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VIA aren't really one of the biggest video makers by Sits · 2008-08-31 20:47 · Score: 2, Informative · on VIA Releases FOSS Graphics Driver

By current units sold market share VIA is small. My understanding is that it's roughly 40% Intel, 30% NVIDIA, 20% AMD and everyone else is crammed into the remainder 10% (that's total shipments of both desktops and platforms, discrete and integrated cards). (Rummages around web) Here's a link to GPU units sold in the second and third quarters of 2007. It looks like VIA sold almost 3 times less than ATI (but they seem to be on an upward progression).

It's the timing that makes this more interesting because Intel have pushed so much work on their open source drivers they are now the easiest "current" GPUs to get going on systems like Linux. Intel have done this by hiring engineers to work on Linux AND releasing specs which is kinda a double whammy. If this turns out to be the only way companies can achieve a similar smooth out of the box operation on FOSS OSes it's not going to cheap for others. It's also interesting that AMD had also taken big steps in specs and drivers direction before this move by VIA. Some would argue VIA's hand has been forced into this if they wish to remain relevant in the FOSS playground. Others point out that this is a process that can only be started by a willing company.

This is a brave play by VIA but there are more challenges to come. The next question is what they do with regard to the OpenChrome and Unichrome drivers and how to integrate the work they've done into the xorg development process. Judging from their Linux kernel integration it looks doable so long as VIA have some help.

Re:Unichrome Pro support by billybob2 · 2008-07-27 06:59 · Score: 2, Interesting · on VIA Releases 800 Pages of Documentation For Linux

Even with the released documentation, we also need a good leader like Harald Welte to bring together the OpenChrome and UniChrome developers to work on the same codebase. Right now the split effort is really wasteful.

Re:Just about time - now for the other solutions by guzzloid · 2008-07-27 05:05 · Score: 1 · on VIA Releases 800 Pages of Documentation For Linux

I'm running a CN400 on Debian etch. I had the same problems with ubuntu, but then I switched to plain old Debian + the latest openchrome driver, and the problem pretty much went away. I do still get the occasional freeze during rewinding in MythTV, but my average uptime is on the order of three or four months. Have you got the latest SVN checkout of the openchrome library?

This tutorial should work on ubuntu too:
http://wiki.openchrome.org/tikiwiki/tiki-index.php?page=Compiling+the+source+code+on+Debian

My main annoyance is the fact that I use TV-Out almost exclusively (it's a MythTV box), and the OS driver doesn't seem to be able to correctly sync interlaced video. Sometimes it syncs on the odd 50Hz interlaced frames instead of the full 25Hz full-screen refresh (it's a PAL system). Unfortunately, after a brief scan of these new docs, I can't see anything that would indicate an odd-even frame timer, and I don't know that any of it is applicable to the CN400 :-(

VIA to (finally) Open their spec by DrYak · 2008-05-27 03:07 · Score: 2, Insightful · on VIA Open Platform Mini-Notebook Serves up Linux

Are they opening up their specs with this and allowing real DRI support, or keeping it proprietary. They're opening their Spec.
They've announced around 1~1.5 month ago that they were going to join the open-source fest of Intel and ATI.

At first, due to the lack of ouput, some called bluff and though VIA only pulled a PR stunt.
But recently VIA finally released huge chunks of code under GPLv2, and thus opensource project like openchrome and unichrome will definitely get a boost.

Specially since the VIA openbook is more based on classical VIA platform (instead of, say, an Isaiah with either their newest chrome chipset with hardware H264 decode [the one for which they where hiring opensource talents] or with that nVidia integrated solution as world's cheapest Vista Premium platform) I think it could benefit from full opensource support very soon.

We need to pay close attention to the future development of the VIA opensource drivers.

Leverage existing projects by keithjr · 2008-04-09 02:39 · Score: 1 · on VIA Announces Open Source Driver Initiative

I sure hope they get in contact with the folks at the openChrome Project. They've developed a very capable drive for the VIA Unichrome embedded video chipset, which is used on most of their boards nowadays. It'd be good to see some collaboration on this front.

Were are speaking about HARDWARE H264 by DrYak · 2008-04-09 01:52 · Score: 1 · on VIA Announces Open Source Driver Initiative

Browse the mythtv lists and you will find many h.264 on linux users, I actually watched h.264 yesterday on my linux box.

All this reports of h264 on linux are H264 played back on the CPU (using mplayer's ffmpeg library).
A normal mid- to hi- range CPU on a normal or small form factor motherboard.

What the parent was hoping for was support in Linux for *HARDWARE* assisted decode, the H264 decompression being handled in some hardware chip, either a dedicated chip (as it was the case back in the beginnings of MPEG2/DVD and DXR3/EM8300 chips) or using a graphic card that has hardware H264 acceleration, and coupling this with a cheap low power CPU on an embed motherboard (Mini- to Nano- ITX board).

The current problem is that the decoding function on VIA Chrome serie is only partially implemented (MPEG1/2 only for some older models, none of the MPEG4 that some chip offer function is available on Linux).

As the next Chrome 400 serie will probably handle h264 in hardware, if good opensource drivers are developed for it, it's going to please Linux users who might be interested into building HTPC solution based on cheap low power MiniITX boards (probably a Issaiah + Chrome 440 combo from VIA).

This is also good news for all the asian maker of small harddisk set top box, as often they base their product on MiniITX boards.

Re:Open Video Drivers by Doc+Ruby · 2008-01-25 07:59 · Score: 1 · on New VIA x86 CPU Takes Aim At Intel Silverthorne

Whoops, not nVidia, S3. There are open OpenChrome drivers, but they can't get at the best features like full OpenGL and alpha-blending HW.

Re:The fine print by Epsillon · 2007-07-25 08:44 · Score: 1 · on $150 Linux Laptop for the Masses

I can't find any indication that this is supported by DRI drivers.

Only in Linux as I understand it. There has been a few questions in the xorg@ mailing list about these chipsets and the general consensus is that the 3D portion is not likely to be implemented in BSD in the immediate future.

FYI, here is the DRI Wiki page dealing with Unichromes and such. You'd have to read it in conjunction with man 4x via to know it isn't just the CLE266 chipset it's referring to.

There's also the OpenChrome project here for more information about this chipset's 3D support, particularly this page which suggests a certain version of the Mesa source is required.

Re:The fine print by Epsillon · 2007-07-25 08:44 · Score: 1 · on $150 Linux Laptop for the Masses

I can't find any indication that this is supported by DRI drivers.

Only in Linux as I understand it. There has been a few questions in the xorg@ mailing list about these chipsets and the general consensus is that the 3D portion is not likely to be implemented in BSD in the immediate future.

FYI, here is the DRI Wiki page dealing with Unichromes and such. You'd have to read it in conjunction with man 4x via to know it isn't just the CLE266 chipset it's referring to.

There's also the OpenChrome project here for more information about this chipset's 3D support, particularly this page which suggests a certain version of the Mesa source is required.

Re:useless suggestion by metamatic · 2006-10-16 15:19 · Score: 1 · on Root Exploit For NVIDIA Closed-Source Linux Driver

All you have to do is look at the openchrome project to see the benefit of oss drivers. They have no support from VIA, [...]

The OpenChrome source is based on open source code provided by VIA. Says so right on their web site.