as well as AMD's own drivers, defeating some of the usefulness of these open source drivers.

    I wonder how much stuff the open source community will inovate? What about HD content playback?

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