On 5/19/06, linux cbon <[email protected]> wrote:
Are "DRIs" the best available open-source drivers for
old ATI cards ?
Yes.
Done by reverse engineering ?
Nope. As I understand it, the R200 drivers and earlier are written
from actual specs submitted to the X.org/Mesa/DRI hackers by ATi
(under some NDAs).
The R300/R400 stuff is being reverse-engineered.
And not all functions are usable :-(.
Most of it is there: hardware video scaling (XVideo), OpenGL hardware
acceleration where available, DDC/I2C support, MergedFB/Xinerama
(multi-head setups), Render acceleration (yay for EXA!) etc. The only
major thing that isn't to my knowledge is the S3TC texture compression
(due to patents?).
What about newer ATI or Nvidia cards ? A hope for
something better ?
Intel's published specs and open source drivers for their integrated
video chips (which can do cool things like XvMC, etc.). From speaking
with a couple of X.org hackers, the GMA 900/950 stuff is supposed to
have nearly equivalent performance to a Radeon 9500 or so. (Thanks,
Intel!)
By the way : did you know of this project about an
"open source graphic card" ?
Hardware specs are open, so no need of [NDA] and
open-source drivers coding easier :
http://opengraphics.gitk.com/open_graphics_spec.pdf
http://lists.duskglow.com/mailman/listinfo/open-graphics
(still a project).
I'm hoping to be able to buy one Real Soon Now(TM). :)
--Peter
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