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NVidia and Linux Troubles
The following was written by Frank LaMonica, who besides his work to better 3D on Linux, I'm told he also plays guitar much better then me ;)
NVIDIA developed a driver for its TNT chipset that rendered indirectly through the XFree86 3.3.x X Server. That driver used a clone version of GLX that was developed by Terence Ripperda, was released with source code, but was, by NVIDIA's own admission, an interim driver intended as a short term solution. They placed information on their web site which announced their plans to release a DRI based driver at some time in the future. They recently made a joint announcement with SGI and VA Linux to publicize their upcoming binary only XFree86 4.0 compatible driver. Although the binary nature of their driver presents its own problems, especially with distribution, code maintenance, and support, we have to acknowledge that some companies believe their IP needs to be kept confidential in order to protect the interests of their owners. If customers trust that their interests will be maintained adequately by the vendor of their closed source software, the mechanism exists under Linux to allow that to happen. XFree86 4.0 has the capability to dynamically load binary drivers, so it is possible for anyone to develop a binary only driver.
A question was raised as to whether their upcoming binary driver was based on the Direct Rendering Infrastructure (DRI) which PI developed and that will be part of XFree86 4.0, or, if their upcoming driver would use its own, closed source, proprietary infrastructure. If NVIDIA creates its own closed source, proprietary infrastructure, that violates that basic premise of the open source paradigm - that the "road" which all users must use needs to be open sourced and freely available. An open source, "tax free" infrastructure is the only way to protect all of us from having any single company control key interfaces to diverse technology in a computer system. The MicroSoft model is not acceptable under Linux. If it were, we'd stick with MicroSoft - they are well funded, have a huge amount of resources, and represent a smaller risk to the end user.
The most serious danger to the open source community is the proliferation of a closed source, proprietary infrastructure. An obvious example of a problem caused by multiple graphics infrastructures is how to handle heterogeneous multi-head environments. A common infrastructure will allow multiple graphics devices to cooperate at run time. That common infrastructure had better be open sourced, or we'll find ourselves locked into a proprietary solution - and probably not one that we control! The DRI is fully open sourced, and was designed to be extensible. SGI actually helped to fund the DRI and a large part of its design was structured to allow future support for high end graphics cards. Many 3rd parties are developing drivers and adding infrastructure to the DRI. If the DRI doesn't support particular hardware in its current form, adding new graphics chipset support is considerably less expensive and time consuming that creating an entirely different infrastructure.
I was told by Jay Stocki, NVIDIA's software manager, that NVIDIA would not be using the DRI for its upcoming binary driver. If they have decided to use the DRI, or if they intend to release their source code, it would be nice to hear from NVIDIA directly so we can all know the answer to those questions.
Flamebait=1, Insightful=2, Interesting=1, Informative=1
Look at that! What I'd really like to see here is a "Troll", an "Offtopic", and an "Overrated" -- collect 'em all, kids!
Come on, we can do it!
God, Matrox couldn't have gotten nVidia to make a bigger mistake if they paid them. Wheeeee!
As of my looking at this, nVidia's stock has dropped by nearly 10% (9 13/16 points) today. In fact, they've been losing points for the last 5 days (they were at 110 on last Tuesday).
I imagine this situation isn't helping their stock value.
Suck nVidia! Suck! =p
So much for Open Source so-called quality. At least a proprietary system would not have gone wrong in the first place. Yeah, but then they werent stupid enough to hire Mulda and hit bum-chewing pals (Hemos and co)
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[an error occurred while processing this directive] Why The Future Doesn't Need Us
Posted by Hemos on Tuesday March 21, @11:00AM from the here's-the-article dept. Concealed writes "There is an article in the new Wired which talks about the future of nanotechnology and 'intelligent machines.' Bill Joy, (also the creator of the Unix text editor vi) who wrote the article, expresses his views on the neccesity of the human race in the near future. " From what I can gather this is the article that the Bill Joy on Extinction story was drawn from. Bill is a smart guy -- and this is well worth reading. NVidia and Linux Troubles
Of course not, nVidia is only known for their LIES.
f /pages/linuxfaq
Untill nVidia does a lil cock sucking on me, i have sold my tnt2u and purchasesd a g400 max. Don't believe me about lies? check out this site:
http://www.nvidia.com/Marketing/Products/Pages.ns
IT SAYS RIGHT THERE THAT THEY ARE WAITING ON THE DRI TO COME OUT FOR THEIR DRIVERS. They said this to get publicity and so they could sell more video cards to FreeBSD users. too bad they lied about this. What kind of idiot publically displays lies to market their product on their website and then doesn't follow through? It sounds like they are pressing the consumer law envelope. For those of you who think you are a god and think this is a flamebait, look at my post again. this is a LIE, nVidia knows it, its not just "bitching about nvidia's business model" its about consumer law and a fucking raw deal that everyone who bought a nVidia card got totally fucking screwed.
NVIDIA, WHY DONT YOU SUCK ON MY FUCKING COCK?
You've never seen NT crash?? Then you've certainly never seen NT, let alone have the qualification to call me a shoddy admin.
And what does the amount of money paid for the operating system have to do with my expectation that the hardware vendor has drivers? Many people, myself included, run XFree on commercial platforms. I'm sitting three feet from a Sun running 3.3.2, the desktop is a BSDi box running 4.0, and the server across the room is a Tru/64 monster running 3.3.6. These are all commercial platforms, for which Nvidia 'forgot' to release anything even resembling drivers for their native, vendor supported versions of X. Hence XFree, and their half-hack works far better than a commercial vendor!
I apologize for interrupting your dream world with reality. You can go back to mining 'facts' from the latest Microsoft press release, which soundly claims that Windows and IIS are crushing Unix/Apache in the server market and that IE 5.0 for Solaris will be out 'any day now'.
That's just a load of hype... there is no voodoo5
If you think most gamers give a shit about what works under Linux, you're high. The fact that Slashdot makes a headline out of Loki releasing just another game (see story from earlier today) just shows how pathetic the Linux gaming situation is.
Companies will exploit everything and anything they can (ie. RedHat) open source just minimizes the amount the customers can be exploited. (although one might argue it allows exploitation of developers on a grand scale) Wether Open Source is closed minds or not isnt the issue, if they werent intolerant to closed source in the sense that we will boycot it in the face of an open source alternative they wouldnt be the open source community.
you shouldnt bother, i have been sending a letter every week about this to every @nvidia.com address i could find, not even a SINGLE response, out of 3 months of emails, not even ONE, not the first email, not the last email, and they were all structured very nicely, i even wrote one up all nice and professional like, they are total bullshit, its not even worth the effort anymroe IMHO now that i get confirmation they they wont be platfrom independant.
sorry, i don't buy it. hardware companies don't sell drivers, they sell boards. if the board doesn't have a driver for your system, you don't buy it. it's in nvidia's best interest to develop drivers for more systems, rather than focusing on better benchmarks on limited systems, to the tune of 2-3fps. linux is a tiny minority of the nvidia demographic, with windows on highend intel machines being the clear majority. releasing a binary-only driver for linux is shooting themselves in the foot, because they're paying their programmers for what can be done for free by the community. if they released the source, and let the community contribute back, they could spend more of their in-house resources on windows performance, which is basically what drives their sales. they can focus on building cars for the oval, and let the community handle the street races. any post with an analogy like that should get automatic +2.
Tell me where do I buy Matrox stock?
Suck My Cock, You Fucking Asshole. Shut The Fuck Up. Go Take Your Ass-Ramming Someplace Else.
Umm. linux.aureal.com yes.
They said the same thing about Nintendo and Sega when Sony entered the market. Who's the leader in the console market now?
Touched a nerve, eh? Heh.
/Well/ then, some of us /do/ play games. And this /does/ piss some of us off. /Thank/ you.
PI's interest in this whole matter is very likely due to their desire to be *the* authority on the DRI.
Closed source is neccessary to protect IP at times, and very likely, this is one of them. NV's drivers give them an advantage over their competition. It does not make sense for everything in the world to be open-sourced. Get over it. Quake 3 is not open-sourced, why don't you complain some more about that.
I'll take my GeForce, thank you very much.
Matrox G400 was my previous choice, but I figured the GeForce's 350 MHz RAMDAC would give similar static image quality, they had publicly committed to Linux drivers, and I might as well get the hottest & baddest. (At first, I thought I could hook up *two* big monitors to the G400, but then I discovered that the secondary port's RAMDAC isn't in the same league.)
I want something with really good static images, and with the best (maybe not now, but soon) 3D Linux performance. I've been trying to follow the various web pages, but it's hard to compare state of progress, stability vs. speed, etc.
Could someone please give me some advice? Thanks!
OH GOD NO! NVIDIA IS GOING TO GO BANKRUPT BECAUSE YOU AREN'T GOING TO BUY ONE OF THEIR CARDS! PLEASE NO! DON'T RUIN THE ECONOMY! THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!
Have any of you ever used linux? It is a lot like unix, it looks and feels like 20 year-old technology. Have you ever used this thing called X? It's like Windows 3, which ran on top of DOS, and it looks even clunkier!!! Every piece of software on linux has some funky, proprietary means of storing configuration information... it's almost like it was written by a hundred different programmers... Even the name, linux, sounds "Like Unix". I think it really is unix, trying one more time to get to the desktop. Yeah, like my mom is really going to learn the syntax for a regular expression. The fact that linux works great on a 486 as a mailserver is not to be denied, but the idea that linux is some serious contender for the desktop market is a laugh!! And all this whining about "but they SAID they were going to turn over all their intellectual property to me!!!" Are you serious???? I sure hope you don't succeed in your attempts to destroy organizations that employ programmers, because I would have to find a new profession. I could just write a new OS, then demand everyone give me their source code for free. I wonder if anyone has thought of that already?
There are certainly advantages to a common code base. But having it locked up inside one vendor means that XFree-specific bugs will get pushed to the bottom of the pile and it'll probably remain x86-specific until the end of its days.
I certainly take your Xfree 4.0 point. I'd just be happier if I understood what, if not DRI, they intend to do. (And if there's a problem with DRI, they could always propose a change. Its software base is still small enough that it could still be changed for significant advantage.)
Your point is well taken, but an official reply is probably in order.
If I'm 75 and can't get an erection, I don't care that Viagra is a "close sourced, proprietary" drug. I want boner city! If the Viagra "recipe" was open, would I spurn it? I think not!
Apparently, you don't believe in using a product because you like it? Accusing people who aren't "into" Open Source, but use Linux, of being deluded is just plain stupid.
There will of course be Microsoft plants here who will accuse me of being a loonie, but we all know the truth.
If we all know the truth, then why are you telling us what we (supposedly) already know?
funny how anything perens writes automatically gets moderated up...
I have XFree86 4.0 running on my Creative Blaster Annihilator Pro 3D (NVidia GeForce 256 DDR)... it works great! So you do not need nvidia's custom binary driver.
But hey, they'll understand in their own time. Like when they try to upgrade their kernel or XF86 packages and suddenly the video stops working and they're so freaked that they reinstall everything (the way you usually end up doing in a binary-only OS environment)
I dont know exactly when aureal made their linux drivers available, but they have been out for a while. so just go to http://linux.aureal.com and get them. BUT, at the moment the full source isnt available, the driver only works for x86, but according to their site, they are working on full source and chip specifications ( how now one can "work" on chip specifications, shouldnt be that hard to get them out to the public ) Afaik the aureal drivers have been out for months
You are a moron.
Get a grip.
A closed source video driver. So what? As long as the driver works, I don't care.
Uh well, it won't work with anything but Linux/x86. Sure that may be fine for you, but what about people using Linux/axp? Or people using any of the BSDs out there? We're all screwed. And well, I'm not all that concerned about the license, but source is nearly a must, unless they're committed to cross platform, cross architechure support.
Uhmm... ok. So, he says the XFree86 driver interface stinks... and your solution, is to release open source drivers, for an interface that stinks. DING DING DING... Hello!? How does the fact that its an open sourced driver make up for the fact that the underlying infrastructure is "loose" and "immature"? If DRI is so hot, why is SGI, who has committed a hell of a lot of resources to this whole Open Source "movement" (and believe me, I use that term loosely), and the company that pretty much made OpenGL in the first place, helping NVidia develop its own proprietary interface? DRI or no DRI, XFree is from the dark ages and needs to be junked. Everyone pisses and moans about Microsoft this and Microsoft that. Hate to tell you, boys, but my Windows install runs a GUI a hell of a lot faster than my Linux box does. I've bought 3 NVidia cards in a row - TNT, TNT2, and GeForce 256 DDR. And when the NV15 or whatever the next fancy card is that comes out, I'll buy that too. I could give a rats ass whether or not it runs 200fps or 20fps -- if it doesn't work in Linux, I simply won't use Linux. Its funny how every single company that chooses not to do things the "Linux" way, automatically becomes unholy and evil, and all of /. assembles to try and "destroy" them. And as for this whole, "well, I'm gonna write NVidia a NASTY email and say `nyah nyah i'm not buying your card because you don't support linux'" bit.. Go ahead! Knock yourself out! That won't stop the hundreds of thousands of other people like me that are still buying their cards.
Well, I've been enjoying the speed of my TNT2 and now, lately, my GeForce 256 DDR card, hoping and waiting for NVIDIA to release some decent Linux drivers. But, as things seem to turn out, I'm really considering getting rid of all NVIDIA hardware from my 'puters. So, my message to NVIDIA is: Better get some really good drivers out there soon! And they're better be open sourced, 'cause anything less is totally unacceptable. We're not gonna take this much longer. Ok?
no one loves you, linux bitches. go away. get 98. bill gates owns you.
Trolling for Scooby doo!
Duh... Sort of overly unnecessarily redundant, no?
Of course, if we control it, then it will be our proprietary solution.
Are we after freedom or control? Some people too often forget their professed philosophy when their short-term interests are involved.
Assuming you're not trolling, but honestly don't understand the benefits of having the source, here goes...
By having the source available, at least there is a chance that if things suck, they can be made better. Just like having to go download someone else's glx solution because Nvidia's sucked so bad on Quake3. It at least was playable. That because they at least gave Linux users the table scraps of some obfuscated code to their original drivers.
Let's put it this way. If there is even bad source to wok from, you have a better chance of getting what you want b/c someone out there *isn't* a slack and *knows* how to fix it. Since Nvidia doesn't sell drivers, just cards they really have no reason to provide shitty drivers and at least not give us a chance to fix it for them for free (yet another way free can be applied to open source).
You have to wonder with the big boost from the X-Box how much influence MS is having on NVidia. Sure this sounds a little paranoid, but this is exactly how MS operates. Maybe I'm reading this too deep but once a monopolist always a monopolist in my book, unless a company learns the hard way not to take that path by being nearly destroyed by their own greed. Like IBM.
Tell that to the NVidia Engineers. They seem to think they licensed it! Quick, fellow Anonymous Coward, inform them of their error! They think they licensed it!
They've always had some sort of ties with Microsoft. The RIVA line of chips was designed to support Direct3D in hardware as much as possible. Microsoft was giving away RIVA-based video cards at at least one DirectX developers' conference. They even have (or had, I don't know if this is still the case) people working on the Microsoft campus to ensure compatibility/etc. This is a company that depends upon its cozy relationship with Microsoft to survive and weather the mercurial nature of the DirectX standard, even if only for the early peak at development specs. Remember that nVidia nearly died after its first chip, the NV1; it was a dog. The subsequent NV3, or Riva128 (what happened to NV2? I don't know) was actually codesigned with SGS Thompson Microelectronics (now just STM), but it saved them. (How much influence their erstwhile partner may have had on the whole RIVA line is interesting, but I digress; check out STM's website for the *full* specs of their own PC-on-a-chip products, and see if the video register design/layout doesn't look a little familiar, despite predating the NV3.) I'll let conspiracists figure out where the money for a turnaround came from, but I think it might simply be a matter of management holding onto a bigger company for dear life, and viewing anything done during the development of NV1 as a mistake, never to be made again. If full specifications were a part of that, then I can see the executives walking around, remembering the last time they tried messing with the open spec stuff. In all, I like my Riva128, but am I glad I decided not to upgrade until they had an open source driver ready and available.
All this Matrox back-patting is really sad to see. People posting here are really anthropomorphizing companies. None of these companies (i.e. Matrox, ATI, etc.) should be considered so great and terrrific all of a sudden just because they've "embraced Open Source." I, for example, have had a great deal of frustration dealing with my Matrox G200, (though on theWinbloze side). Their phone support was abhorrent ($80+ long distance charges due to ghastly hold times), and their driver support for this card family leaves very much to be desired. They made promises about their OpenGL drivers and 3DNow! support that they still haven't kept. And ATI has been really terrific about *not* answering product information request e-mails. There was one occasion where I was just trying to get a straight answer regarding whether or not their cards had Flash ROMs, and I had to threaten them with promises of posts to newsgroups, etc. before they would even reply. That too came back with a "we must not have received your earlier e-mail" excuse. When I replied to that message (with another question) I never got a reply. All of the messages I sent were civil and polite, so it certainly wasn't anything inflammatory that I said.
At any rate, the two points I'm trying to make are that:
-We shouldn't think of these companies as simply "good" or "bad." Oftentimes the engineers there are very enlightened and talented people who would would love to contribute good drivers, etc., to projects like XF86. However, such companies have plenty of PR, marketing, and "management" people too, many of whom dictate stupid policies such as binary-only drivers or "we don't support that platform." There is a frequent trend that once someone has had a good dealing, the company is immediately "good" and a person highly recommends this company's products. But companies grow and change, and companies that used to be really cool (mostly because the people there were cool) often lose their culture. Then you end up with unpredictable and oddly-behaving companies like Nvidia.
-Just because a company purports to support something other than Winbloze (like it ought to) shouldn't immediately qualify it for accolades. Many of these companies have required hits on their bottom line (witness Dell rejecting ATI) before they "got with the program" and started supporting Linux. There was certainly a time when Matrox was uncooperative toward XF86. So many of these companies have acted stupidly in the past -- don't reserve any great admiration for them just because they have decent Linux support. Products may be OK, but be very, very careful with your loyalty. It can be worth a lot.
What's wrong with that? Surely making it generally unacceptable is kinder than making it completely impossible.
+5 Insightful
It's the 10% that do look at the source that make the difference. Who do you think fixes the bugs in open source software?
Some people are actually interested in fixing problems that they come across. It does not matter that 90% of the people aren't.
Go away, and don't come back until you actually understand open source/free software.
As a user who benefits from open source, I'm going to deliver a hearty fuck you to NVidia. I'm just about to upgrade my graphics card - currently a Matrox G200 - and I will not be buying a card with an NVidia chip on it. Hiding the interface to the card does nothing other than satisfy the ultra-anal beancounters and lawyers who do so much damage to this industry.
If NVidia wants to listen to them, fine, but they've lost my custom.
NVidia may well have a technological lead at the moment, but in this game that can change very quickly. I won't forget this, and when they aren't the top dog anymore, I'll still remember which company supported open source, which didn't, and which (like NVidia) went out of its way to undermine it.
As for VA being involved with NVidia's drivers ... what happened to Larry's "We're a 100% open source company"?
I was giddy when I discovered that RedHat 6.1 included a TrueType font server, but scratching my head when I couldn't find any TrueType FONTS (admittedly that sorta stuff ain't always free and I had dl'd the ISO).
No problemo. Just bop on over to MicroSoft's website and download some FREE TrueType fonts. I must admit, AndaleMono is the WORLD'S GREATEST mono-type font. The l's and 1's and O's and 0's are visually distinctly different. GREAT font for reading/writing code....
PS. Redhat has a little mini-howto on installing and using TrueType fonts, just search for TrueType
Some questions to stimulate the intellect:
+ Why is it that MALDA has to inflict his opinions on us? JUST POST THE NEWS!
+ Why are moderators paid to sing the VA Linux Song? And kiss Malda's butt?
+DID MALDA DONATE ANY
+ Why do WE, the REAL OPEN SOURCE COMMUNITY let them get away with it?
Moderators, paid or not, remember the simple, easy steps to keeping good karma (and a brown nose) with Malda;
1. Moderate DOWN all posts questioning or saying negative things about Open Source, no matter how reasonable or accurate they may be.
2. Moderate UP all pro Open Source posts, no matter how stupid or inaccurate.
3. Moderate UP all posts from people saying nice things about VA Linux/Andover/Malda.
4. Watch VA/Andover/Slashdot stock $$$$ rise
and have a really good laugh at all those suckers who let them get away with it.
I disagree completely. If third-party drivers exist, it's because the vendor released enough information to write them, which is far more valuable than proprietary drivers for a handful of current platforms. Obviously more help from vendors is nice, but hardly any vendor can afford to support every present (much less future) platform adequately all by themselves.
Even though this is a blatant flamebait, you have an important point. Applications drive computer users, not operating systems.
If your primary application is video games, by all means run Windows and take advantage of the hardware that's out there. Likewise, if you are doing heavy OpenGL stuff, buy a SGI or take a look at whatever SGI and Nvidia is cooking up. You won't run Linux because the framerates are bad -- fine -- you obviously don't want a unix system, you want a game system. Go where the action is.
Unfortunately for your argument, however, most slashdot users are using some form of Unix because they want to use and/or develop Unix applications. They also want to play some vids on the side, and Nvidia essentially screwed them out of this application by promising support that never arrived.
Nobody here is stupid enough to think that you can run Linux without doing some hardware selection. The problem is that Nvidia was the first on the block with open source drivers, and looked like real choice for a unix workstation that could also play games. Unfortunatly the support never really appeared, and quite a few people are $200 poorer for it.
Uhhh.... DMA technology gives you alot more then 10%-20%. It enables the card to load data right from RAM and pipe it right to the AGP Bus. That can double your speed.
John Carmack wrote a 2 page document about the importance of this whole thing, its not a small 10-20% issue.
I Feel John Carmack knows what he's talking about. I do not think he was talking out of his ass when he wrote it.
I believe you can also find it at utah-glx.sourceforge.net.
How about the ACE Consortium (Advanced Computing Environment), whereby everyone was going to be running Microsoft Windows NT on the Mips RISC CPU? Microsoft fell out of that one and SGI had to buyout Mips (since SGI ended up being the only major computer company using those CPUs after DEC switched to Alphas)...
Idiot. Communism is the only way to go. Weeds out all the morons like you.
Shut UP, you whiney little linux heathens. No, you can't have everything you beg and bitch for. Nvidia didn't kill your grandmother, so go do something productive with your time instead of bitching and moaning to other linuxites.
Re: No good drivers for some new, fast hardware.
h tml suggests that there's only one company building fast systems and drivers. I thought Sun was the market leader in networking and performance (to hear them talk, you think they invented the Internet.. even before Mr. Gore).
Strange, given how much reverse engineering was needed to get linux up on Sparc, why is this any more of a problem? We know how windows works (all the doc is in the ddk for sliding in new video drivers) - how hard can it be to write our own drivers? Why do we have to plagiarize from anyone? I thought the whole idea of open source was to avoid having to ask any company for their intellectual property or source code (??). Linux didn't start by asking bsd to contribute their code to the distribution.
Here's another example I don't understand. I thought linux had it all over the closed OS-s when it came to performance (and security and all the other 'ilities) because of its advantage of having thousands of programmers looking at and constantly improving the code. The article at http://www.nwfusion.com/research/2000/0320revgig.
Nvidia didn't license any part of the design.
You don't seem to understand the concept that the drivers are *Nvidia's* property, not yours. They can do as they damn well please with their software. Just because you're a sue-happy american doesn't mean you can just bring any company into court that does something you don't approve of.
Maybe they ditched the DRI because they thought it
sucked? Frank claims SGI funded the DRI, however,
they obviously didn't think highly enough of it to
use in their collaboration with NVIDIA.
Didn't work for you dickhead.
What you've said makes sense for a software company. Of course, since NVIDIA is a hardware company, it doesn't apply here.
Where you come up with "support for the freeware operating systems is at best a drain on their programming expertise and resources", is well beyond me. How hard is it to release some pre-existing internal documentation?
Open Source makes sense for hardware companies most of all. By bringing down the cost of ownership (by removing virtually all software expense) of the hardware, they sell more, and make more money.
Please, let me know which "leading agency" you work for. I'd like to make sure that I haven't got any money invested in it.
binary code releases make it difficult for people like XF86 developers to pour hot grits down their pants. thank you.
Strange, I had no problem at all getting the Virge MX specs from S3. They were pretty helpful, emailing me them in pdf format and even offering to send paper versions out free of charge.
I'm glad I returned the TNT2 to the dealer last week in exchange for a Voodoo3 3000 after it screwed up my sound and everything. And now we get this nVidia news, jeez, who needs it!
Nvidia is a Microsoft puppet. Why do you think Nvidia got the contract for the X-box? Because they promised to stiff the Linux market, that's why. This is a prime example of why Linux is dead in the water.
There will of course be Microsoft plants here who will accuse me of being a loonie, but we all know the truth.
While picking components for a new linux ogl development box, the nvidia cards did not cross my mind. Not once. :-)
The binary-only stance of nvidia may satisfy sgi and va research, but it just doesn't cut it for me. There is too great a chance of something like this happening when the source is closed.
As for me, the Matrox G400 Max earned the right the my pennies. Matrox is changing for the better. I look forward to seeing "best supported card under Linux" on their website one of these days
Can you say S3?
Let me just say that Scooby and a bowl of hot grits poured down my pants would solve this problem IMO
I remember cursing Matrox for not releasing ANY decent drivers for my m3d (PowerVR PCX2). I bought it at the time because Matrox has a good reputation about releasing good drivers and because it was cheap. Then I decided to change my S3/M3d-combo to something better - a Riva TNT-card. The Windows drivers are great but I'm not really using Windows for anything more than Games and Word (until Abisource do a GOOD release). Now I'm stuck with Utah-GLX's CVS driver which work well with some apps and crash my X-server with others. And they're slow. Guess I should have sticked with Matrox anyway...
I remember how glad I was that nvidea was toying with OpenSource drivers but now they may just as well die. One of my friends has bought a TNT2 because it SEEMED like nvidea would give decent support for their cards. Frustrating to know that I can't use my Riva for anything else than Console. Maybe they think OpenSource is only viable when they can't get it to work as binary. I'm using an OPENSOURCE(!!!!!!) OS and I'll keep it that way. I'll advice everyone to buy Matrox instead. BIG DUMB MOTHERFUCKERS LIKE THIS PISS ME OF!!!! :-(
Hmm...If NVIDIA's nexst card were dos-only, would you revert to dos? You're too dumb to comment on this issue.
2.3 meg backup tape? What's that for, your brain? Besides, a floppy should be sufficient for that.
If it's free, I can use as long as it lasts.
If it's not, I can use it as long as the company (think it's a moral responsibility to provide support | make money | exists).
--
Born to lose, live to win. -- Lemmy
While the majority of computer users/owners around the world aren't computer geeks, many of them have friends who are computer geeks. Many of these technical illiterati ask their techno-friends for advice when deciding what to buy. I've seen it a thousand times.
In addition, some of us computer geeks are in positions where we buy hardware for our companies. Whenever I have to choose between two products of equal value to my business, I am heavily influenced by which product/vendor has done the better job of making me happy as a geek.
Right now, I've about had it with Aureal because they've been promising Linux drivers for their Vortex lines of sound cards since November of 1999. They even announced that they'd have Linux drivers in February of 2000. Now March of 2000 is nearly over and there's been no sign of drivers from Aureal and there's been no mention of when we might actually see their promised drivers.
I'm about to rip that piece of crap soundcard out of my computer and install a SoundBlaster Live because at least Creative Labs has some Linux support. The video cards in my desktop machines at home are Matrox and 3Dfx and both are well-supported. I don't think I'll be buying a GeForce DDR any time soon if nVidia can't release decent Linux drivers.
And no, I don't want to buy OSS drivers for that Aureal soundcard....
Oh dear. Here's a clue - if it works today (which the nVidia drivers do) then it'll carry on working even if nVidia shut up shop tomorrow.
Which part of that don't you understand?
Never seen NT crash? Heh. Ever worked a help desk? Time to restore your brain from it's backup floppy.
Man, I'm glad I read this when I did. I just ordered a geforce ddr, due to the claims of dri support nvidia has been making. Fortunately the cards have been on back order so I haven't been charged the rediculous $300 for it yet. I won't be either, since i'm calling and cancelling my order today. Looks like I'll be waiting a little longer for the Voodoo4/5s.
Hidden Methods: The Good and the Bad
3D vendors believe that if they were to release all of their intellectual property in open source form that a new competitor would immediately use that IP as the basis of its own future products, without having to have incurred the high cost of development. The underlying technology does not become obsolete as it does with so many other computer technologies. This belief is the primary reason 3D vendors, from the application level down to the device driver level, reject requests to open the source code or specifications to their products. Each vendor has developed its own unique approach and long term plan for its own ongoing 3D development. The unique longevity of 3D technology and the high cost of entry requires a different approach by 3D vendors in the open source market.
To solve the problem you must understand the problem.
theron
If you have to use a devel kernel, those are the breaks. If you don't like it, and want support for whatever gizmo you have that doesn't work in 2.2.x, run windows, or wait a few weeks or so for 2.4.x.
The PC maker was, I believe, Dell...
Or you, shit for brains.
No, I'm currently engaged in a research project for a large corporation, not 3dfx. I was merely trying to offer some kind of insight into what seems to me to be a fairly typical ploy by a company having second thoughts trying a risky venture into an area of dubious worth. It's the reactions of people like you which are going to damn the freeware operating systems into obscurity and cause the guys at Redmond to celebrate.
You don't need glide to compile MesaGL. I just tried it yesterday. If your 3d app of choice won't run with a non-glide mesa library, I'm sorry.
But there are Aureal drivers. They've been out since January. Sure, they're just modules, but they work damn well.
What is all this? - I mean, NVidia is the only chance to get Linux REALLY 3d savvy- S*rew the rest, they dont know nothing- With SGIs involvement they can really make a difference, and they have the only chipset that works in the real world. - even SGI is bending over backwards for these chips, as they know NVidia has them beat in the long run. Thats the biggest compliment a 3D HW vendor can get. NVidia makes great hardware, and professional drivers- that aint easy on Linux caus somebody forgot to get the architecture right in the first place. Blame them, not NVidia. From a 3D viewpoint Linux sucks! a 5 year old sgi beats it hands down in practical life- that should preferrably change soon, and you (almost) tell them to go to hell. And thus give MS the upper hand. Who cares how they do it, if they do it? - and who are you to decide whats right? - is Linux suddenly a fascist movement or a "free movement"?- If its a free movement, people should be able to go about their business the way they prefer. And would you prefer a binary driver, with all SGIs third-party acceleration schemes (purchased IP), or a free driver, which is open sourced all right, but cannot include professional software that makes GL much better?. Who cares about open sourcing of hardware drivers? - it makes no sense whatsoever, any piece is going to be obsoleted soon anyway- what matter is NVidias (promised to be released soon) support for Linux, and what about complimenting these guys for not ignoring Linux, as it probably makes little difference on the bottom line right now?. Positive vibes, please!!! - Or you shoot yourselves in the foot.
Very mature. I never claimed it did. You are the one making the grandiose claims.
Much of the problem here may be the the looseness and immaturity of the driver interface for XFree86.
THIS IS ONE OF THE EXACT REASONS WHY THEY SHOULD OPEN THE DRIVER SOURCE.
That way we don't have to put up with NVidia's sluggishness.
And I don't want to quit bitching because I bought their card back when they were promising great things, and, if I had known what they were going to do, would have bought a G400 instead. I feel cheated by NVidia's actions here.
Why the hell won't the thing work for me? I am running redhat 6.0 and the damn thing will not compile. When the Linux binaries were finally available, I tried them. The binaries gave me errors about glide (do you need glide for 4.0?) and then after I installed them the thing will just not work.
I was thinking about bying a new graphics card. This will make my decision easier.
I've a TNT card, but I don't ever get another nvidia card unless they open the specs! we saw it with Creative, but they only released the source...although that would be a great step for nvidia to do. They only create stupid windoze drivers. The latest linux drivers they release where as bad as the previous ones. nVidia makes me SICK! i'll buy a Voodoo 3 soon!
Well it looks like you've been TROLLED sucker! Scooby lapping grits on Natalie Portmans petrified and naked body! I love you!
After three NT 4.0 BSOD directly caused by the GDI and Nvidia's drivers, I can confidently say 'Fuck you, Fud Troll'.
Yeah, and Microsoft didn't pay for drivers; Why should we?
After three NT 4.0 BSOD directly caused by the GDI and Nvidia's drivers, I can confidently say
If you can't even configure NT properly, there's no hope for you. I have never seen NT crash.
Microsoft didn't pay for drivers; Why should we?
I referred to paying for the operating system. Commercial products are properly supported. Shareware like Linux isn't.
I hear that it is very hard to do this under X. However the Berlin Consortium is attempting to replace X. And they are GNU if you care about that sort of thing, like me :)
"Real Cheap"
"Works great in Windows"
If you are interested, send me email.
Here's what the Nvidiots said about Linux support:
"We intend on providing full, sorry, partial support of Linux by providing open, sorry, closed drivers utilizing DRI, sorry, Our Own Proprietary Shit(OOPS)."
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Its good to see someone who adds common sense
(vote with your dollars, not with your complaints) to all this monday morning quarterbacking.
Nvidia just inked the deal to deliver the NV25 for the XBOX. They're set for 2 years. (A heck of a long time in this industry)
I'm pretty mad.
I bought the TNT2 over the V3 b/c it was a bit better, and it looked like support for Linux wasn't going to be an issue. I wish I would have bought a G400 or a V3! The ONLY reason I still se Windows is b/c I can't play accelerated games in Linux yet. And no thanks to Nvidia, I'm going to have to buy another video card to get DRI support.
I'll go with a company that understands that MY best interest is theirs as well..
You Are Obviously A Troll. Your Style Needs Work. Have A Nice Day.
The real danger to everyone is the increasing intollerance of the Open Source community.
Open Source --> Closed Minds
First, the people who have the most experience writing open source drivers (the PI & utah-glx people) would probably never want to do something like this, and even if they did, the NVidia engineers have *way* more experience writing drivers for their cards. Look what happened when Matrox released their specs -- it took quite a while to get a usable driver -- of course the driver now is quite good, but it took a while to get to that stage.
Now let the mail-bombing begin!
"While the current ones are adaquate, they could/should be much better."
You obviously haven't tried running quake3 with *any* version of the crap they've been releasing up till now. I'ts sad when you have to go download at third party project (Utah), then get the glx source somewhere else, compile it, weep bitterly because you did something wrong (because you're not a programmer, you just want 3D, DAMMIT)...do it all over again and at the end still get much less bang than the original version of their windows drivers provided.
Some of us don't consider Open Source "OUR game"... Some of us don't care if drivers are binary only, as long as they perform well on our OS and architecture... Are there advantages to Open Source? Certainly. Is Open Source preferred? Usually. It Open Source the "one true way"? No.
Adam
Amen
..........sig...........
If they release binary only drivers, big deal? I could care less about looking at the source if they work. I bet a good 90% of the people here download the source to something, compile it and never take a look at anything. Did you read every line of the latest kernel, or every line of xfree86? I don't think so you downloaded binaries.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
As an IT consultant with a leading agency engaged in research into the "free software" phenomenon I am writing this because this kind of maneuvering is something I have seen many times before in the cut and thrust world of software. I hope that people involved with operating systems such as GNU or Linux aren't taken in with marketing hype and "vaporware" promises.
NVIDIA, according to certain sources I have, are in a lot more trouble than they appear to be, and as such have been trying for some time to find a solution to their problems. Their support of the freeware operating systems was one of the more overt business strategies they decided to implement in the hopes of becoming a market leader once again. This, as I have seen, was welcomed by the community as showing how hardware companies have finally come to believe in Linux and how their dreams of desktop domination were almost at fruition.
Unfortunately, this is not the case. The sort of maneuvering going on here is indicative of a shift in corporate strategy as NVIDIA discover that providing support for the freeware operating systems is at best a drain on their programming expertise and resources, and at worst a public relations nightmare as investors shy away from any company involved with "open-source", a dubious business model at best.
Mark my words, you will see less and less from NVIDIA on Linux as they attempt to sneak back into the lucrative and reputable Windows market. It's unfortunate for Linux, but from their point of view it makes sound business sense. Thank you.
From http://www.nvidia.com/Products.nsf/htmlmedia/softw are_drivers.html:
"The 3D support is for development on XFree86 3.3.5 only, and IS NOT a high performance architecture. The upcoming XFree86 X server 4.0 will use the Direct Rendering Infrastructure required to take full advantage of the RIVA processors."and
"There are source code and binaries available for download. The components being made available are:1. XFree86 X Server for NVIDIA NV1, RIVA 128, RIVA 128ZX, RIVA TNT, RIVA TNT2, GeForce 256.
2. Development Mesa/GLX module for 3D graphics support for RIVA 128, RIVA 128ZX, RIVA TNT, RIVA TNT2, GeForce 256."
Damn straight. Don't buy an nVidia. If they're scared they'll lose money over their "intellectual property", then they'll sure as hell lose money when we don't buy their card.
I bought a Voodoo and never had a problem with it under NT, 95 OR Linux.
When do these people realize they're in the business TO SELL GRAPHICS CARDS, not fund lawyers???!!! F*ck em. Don't buy their stuff.
Matrox is not a perfect company...they've done a lot of boneheaded things in the past. But right now, they are making great progress. I got sick of ATI's arrogance and poor quality and switched to a G400...and I have NOT regretted it one bit.
The 2D performance is excellent...but wait until you try the UTAH-GLX drivers with it. WOW! Outside of SGI's I have never seen any OpenGL stuff run really fast (except in games, I'm talking demos and stuff)...but now, with a G400 under Linux, it SCREAMS!
Wanna talk games? Quake III blazes. It's downright beautiful... UTAH-GLX makes all the difference. You can get Quake I and II to work as well, with a little hacking about (Zoid has promised to update them to work with the latest UTAH-GLX...).
nVidia dropped the ball...the G400 is -the- OpenGL card (under Windows -and- Linux). The performance kicks ass, and Matrox -has- delivered a lot of info to Linux developers (not all...the Warp microcode is sadly absent, but still..). Support Matrox...screw nVidia. If they wanna bet their business on vapour like the X-Box...then let them.
How has the dual-head G400 card support come along? Any sign of working?
:). I went to the local computer shop and picked up a cheap PCI Voodoo3 2000, but it didn't want to play with my existing TNT2. I've read that Matrox cards are generally multihead friendly, but I can't find a PCI card around. Stores only sell the G400, and well, I've never seen a motherboard with two AGP slots. Would another AGP Voodoo3 card work with this 2000?
:)) with good details on what works/doesn't? Then I can better gauge where to put my money.
I've grown to want more than just this lousy 1600x1200 display
I've search through Google and the like, but all I've really found were posts like "Wait for XFree86 4." Is there any resource (preferably up-to-date
The answer to his question would pretty much be `everywhere.' I wrote a note to NVidia just before I ordered my G400 (which just replaced my TNT2 yesterday). I wrote a note to my local LUG at the same time, and at least one person there did the same. This article is probably generating a fair number of messages. It's snowballing pretty much in every direction.
--
Ski-U-Mah!
Stop the MPAA
You make a very important point, and I thank you for that. However, perhaps it would be even better if NVidia had released some more specs to their cards, and did some work on their own drivers. Who knows, maybe NVidia would produce the better interface (I know that there have been questions about the quality of DRI).
--
Ski-U-Mah!
Stop the MPAA
I completely understand this, as I was basically in the same situation. These cards do cost quite a large amount. I wasn't too happy about shelling out cash for this, but 1) it was something I felt I had to do, 2) I had owned my TNT2 for just barely long enough for me to justify the replacement, and 3) I actually had/have enough money (for the time being) to do this. I still really need to get a job, though ;-)
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Ski-U-Mah!
Stop the MPAA
Well, of course, I did send a slightly nasty letter to NVidia explaining my disappointment and the fact that I was planning on buying a G400. I think that both types of action can provide results on their own, but the maximum effect is only realized when both are used together.
--
Ski-U-Mah!
Stop the MPAA
Yes, I'd like to play Quake 3, but the current drivers make it a huge pain to try to do so, I can't get the quality of the rendering of the drivers in Windoze (or even software Mesa rendering), much less the frame rate. Yes, the DRI would solve this, but NVidia have truly become bastards about this. They lured in people like me with the promises of REAL support, but let us all down.
I used to want a GeForce, and would have bought one, but NVidia is not committed to anything but money and doesn't do anything special. I really have very little hope anymore for my TNT to have decent performance under Unix. At the time I bought my TNT, the only other possibility was a Voodoo which was just as closed as anything else and not having drivers _I_ could have used. Now, they've got DRI drivers released, as Matrox also has.
My next 3D accelerator is going to be a Matrox. At least with a Matrox I'll know the company is actually going through with what they said they would.
--
Brian Fundakowski Feldman
--
Brian Fundakowski Feldman
Weather or not i can buy a video card that has an open source driver is a major contributing factor to weather or not i buy it. Maybe it should be for all of us. Then and only then would companies actually begin to feel the pressure of the penguins.
my vodoo3 works great for Quake3 in linux, is directly supported right now by Xfree86 4.0 DRI and GLX. Everything i need.
nVidia, WHO ?
Matrox Millinium II & 3dfx Voodoo2 here. Yup, they are a bit long in the tooth, but then again so is my computer ;) However, both work *fine* for what I want to do (24bit X and some games like Q2/3, Myth2)
Screw NVidia!
Sig (appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
Damn it galls me to post a "me too!" comment, but, well, me too! I bought an nVidia based card (Diamond Viper 770 w/ TNT2) a while back, not solely because of nVidia's apparent stance towards Linux, but that was a definite influence. Now.. well.. I'm not in the market for a new card now, but one day I will be. If nVidia's stance is the same then as it is now, I can guarantee that they won't be considered when I decide what to buy.
wouldnt it be nice to have an alpha with a good card? i dont have either (still using the original mellenium) but ill guess this is much easier with a g400 then an nvidia card...
im not opposed to nvidia using thier own infrastructure to open GL and all that, just the binary only thing. if they dont like DRI, thats thier right to implement as they see fit.
of course its thier right to only release binary drivers too, but they should not expect much bussiness from me.
for everyone dismissing thier recomendation, that depends on their needs/ethics etc., not yours.
It seems nvidia fears losing thier secrets and intelectuall property (or the company they licenced from). if this is a concern, how come we dont see matrox card rip offs for example?
of course the company nvidia licenced from has no reason to care for nvidias problems, it does not hurt them at all and they may even use it to somehow try to get more $$ from nvidia...
Sheesh! I have an nVidia as well. I bought it with X in mind, and now I am very dissapointed. If anyone does get their money back on this, tell me. At least with a voodoo I could've played all those games.
----------------
Have you read my journal today?
i believe the driver, in addition to using a "binary only" portion that XFree86 can load regardless of what OS you're running (as long as it's compiled for the proper architechture) you will also need some kind of kernel support. This is what the DRI and utah-glx drivers do to enable AGP support, so i imagine that even if you can load the X Server module under FreeBSD, you'd need to have special support in the kernel.
which is why i'm ditching my TNT2 as soon as i can find someone to take it off my hands. I'll just pick up a VooDoo3, since I *know* it's supported right now.
I find all of this a big suprise.
Because SGI is banking on both Linux and NVIDIA, you would think that SGI would ask them to play nice.
I have a feeling that maybe things will change in the late 2nd or early 3rd quarter when SGI starts rolling out its new machines with NVIDIA cards.
Until that day, though, I guess we will all wonder where they stand.
-I just work here... how am I supposed to know?
I bought a RIVA 128, then a TNT2.
This settles it. My next card will *not* be an nVidia card.
--
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Marc A. Lepage
Software Developer
First, DMA transfers are nothing like a 400% speed boost. Maybe 20% on the outside, but probably more like 10%. Second, nVidia didn't license anything related to DMA from S3, SGI, or anyone else. The AGP implementation of one video card would likely not be of much use in the construction of a different card. The reason this driver is going to be closed-source is because nVidia doesn't want 3dfx and ATI checking out their register-level specs, especially in light of the commanding lead they current enjoy in the technology department. It's just like in Civilization 2.. You don't reveal the secret of Gunpower to the Mongols.
As a user who benefits from open source software, I'm disappointed that the full drivers won't be open sourced. As an nVidia stockholder, I'm glad. Only companies whose technology has nothing to offer are willing to open their drivers.
Well, it depends on what you're comparing to.. When compared to PCI, you're right.. When compared to AGP without DMA transfers, it's not that big of a deal.
And to think I recommended Nvidia cards to two people who just bought PCs.
I'll be recommending someone else's cards next time.
-- Thorin sits down and starts singing about gold.
As I understand it, the problem isn't just a binary-only driver. It's a brand-new binary-only driver subsystem, that may (or may not - guess which is more likely) cooperate well with other DRI-based stuff, may or may not hamper upgrades to XFree86 4.1, etc.
At least, that's the assumption. We don't know. All we know is that NVidia isn't using DRI to write their binary-only driver, which makes us wonder how the heck they're going to write the driver at all, and whether they'll provide source for any of it.
I have a Diamond Viper 770 TNT2 for sale.
This kind of reminds me of anti-smoking and
anti-alcohol propoganda... Although I guess
my feelings on what should be done are opposite
in the two cases.. If I were in charge, I'd
disallow closed binary drivers in XFree (and
Linux, for that matter) and keep up the
anti-closed position, but I'd kill the stupid
'war on drugs' and make all drugs illegal.
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
If you are using Linux (or FreeBSD, or whatever) for a reason other than Open Source you are either stupid or deluding yourself.
I'm neither stupid nor delusional, but I use a lot of Open Source software because it's better than Proprietary alternatives, or because it's free-as-in-beer, or because it's fun to use.
The fact that lots of brilliant people can get together and make something great is a feel-good bonus for me, but it's not always my primary reason for being a user of their software. And you're being idealist and a little snobby if you suggest that it should be otherwise.
IMO.
jm
Now...I'm not a programmer by any stretch of the imagination --
But...What exactly would be involved with doing this? It can't be something as simple as just adding something like freetype (which I believe does support anti-aliasing, and is quite popular) into XFree -- can it?
It should be perfectly ok to write an entire X server if that is the software writer thinks that is the best way. Layers of software can become slow and the interfaces between them can grow far more complex than the layers themselves. One huge advantage Linux has is that large modules can be replaced, and that modules can be merged, or split, and we should not disallow this.
Of course it would be nice if they released the specs, but it sounds like they cannot becuase of license agreements.
I also wondered if anybody open software authors write Windoze drivers for those Matrox cards based on their specs. One big selling point for these companies to release their specs would be if they, for free, got faster and better Windowz drivers than their competitors! Or is this impossible (it may require NDI info from MicroSoft to write the driver?).
Anyone with me?
Yes, and I agree with everything you say
Matrox for me next time.
I'm out of my tree just now but please feel free to leave a banana.
http://arstechnica.com/wankerdesk/1q00/arswards99- 2.html#vidcard
The wheel is turning but the hamster is dead.
The wheel is turning, but the hamster is dead.
My old Number Nine was fine for X. I bought a TNT because I wanted to play games, and it got better benchmarks under Windows, under which I'd primarily be playing (Half-Life, AvP).
/any/ drivers from NVidia right now, as long as they WORK. The current driver requires much hoop-jumping for very poor performance.
/next/ video card purchase, but right now I just want to get some mileage out of the hardware I have.
/good/ (as in beer) drivers are good drivers.
Unfortunately, it seems as if the only card with which you can play games under Linux is a Voodoo card. I'll be very happy to get
Open source is good, and will influence my
For those of us stuck with unsupported cards, any
--
#19845
Mann, i will hold off buying a real 3d card for a while...
i recently got my ATI 3D Rage Pro AGP to do pretty good 3d in linux. enough to tide me over for a 3dfx or a matrox... was actually thinking about a tnt based card, now i know where my money is NOT going.
Its spelt "L-I-N-U-X", but pronunced as "Free Beer"
In short - Yes.
:) ran.
:\
I bought an Nvidia TNT2 card at great expense
(compared to other video cards out there)
and have been suffering with their 'interim' X
server release.
I've had friends come by and be amazed at how god
awful slow things like xscreensaver (lament
And now this. Oh I am _SO_ regretting not having
taken the vendor's advice - they were suggesting
a 3dfx Voodoo2 card.
Nvidia - if you are out there and listening, please pick ONE side of the fence, or the OTHER.
This holding-my-breath-hoping-Nvidia-will-do-the
-right-thing business is getting REALLY old.
Carefully chosen purchases, to support the open source movement....wasted...
"better ways of doing things eventually just replace the inferior things" - Linus Torvalds 09-08-07
This what happens when a company will only support something half heartedly. In order to gain the full support of the linux community you need to supply the code or at least how the Video Card works. Since are not willing to do so, linux users may not even want to bother to buy card now. Well time will only tell.
http://theotherside.com/dvd/
And what about linux? Hey, there's a new 2.3.34.3.5.5.ab.ca.ac24pre12 kernel! Wow, it supports my 2.3 meg tape backup drive now!
No thanks. 18 releases/day doesn't "work" for me anymore.
No one cares about the 3 users of those shitty operating systems. wtf is axp?
What about releases of kernels that break previously working apps? The 2.0->2.2 release comes to mind..
...Why not thank them for the binary driver, and then hope in some time they'll release the source code for it...
Well, there's the problem: there is no decent binary driver; the stuff you can download from their support site is a pain to install, incomplete, buggy and gives a lousy 3d performance. All the while there has been noises about a real driver with the advent of Xfree4, and now they seem to be backpedaling. I do not call that 'supporting linux', I call it throwing a bone to the dogs to keep them quiet.
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
I have a TNT2 Ultra card, and yes, it's really fast in 2D under Xfree4.0 . It is a good piece of hardware and it is relatively affordable. Nevertheless, I regret my purchase. When it was time to buy the card, their own website said they would produce a 3D driver for the Xfree4 infrastructure -- that it wasn't going to be open source didn't bother me overmuch.
Now, however, if they are going to require ditching parts of Xfree4 for their own DRI infrastructure and their own OpenGL implementation (which probably won't play nice with Mesa based apps), this card looks more and more like a big mistake on my part.
Sure, 3D under TNT2 is supposed to be a lot faster than Matrox or 3dfx, but thanks to nvidia dragging their feet, my basis of comparison is matrox or 3dfx versus software rendering, which makes the TNT2 an expensive dud.
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
In the Real World, the hype always exceeds and precedes the reality.
It's possible that the design of a component, while workable, is so bad as to be potentially embarrassing. This is not an uncommon reason for a company to balk at the concept of "open source."
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
This would be ironic if Cringely was right in his recent column.
"What game developers should keep in mind is Microsoft's long tradition in the PC software business of introducing titles and initiatives that eventually just fade away."
Nvidia wouldn't be the first folks caught like that. Still, I was looking forward to getting a GeForce 256.
Hi there, as an owner of a basic TNT, my perspective on the nVidia issue is how it will affect my next video adapter purchase. I presently favor the GForce of course, but if nVidia is going to make it difficult for the XFree86 people I will reassess my position.
I would like to partake in some lobbying action to let nVidia know that their closed-source approach is going to hurt them if they are unable to make the drivers work with X in a streamlined and efficient way. I don't mind closed source drivers per se, but I do mind any policy which will inhibit or complicate the functionality of my Linux system.
Is there a coordinated effort to lobby nVidia, or some specific person in that company I can email? I worry about the email approach a little because we have no way of knowing whether or not some auto-delete filter is in place.
I know Bruce is big and important when it comes to Free software. What in gods name did he say in that 3 line comment that was sooo incredibly insightful, that it needed to be moderated to a 5??? I don't know for sure that I would down it as redundant, but it's damn close.
Just because a free software advocate farts, doesn't mean that you have to breathe deep, and say how sweet it is.
"Politicians are interested in people. Not that this is always a virtue. Fleas are interested in dogs." P.J. O'Rourke
I hate having to boot Wintendo98 to play Q2 or Q3. My Hercules Dynamite TNT works really well and I don't really need a faster card at the moment, but I am considering buying a matrox G400 or a 3dfx. It seems to me, that the 3dfx stuff is rather old technology and that I would somehow invest into a downgrade... So I guess I'll buy the G400 soon, as I really want to get rid of all the M$ crap that I still have on my hard-drive.
NVIDIA is not only moving slow in terms of support for Xfree86, they are also moving into the wrong direction. I was pleased when I heard about the SGI, VA Linux and NVIDIA deal, but it seems that they have not been very productive.
I want open source drivers for Xfree86 4.0 and I want them now! Ever since I first bought my TNT I kept hearing promises about better drivers for Xfree86 and I am pretty much fed up with NVIDIA.
No. There is a lot more to it than this. Xfsft ( and consequently, all 6.x releases of Redhat ) "add freetype" as does XFree 4. The problem is that X "thinks" that all fonts are monochrome bitmaps. Fixing this problem requires a rewrite of the X font protocol. It's almost impossible to do this without losing some backward compatibility.
It's worth mentioning that the nVidia cards are all supported, it's just that other cards are overtaking them in the degree of support, because they are shutting the openSource developers out of the game.
That said, suffice it to say that the next card I buy won't be an nVidia.
Yeah, I am with you. I got a TNT because it was one of the better cards to use with Linux. I suggest you try to get a refund directly from nVidia if for no other reason than to send a loud message to them that they just lost a customer. I got my TNT(1) because at the time, it was one of the better Linux cards ( the Matrox drivers were still in their infancy ) and Matrox didn't have decent OpenGL Windows drivers. Oh, how the tables have turned !
Nowadays, nVidia's drivers are stagnating because they don't have the time or inclination to put the same amount of development muscle into their Linux drivers as the OpenSource developers. Meanwhile, Matrox have developed decent Windows drivers, and the OpenSource drivers are making steady progress. There is no question in my mind that my next card will not be one of nVidia's. The only question is , should I
- Grab an ``old'' Voodoo 2 on top of what I have
- Get a Voodoo 3
- Go with Matrox
I think I'll wait till the G400 price-drops a little then go with that.BTW, I don't know what you mean about "better benchmarks". Benchmarks are largely a function of the drivers, and nVidia where miles in front for some time because they had better Windows drivers. Any benchmark under Linux would show the Matrox card to be superior, and even under Windows, Matrox's drivers have got substantially better ( there's a recent benchmark showing the G400 putting up a fair fight against the TNT2 )
thad
I love Mondays. On a Monday, anything is possible.
Count me in on these sentiments. I have been a backer of NV for a while. Performance in Win(games) was great, price was great, and they seemed to be going in a direction that 3dfx wasn't i.e. releaseing code. I have owned 3 of their cards. I WAS going to be buying two of the GeForces, but now......I just don't think I can bring my self to do it......I feel used, and my faith in NV is very diminished. It is just too bad. NVidia, if you are out there....you HAD a good thing going....its sad you chose this route instead.
Dimes
Note: My name and email.I feel serious enough about this to include it.
John Hughes
Unix SA
Global Market Technologies
Chase Manhattan Bank
John.T.Hughes#SPAM#@chase.com
He,are you implying that installing Windows graphics drivers is more complicated than Linux ones ?
...
I hope not
umm, well, yeah, okay, i can accept that, that in 20 years, there won't be any such thing as a "computer geek" (although i might point out, in reference to your analogy, today's world still has "auto mechanics", "auto racers", and your rather more mundane "auto driver").
however, i really don't see how that changes the fact that "computer geeks" and "normal people" today represent two distinct market segments. they do. today, we have "computer geeks", which represent a small but wealthy-ish demographic, and "normal people", who, for the purposes of the computer-hardware market, a merely what you might call a "superdemographic" made up of several different market groups.
-k. ^-^ ^D
Plus now their mouse driver doesn't work with fifo's like /dev/gpmdata (gpm -R) or /dev/jam_ps2:0 (jam imps2) which really pisses me off, because now I'm forced to use only their drivers for mice, which are limited. I have more mice supported in the imwheel version gpm of gpm (with support for wheels/sticks) than their internal drivers, and I can update the jam or gpm programs more often than we see a release of XFree86 come out.
I'm generally disappointed in both the video support from NVidia not being there, the mouse driver being too picky about FIFOs, and the dependancy on random libs that are not included with XFree86 4.0, nor mentioned in the docs. Lucky me I knew what to do to get it working.
write me if you need or can help with mice FIFO vs. XGrabButton methods for IMWheel and gpm or jam. -=<Long Island Man>=-
-=Long Island Man=-
If these customers use OpenGL, the apps should work no matter what the underlying driver code is. The idea is a level of abstraction between your software and video hardware so you don't have to rewrite your software when you get new video hardware, you code for a standard interface.
Mike
Intel transfer the difficult from Hadware to software, for get more power, programmer need more technology. -- chinaitn
That is their official policy if you are bringing seomthing back for a refund. I have generally found that I can get full credit if I go in, explain that I am dissatisfied, and trade it for something different.
-- I need more coffee. It's Monday. There is no such thing as enough coffee on a Monday.
One of the only reasons that I will shop at CompUSA is the return desk. I put together a new computer in January and wasn't sure which way to go on the video card. My old TNT had worked well in my last workstation, but I have also spent a lot of money on 3dfx over the years. swayed by the benchmarks I bought the top o' the line TNT2.
How handy that my new copy of Quake 3 for linux had just showed up. after spending a lot of painful time scouring the net and getting the X server setup correctly, I fired off Quake 3. Horrible sub 1 fps performance (on a p3-500 512MB).
So I went back to the net and tried many things over several days. Finally I just took the card back to CompUSA and told the people at the return desk flat out "Nvidia says they support Linux, but the performance was horrible." Traded the card in for Voodoo 3 3000 and been much happier.
The moral? Never open the sealed packets, that can count as "opened software" just download the latest drivers and keep an eye on your 7 or 14 or 30 day window to just take it back and say "It sucks!"
chris
-- I need more coffee. It's Monday. There is no such thing as enough coffee on a Monday.
It's not just about PI control. Yes, that's probably a large concern of the author, but just look how many people are up in arms against nVidia here. You know why? Because their drivers suck. I'm using a TNT2 and it's probably the buggiest piece of hardware in my entire computer - not to mention the 3D stuff is slow and crappy. And if nVidia had released source like they were claiming they would around the time I bought it, the drivers would be much, much better - the utah glx people would have dealt with it. But now we have to wait and just hope that nVidia will get off its ass and give us working drivers - who knows how long that will be. Basically, nVidia made promises, and they didn't follow through, and a lot of people are seeing this as false advertising. That's why I'm not buying nVidia anymore, and why so many people are upset.
Why? Because the PSX is far more open than any of the other consoles available. Sega ahven't even learned their lesson with the gimmickcast. I currently count two decent games for it. I know, cos I have 'em here.
Atari is (just about) dead in the water and Sega are struggling. Maybe there's a moral here?
Maybe X11 6.6 will fix this. Maybe it's an even bigger prob and we have to wait for 7.
Note: I'm no expert on X but this is the gist of a conversation about this I heard a while ago.
When Nvidia announced it's Linux support, I rushed out to buy myself a nice, new shiny TNT2 Ultra thinking that, OK it's a lot of money, but at least I'd have some proper support. By this time I'd already been bitten bwhen I bought an SB Live.
I feel betrayed by Nvidia in this respect, I was tricked into buying their card if this is all the 'support' they were planning all the long.
It's quite ironic that the card I thought was gonna be unsupported (the SBLive) now has creative throwing time, money and other resources at making open drivers (and a 3d sound API). Whilst the card I bought because I thought I'd get decent drivers is as closed as Windows!
Now I'm not at all clear whether the GLX module as it stands will just plug directly in to XFree 4.0. I suspect not.
;-)
You are correct, AFAIK. There is a config option (which requires you recompile XFree 4.0) for using the old-style glx modules, but it doesn't work. And XFree 4.0 won't compile for me if I set the option to use the old-style dlopen() modules instead of the new OS-independent modules, which is probably why the glx module won't load in the first place.
Not that it matters... XFree 4.0 won't reset the console for me when I exit. Maybe if I used a G400 on Linux instead of an S3 Virge on Solaris
Oh well...
Glückwünsche, haben Sie Slashdot ermordet, indem Sie zum korporativen Druck beugten und Subskriptionen einlei
Well, I object to a closed-source driver of any kind, even if it is DRI.
The reason is simple -- unless they're planning to release one for every single platform the DRI is supposed to run on, I won't be able to use it, because instead of the sexy, cool Linux, I use Solaris. People who use any BSD platform would probably be in a similar situation.
If they release source, at least there's a chance of me or someone else fixing it so it works on our favorite OS and then releasing it.
Needless to say, I will never, eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeever, buy an NVIDIA product unless they provide source (sorry, pal, preprocessed crap DOES NOT COUNT).
Glückwünsche, haben Sie Slashdot ermordet, indem Sie zum korporativen Druck beugten und Subskriptionen einlei
I've said time and time again regarding nvidia that I would stick with them until they f'd-up. I have little tolerance for companies in this day and age when I can buy a 3dfx card and get full commitment to opensource or better yet anything from matrox. It looks like I'm in the market for a new 3d card now. What's the best offering from 3dfx in the 250 range right now? Testimonials?
As for Nvidia, I gave you all the chances in the world. I don't want a binary only driver. This IP bullshit needs to go. If 3dfx and Matrox can do it, so can you. I may be one consumer but I am one consumer and former long time nvidia supporter that you won't have anymore.
"Fighting the underpants gnomes since 1998!" "Bruce Schneier knows the state of schroedinger's cat"
First, I'd like to thank you for your work on Utah-GLX - this will mean that I can buy a Matrox card to use with some of your other work!
Second, I'd like to ask you what you mean by The choice isn?t between making their driver open source or closed source [but] between doing a closed source driver with their existing code, and doing a completely new driver.
So does this mean that they've licensed their code from someone else? Who?
One of the press-releases on the NVIDIA website says that they have some sort of mutual license/patent exchange deal going on with S3. So, presumably they don't feel that they're in competition with them and they can release all the specs. It may well be that Diamond's drivers are essentially NVIDIAS. In any event, unless they pull their socks up about Open Sourcing they're probably screwed as regards the *nix/XF86 market. Pity.
I bought Diamond (ahck!). It's collecting dust
Which one? what was wrong?
--Crush
Look at what's going on here,[...]they intend to deliver a driver which uses an infrastructure which isn't based on Mesa and isn't Open Source. That's nuts.
You said it pal!
I find it hard to imagine that SGI would go through so much trouble to build up all this OpenGL infrastructure for linux only to have the one chip maker they're collaborating with on actual drivers go off and do their own thing. It's pretty obvious that SGI wants Linux to be as IRIX/SGI friendly as possible when they switch their workstations over to Merced/PC architecture, and my guess is that they're looking to nVidia to provide the 3d architecture for that platform. They seem pretty committed to adding to Linux's infrastructure and keeping it as open as possible, why let nVidia throw a monkey wrench in that?
Right now a lot of this is just speculation, and I hope that engineer who said it wouldn't be using DRI was SEVERELY misquoted. I've seen these drivers in action at LinuxWorld, and they will deliver the performance they've promised (wish I got the chance to look at the X setup). I like their hardware, and I really want to see this work. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt for now, but if this goes for the worse, my next card's gonna have "Matrox" printed on it.
Disclaimer: They gave me a free T-shirt at LinuxWorld, so my opinion could be considered biased.
If the company makes a decision to only release a binary version of the software that is their choice. This community cannot talk 'trash' about the companys' choice because offen with driver level software design is easy to follow openning the competion to see how the product was developed.
Justen Stepka
I was worried at first, but www.nvidia.com has this to say:
The 3D support is for development on XFree86 3.3.5 only, and IS NOT a high performance architecture. The upcoming XFree86 X server 4.0 will use the Direct Rendering Infrastructure required to take full advantage of the RIVA processors. For more information look at: http://www.precisioninsight.com. Suse also has done work toward a high performance interface. Look at: http://www.suse.de/~sim
So at least the horses mouth is talking the talk.
Anti-aliasing fonts just isn't particularly useful for the most common purposes. Glyphs are just little symbols; they're not necessarily supposed to be perfectly-rendered curves. Anti-aliasing fonts at normal sizes (10,12,14 pixels) does _not_ markedly improve readability, although to a certain sense of aesthetics it can make the screen look "prettier".
If you want to experiment with this yourself, compare Acrobat-render PDF files with small text to Web-browser-rendered HTML files with small text. It's much easier on the eyes to read the HTML file in a Web browser.
A real improvement in readability would be increased pixel resolution. It's remarkable that we're stuck at 72dpi; a 200dpi display would render normal, aliased font glyphs _very_ attractively and _very_ readably.
Forget anti-aliasing of fonts in the generic UI. As noted elsewhere, good hinting and higher resolutions are the best goals.
MJP
Don't try that "protecting the children" shit you people use to keep the tits and bad words off my TV. --Seanbaby
wouldn't the point of anti-aliasing in the lower res cases be to deal with the fact that they are lower resolution?
Yeah, exactly right. But why are you "dealing with the fact that they are lower resolution"? Is it to improve readability? Or is it to improve the aesthetic?
I would venture to say that for the purposes of readability, anti-aliasing is a liability at sizes of 18px and below.
I'd agree that anti-aliasing larger glyphs improves the aesthetic. However, in a general-purpose UI, fonts of that size are rarely used. Better to let the application which renders those large glyphs decide how to handle them.
MJP
Don't try that "protecting the children" shit you people use to keep the tits and bad words off my TV. --Seanbaby
Automobile geek is someone who spends their entire life taking their cars apart, rebuilding them and swapping parts from one car to another, etc. Just driving them doesn't qualify as a automobile geek.
That's a new standard you just made up. What would have been an "automobile geek" 60 years ago might know how to change the oil, that's it.
Unless you're proposing a sliding scale, and think that a "geek" is simply anyone who spends more time with a particular hobby than most others, you have to accept that "computer geeks" aren't stigmatic freaks; they're simply ahead of everyone else. And in that context, they're representative of the future norm, not some deviant present.
In short, get used to the way geeks work. Pretty much everyone is going to work that way, eventually. There's no point making arguments about how nerdy computers are; you might as well say that automobiles are nerdy and that we're all nerds.
Same thing with computers, if you know how to start the computer and load Word then you're not a computer geek. You have to do more.
Is that because geeks are too "geeky", or is it because norms are too "normal"? Considering the fact that the next generation will probably know how to -- at the very least -- program simple but expressive commands into an interpreter, I'd say it's the geeks who represent the better investment.
You can worry about pampering the dying breed all you like; there's probably money in it. But never forget that it's a dead-end.
MJP
Don't try that "protecting the children" shit you people use to keep the tits and bad words off my TV. --Seanbaby
The point is that one demographic represents the next 20 years or so, and the other demographic represents the rest of humanity's future. You decide which is a better benchmark by which to judge computing technology's progress, eh?
Seems like a pretty simple decision, to me.
MJP
Don't try that "protecting the children" shit you people use to keep the tits and bad words off my TV. --Seanbaby
It gets so tiring, listening to people preach about the difference between "computer geeks" and "normal people", and how "computer geeks" are some kind of special interest.
Listen up: your children are going to be computer geeks. Period. The last generation of non-"computer geeks" is growing up right now. If you plan to live for another 20-30 years, you'd better get fricking used to the fact that this generation of computer-illiterate fools is the LAST generation of computer-illiterate fools.
For Chrissake, I can just imagine this crap 60 years ago, with people going on and on about "automobile geeks". And 400 years ago, going on and on about those crazy "clean-freak geeks" overseas who risk getting "the flux" by bathing every day.
MJP
Don't try that "protecting the children" shit you people use to keep the tits and bad words off my TV. --Seanbaby
wouldn't the point of anti-aliasing in the lower res cases be to deal with the fact that they are lower resolution? at 200 dpi, i would imagine you get enough definition so that the display could render accurate characters(at least to the eye at a distance) so in fact it wouldn't be aliased (since the sample bandwidth is high enough in that case compared to the bandwidth of the data)
we aren't asking for nvidia to give us free hardware no are we?
nvidia seemed rather committed to open source recently. it finally seems like a decent accelerated GL/GLX framework is in place, and it would be a shame if nvidia didn't support it.
on a tangential note: when do we get anti-aliased text natively supported in X? it's really bugging me lately %#!%#.
do you have any references concerning AA being bad? i've never heard this.
i would be prepared to add a little to the X protocol (hmmm embrace and extend...) of course
there's always display postscript.
And how does this differ from the view that "Every company must use our license for releasing software?"
How does what differ? Actually, it doesn't matter what you meant, since XFree86 isn't saying this. XF86 is (or should be) saying "Every company that wants to write a module for our server must follow our guidelines. Guideline #1: Make the source available..."
When I (yes, it was I) said "make them play OUR game", I was talking about Open Source users. "Our game" is Open Source. If you are using Linux (or FreeBSD, or whatever) for a reason other than Open Source you are either stupid or deluding yourself.
Wow! That sounded like a flame: it was. A lot of people say "I don't care if it's open--as long as it works". How do you think it came to work, moron? The reason it works so well is that it is Open Source.
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XFree86 allows binary-only modules. NVIDIA is providing a binary-only module. XFree86 doesn't like binary-only modules, so it doesn't like NVIDIA. Here's a clue: stop allowing binary-only then. Yeah yeah, "we have respect the fact that some companies feel yada yada yada". No we don't. If they want to remain closed-source, there are plenty of OS's for them to support. If they choose to support Linux, make them play OUR game.
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After posting this you probably smiled smugly to yourself and said "I'm such a tolerant and open guy". Actually, you're attempting to force a licensing model on XFree86.
What do I mean? Just this: the XF86 people should be able to pick any licensing they want. Since they apparently don't like binary-only modules, they would probably be wise to choose a license that forbids binary-only (my original question was why didn't they). But if they did that, YOU'D complain about NVIDIA being "forced" to release source or about you being "forced" to use a different card.
You "let's a live and let live" people are largely the same: "Everybody must follow are rules for living in moderation." And if I don't want to, what will your attitude towards me be?
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These policies are unacceptable to me, so i shop at MicroCenter. They take back ANYTHING.
You make me sick. I think user friendly put it best by saying that it would be like buying real estate in hell. You may be rich now from all your nvidia money but how can you still look at yourself in the mirror without thinking, wow I'm rich now, and all I had to do was forsake my ideals. Granted that your ideals are not the same as mine.....blahblah. Let me just say that you have lost all respect that I might have given you. Not that that actually matters to you.
I am very disapointed with all this. Some months ago i decided to go for the tnt2 insted of a voodoo. I made this decision ultimately because of 32 bit rendering and the anouncement of a linux driver. (The choices were not many because of my low-end cpu).
Now i regret my choice. Quake2 does not run (prob my fault) and Quake3 is 5X slower (and uglier) in linux than in windows. I am also very sceptical about binary only drivers for linux. I expect them to work only for some combination of versions of hardware, distributions, kernels, X, etc. I am certain that at least one of those versions will always be wrong on my system. Why did i upgrade if this board if it's doing the same job in linux as my old virge DX?
I am now trying to talk my brother into buying a 3dfx to exchange for my tnt.
JBv
I've purchased many TNT/TNT2 based cards for my machines at home and have influenced a large number of people to do the same. I'd even purchased more recently due to the upcoming release of XFree86 4.0
I would consider myself a very loyal nVidia user and being in Australia, we pay more for it too.
With nVidia supplying a chipset to M$ X-Box, it doesn't suprise me that they want to shaft the XFree 86 dev team, maybe M$ ha$ a little bit more intere$t in nVidia'$ chip$et($).
with the need for some more hammer and push on 3D
cards, people will be upgrading. ALL of the people who I know and hear my ranting will not be buying nVidia's product. Based on them not giving a shit about the entity that keeps them going, the customer.
nVidia has the chance to do the right thing.
maybe conforming to the DRI spec and just using a low level driver for DMA routines.
when you screw your customer, you screw yourself.
- We seek not the answers, but to understand the question.
the X-Box will be using nVidia.
- We seek not the answers, but to understand the question.
I completely agree. When I was trying to decide what graphics card to get, I basically considered two things: what the card performed like, and how support under XFree86 was (so I could run Linux or *BSD). I have been essentially happy with the card, but as I have moved more and more to basically just always running Linux, I have grown increasingly irritated by various little problems. I calmed myself by remembering that non-sucky, open source drivers would be released soon with the new version of XFree86; if I still didn't like something then, I could just hike up my hubris and mess with it myself. Now, I kind of feel like I've been lied to: when I visited their site during my search, it implied (at least to my mind) that they would release open source drivers for Linux. That was a relatively significant consideration, to my mind. Oh well. "Life will find a way." I think I'll shut up now.
-Chocodile "Thud on top, I ate the chocodile." -from "Disseminated" by Soul Coughing
Um, they do have drivers now. What they are promising is *better* drivers. While the current ones are adaquate, they could/should be much better. The problem isn't a lack of drivers, it's a lack of access to some good code to mess about with. This would have been clear if you had paid attention to the article.
-Chocodile "Thud on top, I ate the chocodile." -from "Disseminated" by Soul Coughing
When it came time for me to buy a new vid card (the old Intergraph Intense 3D 100 was great in it's day, but it's kinda dated now) NVidia had just started releasing driver code for the TNT2. That was literally the thing that made me choose between the G400 and the TNT2. So I went out and bought my Ultra 770 and tried the drivers. And I went, hmmm, these kinda suck. I figured it would be like other things, once a popular piece of HW had some sort of driver for it, it would rapidly improve. Unfortunately then NVidia started acting a lot more closed and I was regretting my purchase of the TNT2. You know, I even sent a nice letter of thanks to them telling them that the reason I bought the card was that there was source for it. Well, I guess they didn't listen.
I really can't see how we can bitch about nVidia. What was the addition of the Metrowerks code but an invitation for graphics card makers to feel free to write binary drivers for Xfree86 4.0 if they want?
The Xfree86 team made a philosophical decision in including this code, we can't turn around now and flame people for using this technology.
Just as a purely-closed source world sucks, so does a world in which any view other than 'the Open Source way' is slammed. Are we hassling Loki for releasing closed source games? Of course not. The fact is, Linux has got to grow up pretty damn fast, and it needs as much support as it can get from both the Open and Closed source schools.
I can tell you, I would love to see apps like Photoshop, Illustrator, IE, and more games on Linux. I just hope we don't scare these people
into thinking it's too great a risk (PR wise) to release closed-source apps for Linux.
A big part of this thread smacks of a community with a distinct lack of maturity.
--
Rare Window - free your photos
I grabbed a TNT2 last summer, in a quest to build the *ultimate computer*. I ran linux, dual-booting win2k for games. Recently a friend talked me into trying out FreeBSD. So, I reformatted, and started running nothing but FreeBSD. I love the OS, and I don't intend to reformat again. Unfortunately, this still leaves me with a TNT2, and I probably won't even be able to load these "binary only" drivers that nvidia STILL hasn't released yet.
C'mon, Nvidia, where's the love? Why not release some open-source drivers, so that the non-windows and even non-linux world can love your hardware, too?
Who wants my TNT2?
+++
...These aren't the droids you're looking for....Move along....
I finally got off the dime and bought a Matrox G400. Not the fastest 3D, but I'm not a hardcore gamer.
As the Ars comparison showed, the G400 is actually extremely close to the TNT2 in all aspects of performance. The only place where the G400 lagged the TNT2 (horribly, in fact) was on NT where the drivers were to blame....
So if the performance comes down to the driver, and nVidia arn't interested in Linux but Matrox are, then I'd guess the G400 is likely to beat the TNT2 on Linux.
Somebody mentioned that the reason for not releasing source is because of IP that was licensed by NVidia from an other company under a strict NDA.
Although my suggestion might not be appreciated by everyone, here's a simple solution to fix that problem:
- NVidia creates a very simple/small driver that incoporates all the code that's protected under the NDA. To help us, that's about all the driver does,- no fancy interfaces, bells or whistles.
- They distribute the binary and release all the register level specs for their device that is not under the NDA.
-We reverse engineer the binary driver and use the spec to create an OS driver.
Nobody could stop NVidia from doing just that,-
surely they have the right to distribute binaries for the IP that falls under NDA.
Breace
-----------
"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
I look forward to seeing "best supported card under Linux" on their website one of these days
:-)
Actually, 3dfx could make this claim. I had some discussions within the local LUG (LUG Switzerland). Some brought in, that the Voodoo3 lost it's throne when it comes to speed. Sure, technology advances and faster and faster gfx-chips will show up.
But hell, what's the benefit of all the power, when you can't use it?
To the people of nVidia: I think, there are plenty of examples that good hardware sells, even if the drivers are made open source.
--- If OS were buildings, then the first woodpecker to come around would erase 95 % of civilization.
Tribes 2 is coming for Linux. Dynamix is doing simultaneous PC/Mac/Linux development.
Twostep
There are 10 different types of people in this world... those who understand binary, and those who don't.
With the ability of graphics hardware companies to distribute binary only drivers for Linux we may see vendors of other types of hardware pushing for this type of ability. We may see the networking vendors pushing for a binary compatible infrastructure so they can distribute their network cards with binary only drivers. Then the IDE chipset vendors, then the SCSI vendors, then the...
Where will this stop? We have to buy from vendors willing to distribute there hardware with open source drivers or we may loose control over what we covet most, the complete open nature of all of Linux and its drivers.
It is up to us to support/buy open source only graphics cards or we may loose everything.
If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you.
Because a lot of us (at least, a lot of people that I know) have gotten a GeForce when NVIDIA was 'on the right track' so to speak.
Funny that this article is posted just know, because I was just catching up on the linux-nvidia mailinglist. While I haven't followed all developments on this, it seems that NVidia does update their 'OS independent SDK' whatever that is. And yes, it's a bunch of obfuscated code, but there still are developers working on it.
Check the list archives for more.
The only thing we can do now is to hope NVidia will release a non-obfuscated version of that code I suppose. Even if they won't do anything else, it'd make my GeForce happy....
--Fritti
Dont go buy that voodoo3 just yet...the voodoo5's are due out sometime soon, and you can bet the prices will drop.
I think the problem is not with people who want to buy an Nvidia card in the future, but those who bought one in the last year, based on what they thought was a company who was going to open source their code. I got a TNT2 even though I knew the current 3D drivers were poor, because I believed what Nvidia said, that these were just intermediate drivers, and the optimized open-source drivers would come when X 4.0 came out with DRI.
After buying the card a few months ago, I can't just go out and unload $200+ for a different card. I think that's probably the boat most TNT owners are in. But fool me twice shame on me, so, while I'm stuck w/ this card and drivers for the time being, I know better than lay down money for an Nvidia card when the time comes for a new video card.
Can anyone tell me what information would be in the source code for a video driver which is not in the binary, that needs to be protected?
--
Patrick Doyle
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
I'm very happy with my ATI Expert 98 and Voodoo2. They both seem to be good companies when it comes to Linux drivers.
Any other companies/cards which are Linux-friendly?
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
i know this if offtopic but...
i have been having troubles with XFree86 4.0. It starts upp with no error messages but gnome dosent load...
all i get is a 'ant war' screen..
help..?
No, i don't like sigs...
Spoons are hype. There is no Spoon!
--
Don't lead me into temptation... I can find it myself.
Linux for some alphas
treke
I read a disturbing article about Nvidia's plans to release a binary only XFree86 driver for linux.
I consider this to be a grave mistake on the part of your company for several reasons.
I own a TNT2 and I had been considering a GeForce. Until Nvidia changes their plans regarding their drivers, I have no plans to purchase an Nvidia product. I'll be making my choices from among those vendors that plan on supporting Linux and the rest of the XFree86 world with source.
Hmmm... Considering nVidia teamed up with SGI to write these drivers, and considering SGI has been writing OpenGL drivers for X considerably longer than Precision Insight, maybe they know something you (and PI) don't...
Adam
In fact, they did release source.
Also, they had said pretty much from the beginning that they were going to wait for XFree86 4.0 to release high quality drivers, and that the earlier drivers were just to tide us over till 4.0 came out... I'm sure they'll be releasing their drivers sometime in the next couple weeks.
Adam
Well, I can't argue the fact that "soon" has been going on for quite a while... But, then again, XF86 was saying that about 4.0 for quite a while, too :-)
And I agree... I'm willing to give nVidia the rest of March and maybe some of April... I can understand needing up to a month to get things in line after 4.0 was released, but considering how long the snapshots were around, I can't imagine them needing that much time.
Adam
PS. I think the nVidia tracking page is a great idea. I'll be glad to help out, too.
I've waited for a little while for these drivers, and I'll continue to wait a little while longer... If they put out drivers that can't perform, I'll use my Voodoo3. If they put out binary only drivers which perform as well as my Voodoo3, then I'll use my TNT2. It's as simple as that.
Adam
Actually, it's not hard at all to imagine why they wouldn't use the DRI. Jon Leech, from SGI, once posted to Slashdot that the feeling is that the DRI, although a good piece of programming, is not the most effective way to implement 3D support on nVidia's cards.
Adam
Why not wait to see what nVidia puts out? Almost everyone here seems to be of the opinion that we should all drop our support for nVidia. Why? Have they released these binary only drivers? Do we know that they will be binary only? Do we know they will break multihead support?
In fact, Dave Schmenk (from nVidia) and I exchanged e-mail back in February. At the time, he informed me that they are, in fact, using XFree86 4.0... However, that's really all anyone seems to know about these drivers.
I waited this long for XFree86 4.0 and am more than willing to wait a little while longer for nVidia's drivers. *Then*, and only then, will I judge them.
Adam
Might I suggest Matrox? They used to have the fastest 2D X engine around. Granted, they aren't the most talkative people on the planet, but they have published the register level specs to all of their chips -- even the one's they sell anymore.
:-)
Yes, Matrox chips do tend to be on the "suck" end of the 3D spectrum -- 30fps is more than enough to see what you're fragin', tho'
You might not necessarily be concerned about open source drivers. In my mopinion, I think they would be much more maintainable, and perform better than closed source ones. Furthermore, I can't understand this mysterious secret about NViDia hardware specs when Creative, 3DFX, and Matrox already have open source driovers and don't seem overly concerned about them exposing design secrets....
But anyway, the other thing to consider is NViDia has been promising that as soon as XFree86 4.0 was out, you'd have Linux drivers based on DRI that very instant.
They're much behind their own deadline and Linxu users have already had to wait a very long time to use their cards because of NViDia own self interest. 3DFX users have had an open source driver for over a year now and now X4s out, hey, the drivers already written thanks to the open source community. Thats also a big consideration - when you have an infinite number of people working on your Linux code, as opposed to ten guys in a lab somewhere, the company can commit less resources in terms of maintenance once they've released the specs.
The whole point about the 4.0 release is you can plug any driver into it's infrastructure, nVidia plan to DO this and now they get attacked. This is absolutely crazy!
It seems to me that Precision Insight want's their own Mesa based driver infrastructure to dominate and their real complaint has nothing to do with Open Source. The nVidia drivers due out will be high quality and will export the same functions everyone else does, it is proprietary code which they aren't obliged to give away it isn't based on Mesa, it's based on the SGI SI. So it will 'just work', and it will work with XFree86 release 4.0. So what's the problem here? The problem that I see is Precision Insight playing a political game to force the hand of an IHV to do their bidding. I smell a rat.
Linux should be able to tollerate companies supporting their platform without this kind of political nonsense. Look at what's going on here, nVidia make great cards and decide to support Linux with real completed drivers which pass the conformance tests. Precision Insight are attacking them because they intend to deliver a driver which uses an infrastructure which isn't based on Mesa and isn't Open Source. That's nuts.
The key point here is that the OpenGL implementation will export quality OpenGL functions and with the finalized ABI and the XFree86 4.0 infrastructure it doesn't matter a hoot what the underlying implementation is based on. In fact it may pass more of the conformance tests than Mesa currently does.
In other words this is a smoke screen to cover a self serving adgenda by Precision Insight. nVidia are supporting Linux and supporting it well, let's not discourace them by letting Precision Insight further their own adgenda through turning public opinion against nVidia.
This is a self serving article.
The bottom line is nVidia won't be using PI's DRI and PI are upset at that. Don't let Precision Insight lead you by the nose here.
For everyone else it doesn't matter. The nVidia drivers are based on the SGI SI. Recently Open Sourced for free OS'. The drivers will supply quality OpenGL transparently through GLX. You won't be able to tell the difference.
The only danger here is Precision Insight managing to dominate the OpenGL driver business through their own DRI interface. OK it's Open Source, but why the heck is LaMonica trying to ram it down everyones throat?
The whole purpose of XFree86 release 4.0 is that you can plug in any driver. So, now PI are insisting you plug in their infrastructure?
This makes no sense, why develop a great framework like XFree86 4.0 then hobble it through Precision Insight politics? Besides, the DRI may be Open Source but is all the driver code it requires? In other words this is a bigger red herring than it first appears, because ultimately some lower level code remains proprietary. It's just a flagrant attempt by Precision Insight to carve themselves a niche in the Linux graphics world.
This is very dirty politics. Precision Insight should earn their place, not try to use dirty politics to strongarm nVidia into using their driver infrastructure. NVidia obviously think they have something technically superior and the apps will work transparently, Precision Insight KNOW this but choose to paint a sinister picture. Get off your soap box LaMonica.
NVIDIA had kept us waiting for months to actually get a driver for the TNT. Then, they release a new one at Christmas time that doesn't really work! No where on their site do they mention the Utah GLX Project(where you can get source and make a working TNT driver). This(TNT2) is the last product I ever buy from them. I don't care how fast the card is...I just want to play with it. Listeners out there: buy the Voodoo. It's not nearly as good, but trust me. Don't waste your time with this "commited to Linux" company.
This is an issue for the folks at NVIDIA, and not really one for mass arbitration. They created the video card, and they created the drivers, and they should be able to control the licensing.
Maybe you should read Cluetrain.
It definitely is important to discuss this. A lot of people (me included) have far more say over nvidia than their management. That is, we are the customer and we can stop buying their lousy solutions.
Tril
Text written here by me is placed in the public domain.
I've got some advice for people like me who are upset at nVidia's proprietary practices... Bite your lips and buy the stock.
Like it or not, nVidia has been doing *much* better than its OSS-friendly competitors. I tripled my money on nVidia's meteoric rise after the X-Box announcement. Can't say the same for Matrox or ATI.
It's very clear that greed still pays... nVidia, Intel, and Microsoft are all performing very strongly, and have been all along.
So if you're pissed off at their greedy business practices, shut up, buy in, and let the profits roll. May your high returns offset the agony of closed-source drivers...
Anyone know if nVidia has Linux drivers for their TNT2s? send a URL my way if you could.
What to do with all those nvidia cards? E-Bay them...I know it keeps people from buying their competition, however it also keeps them from buying the new Nvidia products as well. Be sure to put on the Auction page that this card only works well in MicroSoft Windows(tm).
Let them know the exact reasons why you're no longer using the card. The gaming kids will get a bargain on a card which will probably be obsoleted by the time linux has great game support, you'll have a few bucks toward a wiser purchase, and folks who are looking for this hardware will know exactly what they're buying.
mcrandello@my-deja.com
rschaar{at}pegasus.cc.ucf.edu if it's important.
"THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!"
/. news often gets quoted on gaming sites and other news places. I just saw an article on the front cover of "Wired" about Rob's secret /. diaries, etc...Not to mention at least one person who works at Nvidia is going to read this and go "Uh, boss? C'mere!". I know that unless Nvidia comes up with something a little better than what they've been delivering, I'll tell all my freinds to avoid them like the plague.
Think of the publicity! Nothing but stories of how Nvidia users feel betrayed for the 1/4 of the comments I've read so far. That's really bad press, considering that
So while it won't ruin the economy, it might be responsible for an exodus of customers to their direct competition, who seem to be picking up the ball. Nvidia needs to seriously hop on the cluetrain before it runs them over.
mcrandello@my-deja.com
rschaar{at}pegasus.cc.ucf.edu if it's important.
Mike Roberto
- roberto@soul.apk.net
-- AOL IM: MicroBerto
Berto
Here's what it comes down to. NVIDIA needs to watch its back. Can anyone really blame them for this? The chip maker market is ugly right now. I think that they are doing the right thing by trying to keep themselves in business. PI is a necessary evil, when you are trying to make money off of something that inherently involves the divulging of secrets, such as linux. Right now they have an advantage in the graphics card market over competitors 3dfx and the like. They are making steps in the "right" direction as people put it towards more global efforts, but all in all, its really hard to stay afloat when you tell people exactly how your stuff works. In come the clone chips, and then BOOM you are out of business. Now i think open source is pretty cool, dont get me wrong, but lets face it, NVIDIA has the right idea. Why not thank them for the binary driver, and then hope in some time they'll release the source code for it, and people can improve upon it. I think their main market here is the Win9x/2000 bracket. Its a good thing they recognize linux, as it is a good thing for the market. NVIDIA, in my mind, you are doing the right thing. Keep your jobs, and release the binary driver. --jay
I wonder if I can talk them in to buying back my card.
;).
Did you actually ask them? You might not be able to convince them, but it would be a very 'subtle' way of letting them know you disapprove. I think this is a great way of letting them know your opinions. If enough people did this, it might convince them to revaluate their definition of protecting the interests of their owners. Besides, they might even buy it
If there is hope, it lies in the trolls.
I can understand what you're saying to a point, but this is a very short term view of the problem. NVidia has decided that they will play by different rules, which will only bring incomptatibilities into the development of Linux 3D software. We can hope that most companies will ensure that the NVidia drivers work with app X, and that this app also supports standard DRI. If we don't have the source, we have no guarantee that they will even support the next version of X. Why do they feel they have to make it difficult on their customers? These same customers don't want their work/applications to be wasted next year when they need to change their software to use a newer video card, or vice versa.
As for the legal encumbrances, I consider this to be a bug, as surely as a segmentation fault. They could release a set of specifications to allow these parts of the driver to be filled in. If they only release binaries, it means that it isn't going to work on all platforms *unless* they decide to support Alpha, PowerPC, etc. If they decide to ignore these ports, they will not be able to support the entire market whereas hardware with an open source driver would. When you are looking at high end 3D, the Alpha platform in particular should come to mind. Customers with these computers must wait for NVidia's decision to support this platform before even considering their cards.
You have raised an interesting point by bringing up people who don't care about open source principles. If they are using Linux to do their 3D work, they are likely to seek the services of someone who is familiar with the market. This is entirely reasonable as they will likely want some support. At this point, the hardware choice may well be in the hands of someone who knows a bit more about the hows and whys of said support under Linux. Under the current situation, this person is more likely to choose, say, the Matrox card. If they feel they can ignore the open source proponents simply because they(we!) are a small segment of the market, they should take into account that we often make purchasing decisions for others.
Again, I understand your position on this. I definitely appreciate the work you have put into the GLX drivers, and can understand why you feel the closed source drivers might be a good option. But as much as I enjoy a good game of Quake III, I won't run it on a card which might not work with the next C library version. Until Linux has a stable ABI, and perhaps even then, there is no excuse for any company which cares about its customers to provide binary only drivers for their hardware. I won't support such a company, and actively encourage others to seek alternatives.
GPL: Free as in will
We can hope it will work, but what guarantee do we really have? I'm not hedging my bets on a closed source "solution." Closed source, and especially non-standard drivers where an established standard exists (how many GLIDE-only 3D apps do we see these days?) have been too much trouble in the past. I don't intend to wait for promised support again.
When we can be absolutely sure that software linked with their libraries will work with Mesa, and vice versa, then we're headed in the right direction. Even then, how can we be sure that they'll give us a driver for the next C library version? The next XF86 version? Will they support legacy binary versions for older, binary-only programs? If so, how soon will these be released, considering that they will probably have newer cards to support and Linux will be taking the back seat to Windows in their labs? What assurance do we have that if NVidia goes out of business we'll still be able to use our video cards with newer versions of Linux? Will we be able to use these cards with FreeBSD/other OSs if we decide to switch our software platform? What about hardware, and non-x86 chips? Obviously we won't be able to fix the bugs ourselves, so are we still dealing with unsupported drivers which will likely have several glitches? Who do we turn to when they fail if we can't fix it ourselves?
Until they're tested, we have only promises. On some of these points we don't even have that. With NVidia's history in the promise department, and especially with their 'NDA' excuses, I'm not buying into it. Hardware drivers are _no_ place for closed source, not if we want to be able to use that hardware in the future.
"A $275 paperweight? Can I get back to you on that?"
GPL: Free as in will
Going to pawn my tnt2 and get a g400
How 'bout we (the free software community) challenge NVIDIA to a driver-writing contest. NVIDIA writes their binary-only drivers, and releases specs on the chipset to facilitate writing drivers. Then our elite task force of driver geeks can take a crack at writing our own open-source drivers, and we can get a little competition going for best performance, smallest code size, best stability, etc.
Sounds like fun to me! Any takers? Anyone at NVIDIA willing to release the chip programming specs? Seems like this could be a good proving grounds for the merits of open-source development, showing that we can write drivers for a complex system better (hopefully) than the creators of that system.
Learn how a CPU works before you learn to program. Seriously.
Why is almost everyone under the mis-understanding that the X-box will be a good product?
For Chrissake, I can just imagine this crap 60 years ago, with people going on and on about "automobile geeks".
Automobile geek is someone who spends their entire life taking their cars apart, rebuilding them and swapping parts from one car to another, etc. Just driving them doesn't qualify as a automobile geek.
Same thing with computers, if you know how to start the computer and load Word then you're not a computer geek. You have to do more.
When selecting parts for my athlon 800 system I was putting together, I immediately bought a Matrox G400.
I run a dual PIII 500/256mb/Tyan Tiger 100 workstation under Windows2000 (Just hear me out!
I have dabbled in Linux a few times in the past but I always seem to go back to Windows (I need my apps). I tried 3dfx first and it didn't cut it... Sure their drivers for Linux are some of the best, but try it on a multi-processor Linux box... I've heard too many horror stories about Matrox and SMP to even go down that road.
I am a self proffessed "Windows Weenie", but I am trying... I actually installed RedHat 6.1 on my box last night (VMWare rocks!). What sorts of suggestions can you guys make for me? I have a 3DLabs Oxygen VX1, TNT2U, GeForce SDR, Voodoo3, and I could get a G400 (shudder). Keep in mind though, I still need Windows functionality and support for SMP.
2CPU.com - Your one stop source for everything SMP
Well, if it's still in the warranty period, you might have some gripe rights, if nothing else.
;-)
Of course, if there are any individuals able to use that obfuscated code of the last open drivers as a platform to an updated Xfree86 v4 compatible driver, then it might be worth giving it a chance.
However, being in a position to buy new cards right now, I'm bypassing the problem and going with Matrox.
(dual peltiers, overclocked cel 366's, 2 g400's and 4 monitors!... wheeeee! that is, until somebody runs the vaccum and we blow the circuit breaker again...
TangoChaz
"It's not enough to be on the right track -- you have to be moving faster than the train." -- Rod Davis, Editor of Seahorse Mag.
TangoChaz
--------------------
Wise men talk because they have something to say, fools because the
Remember that Microsoft plans to use an NVidia chip in their X-Box gaming platform. Maybe NVidia is leaning towards Microsoft to keep their good will in that deal...
Think back before all this 3D in XFree86 stuff. 3Dfx had a guy (thanks Darryl) developing the Xserver for the voodoo3/banshee and working on glide, under NDA (non disclosure agreement=closed source). While alot of people saw this as Real Bad, it was better than a kick in the ass. Now look at linux.3dfx.com, they came around and the project is unbeleivable: open source, open glide, open register specs.
/. can get) had the open source community (consumers $$) frown on them. Hang onto your card, or sell it to a Windows user and get a 3dfx or g400, thats your choice. Even if you have to endure a few binary releases like the voodoo3 did, they will come around.
Nvidia is doing _exactly_ what 3Dfx did at first, I think they will come around, especially since they have now publicly (as public as
Lars -
I'm maybe the 263 person to say it, but I do not want to support nvidia anymore, so I do not want to be a TNT owner anymore. My little STB Velocity 4400 w/TV-Out is for sale! :)
I'm gonna buy a G400Max because it's the best supported card under Linux.
Anyway, I'll soon upgrade my system for an Athlon 700 MHz with a G400!
Ummm... what the hell are you talking about? Im running the Aureal drivers for my MX300 right now.
Have you been living in a cave somewhere? Here's the link man, enjoy:
http://linux.aureal.com/
NVidia ripped us all big time. They were one of the first companies to actually have a press release about their support for Linux. After I read it, I was thrilled. The current leading video card company was going to have kick-ass 3d hardware accelerated drivers for Linux! Just as NVidia wanted, tons of Linux people went out and bought their top of the line $300 video card just because of that one pro-Linux statement. Then, NVidia pulls this bullshit. I could *almost* understand them not releasing open-source drivers, but them choosing not to use open infrastructure, and instead developing their own closed solution (that, of course, won't work with any competitiors cards, locking competition out). This kind of behavior shows quite clearly what NVidia wants, and that is control over Linux. And as for the uncertainty of NVidia not using XFree4.0's DRI, why haven't they released any correction to stop the rumor if it isn't true? Sorry NVidia, you fucked up big this time. -helo
If words were wisdom I'd be talking even more
"Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know."
-- Ernest Hemingway
but also on win2k. They haven't released a decent TNT driver for win2k. There are reference drivers downloadable, but these are very unstable and incorrect (try a glColor4f(1.0f,1.0f,1.0f,0.99f); et voila, a division by zero in the nvidia dll). The hardware specs they poop out are very ok and nice material to look at ;) but sometimes you just want it to get it to work, especially stuff which is on the market for some time now, like a TNT.
--
Never underestimate the relief of true separation of Religion and State.
Hi,
:) can't force a company to release sources, and I think we should (still) say "thank you" for the things we get - including binaries.
Products that are used on Linux extensively without the company knowing this (because of the "hacked" drivers available), are in my eyes worse than this.
This company shows goodwill, but can't get used to our development model, in which backwards compatibility is sometimes not much of an issue. You must note with this, that a driver written for Win3.1 still works today. So a company does only have to think once. With Open Source OSes, this is different. We don't care about compatibility.
In this view, I think that companies only willing to release binaries should be better supported by the community than those not willing to release something at all. You (still
Again, I think that those companies showing absolutely no support at all but still profit from "us" because of third-party open-source drivers, are worse.
It's... It's...
"We can confirm that Debian does *not* ship the version with the trojan horse. Our version predates it." [CA-2002-28]
I'm in the exact same boat... bought the TNT2 Ultra, because I didn't like the 3DFX gear.
They looked like they were going in the right direction, and when they announced the deal with SGI and VA Linux, I was pretty stoked.
But lately, it just hasn't been working. I have thought seriously about 'downgrading' to a V3 3000, or going back to Matrox cards. I am certain that my next card will be required to have Open Source drivers.
I tend to not buy hardware that doesn't have good Linux support--even if its not going into a Linux machine--so that hopefully someone can come up with a product Matrix of cards that have OpenSource drivers, and directly compare that against sales figures. Eventually its going to be pretty obvious to manufacturers. A large portion of the 'hardcore' computer market are Linux users. We buy a lot of gear, and should have a large impact on the market.
I'm wondering if anyone at Nvidia has read the Cathedral and the Bazaar. I would be willing to purchase the dead tree edition and send it to the CTO of Nvidia.
-k
i emailed this to nvidia as an FYI subject and attached this slashdot discussion, as it reads sort of like an instant petition. :--)
I -really- hope you attached the URL leading to this discussion, not megabytes of text. I've had to live with the consequences of certain thoughtless emails to nVIDIA following Slashdot discussions. I'm hoping that saying so doesn't give some moron ideas which is why I was vague earlier. Why don't people -think- before emailing?
So flame me. Look at my posts, I try to be calm and reasonable, sometimes you have to rant to be heard here. Actually, I started reading Slashdot precisely because someone sent me the previous nVIDIA discussion, so something good can come out of a flame war.
I'm glad I got here early. I recall (can't be bothered to trawl the archives) the debate about nVIDIA and X and Linux getting rather overheated last time. My work was one of the casualties of an idiot negotiation tactic (I'm being vague in case someone tries it again - sigh).
I've been in through the front door of nVIDIA, worked with a couple of their engineers and met a handful of people at various levels. I'm not name dropping or trying to be cool, just maybe trying to establish a modicum of credibility. Most of the folks I met I liked, although the culture gave me a few problems 'cos I'm from Europe.
My point is this: nVIDIA (that's how it's written on my TNT card, wish they'd make their mind up on the capitalisation) is not a monolithic organisation. For all we know 49.5% of them want to do things the Slashdot way, and it might take a just little more polite persuasion to open things up, charm their management, whatever.
That was Dell. Maybe just a coincidence, but you're right--they lost the bid, and announced they'd be embracing linux/X 100% like a week or two later.
Johnny Quest has two Daddies.
They have lost all credibility with me and i can't imagine the scenario that reverses that.
Bottomline: as a customer, Ican't trust this company. My use of Linux is not going to held hostage to one company's schedule for driver revisions--especially one that gives Linux support a priority as low as this company does.
Johnny Quest has two Daddies.
Because Matrox are so cool with regards to opensource, I hereby disclose my little sunshine story to you guys...
I have an integrated Matrox Mystique card on my old box. Based on my experiences with that card I bought a new Matrox G400 16 mb card for my new box which I am also very pleased with...
The Matrox cards have great drivers for both Linux and Windows. Altogheter the Matrox products just smell quality and the display is crystal clear. Acceptable 3D performance (G400), 2D rules at high resolutions.
Needless to say my next graphics card will most certainly be Matrox.
The only thing I regret was that I didn't go with the Dual head version...
We are going to launch our web site this week, and we were originally going to offer a graphics card with the nVidia GeForce 256 chipset for one of our machines. After these sorts of actions from them though, we are definitely going to switch to 3dfx and Matrox for our gaming/multimedia systems. With Linux gaining market share so rapidly, resellers like us will continue to pressure them, and nVidia will eventually have to either Open-Source or Close Down.
If Nvidia chooses not to support DRI and develops its own proprietary infrastructure, doesn't it means developers will have to support the Nvidia solution in addition to the standard DRI one?
Also, if you have to choose between one of the APIs due to time constraints, do you choose the Nvidia solution which works with Nvidia cards or do you develop for the open DRI solution, which will probably have drivers for all other major 3D cards... hmm, not too hard a choice, is it?
>You don't seem to understand the concept that
/. that I'm doing it and why.
>the drivers are *Nvidia's* property, not yours.
>They can do as they damn well please with their
>software
You don't seem to understand that my money is *my* property, not Nvidia's OR yours. I can do as I damn well please with my money, including NOT spending it on a company whose product and/or conduct doesn't meet my standards. And because I'm a "sue-happy" American, I can tell Nvidia, you, and everyone else who reads
>Just because you're a sue-happy american doesn't
>mean you can just bring any company into court
>that does something you don't approve of.
Nvidia REPEATEDLY claimed that they would be releasing open-source drivers for their cards. Many people bought cards from Nvidia because of this claim. Nvidia is now reneging on this claim. This may, therefore, count as a false-advertising issue. False advertising is against the law in the "sue-happy" US. Just because Nvidia's a big company doesn't mean they can do whatever the fuck they want without facing the consequences, whether those consequences are legal or simply the loss of customers to Nvidia's slightly more clued-in competitors.
I'd also remind you that Nvidia has a history of false advertising: "The Riva128 is faster than the Voodoo2!""The Riva TNT will be faster than Voodoo2 SLI!"
--
There is no sin except stupidity -- Oscar Wilde
This does make sense, and although it can be argued against on some level - my point isn't to argue with it. I don't really mind if the Nvidia-approved driver for their cards is closed source. If it makes sense for them and their customers accept it then it's their own choice to make.
My problem is with them not releasing specs. This is what's holding back open-source drivers.
I don't mind if the open-source drivers are unofficial. I don't see why Nvidia would stand in the way of such drivers, even if they want the official version to be closed. Even on windows you get to choose between the official reference-drivers from Nvidia and the vendor specific drivers (Creative, Diamond, etc'), So it doesn't seem anyone minds having to choose.
I have enough faith in OSS to think that there is a pretty good chance that the open drivers could become better. Even if not, I would still be happy to know that my card can remain supported whatever happens.
- I find nothing in your post that explains why nvidia doesn't release the specs. This is what I'd really like to know...
(btw, if the specs are released, it would create an interesting test case for open source. I'd really like to see that, and I think many people and companies would too...)
The two great secrets of success are: don't tell anyone everything that you know.
I also bought a TNT card. I also got shafted. Instead of posting gripes to /., why don't we all contact nVidia. Be polite, but let them know that they've lost your business...if you feel justified in asking for a refund, as for one. Again, BE POLITE. We've seen the /. effect take down sites...let's see what it can do about corporate policy.
I for one am going to call/email them tonight...if someone with Apache running wants to set up a petition type website, that'd be great, too.
Contact info from their site:
NVIDIA Corporation:
3535 Monroe Street
Santa Clara, CA. 95051
Tel: (408) 615-2500
Fax: (408) 615-2800
info@nvidia.com
ps. me too, of course I did even worse than buying TNT2 from nvidia, lol. I bought Diamond (ahck!). It's collecting dust and Im running an old 3d2000 + voodoo1 as it performs way way better. Next week, I'm buying a new card-- the GeForce looked very promising, but without dri / xfree4.0 support and a decent driver (not a lackluster,closed source one), I'm buying the Matrox g400. Ditto on compatability for everything I purchase for my office. ps. i emailed this to nvidia as an FYI subject and attached this slashdot discussion, as it reads sort of like an instant petition. :--) Kel H Webmaster State Controller's Office
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I was also duped by their initial mutterings of open-source Linux support and unless we here something from them soon, I'm ditching my TNT2 for a Voodoo3. My question is simply WHY? Why are they insisting on closed drivers when virtually all of their competitors seem to be backing open-source drivers? What made them change their minds from their initial promise of open-source support?
ATI's 123-bit accelerators seem promisong. ATI announced full open-source support fot its hardware, including video capture features! In comparison, I've got an ASUS v3400 TNT/TV card that has a Riva TNT and a video capture chip on-board, but I've lost hope for proper 3D OpenGL software to be released by ASUS (they basically ignore Linux) not to mention video capture drivers... The next card I'm going to buy will probably be an ATI or Matrox. For now, forget nVidia if you use Linux.
Yes,you should wait. I bet the voodoo4/5 will have an xserver fully supported right away.
OTOH, maybe the code is part of the "secret" to the card's performance, and so they don't want competitors to see their fancy rendering algorithms...
...but Diamond also makes drivers for cards based on nVidia chips. If you buy a Viper 770, which is based on the TNT2, you're getting Diamond's drivers in the box, not nVidia's. Or are Diamond's drivers just nVidia's with "enhancements"? I'd like to find that out.
Either way, that means that nVidia is cooperating with the card manufacturers, like Diamond. So if they refuse to provide driver code, I wish they'd at least help out projects like XFree86 when the projects need it.
After all, XFree86 is doing nVidia a favor by trying to support their chips. Otherwise, every Linux gaming machine would have a Voodoo 3.
I remember last summer I tried to install a Viper 770 Ultra in a BSD box, and XFree86 wouldn't even start the server correctly. So, I bought an ATI Xpert 98, for $40, and it's worked fine since. (I wasn't using it for games, and I just tried the Viper because I had a spare one I wasn't using at the time.)
I was impressed with the Xpert 98. Very nice colors, very bright. Much better color than the Viper. The Viper is sitting in a Win32 machine right now, which is used for games (surprise) and playing DVDs (surprise surprise), and on the same monitor, the white output from the Viper is much dimmer than the Xpert 98. I'd love to use the Xpert for playing the DVDs, but I need the Viper's framerates for my games, heh...
Too hot for CPAN!! Get PerlOS now from
One one hand, NVidia is the only major chipmaker I know of that still makes only chips and not cards. They are the only supplier to card-makers like Creative, Diamond (possibly not any more since they got bought out by S3), and others. But on the other hand they have the worst support in Linux.
I always prefer to start the year off with a bang - or, to be more precise, a series of loud hums, a crackle or two, and
I get amazing framerates and beautiful rendering, and that's only at the console running bash!
ATI has much better driver support, and blows the Nvidia away on every benchmark. Seriously, check out some of the stats on this card.
I don't think the "OSF outlook" is going to kill NVidia any time soon. There's just too many other folks out there willing to plunk their money down for a board that goes in a system whose operating system is a complete mystery to them (if I have to tell one more user how to move their taskbar from the top of the screen or that "illegal operation" DOES NOT mean cops will kick their doors down) to keep NVidia solvent. I admit that NVidia can hurt themselves somewhat, and that the open source crowd (I'm one, too) is a VERY vocal minority, but, frankly, to quote Devo, "Some things never change..." OTOH, I plan on voting with my wallet...
joshv wrote:
A closed source video driver. So what? As long as the driver works, I don't care.
So a closed source driver will only work on supported platforms given the environment at the time of release. For example, if they don't support PPC, no PPC user can use their driver. If XFree86 4.1 has to break the modular driver API to fix some problems, you can't use XFree86 4.1.
An Open Source driver can be ported to unsupported systems. An Open Source driver can track bugfixes and API changes.
If it doesn't work, don't buy the damned card, buy another one from a different vendor that does work, or is open source, whatever your priorities are.
It looks like I will have to. On the flip side, if a company is not going to release open source drivers, they shouldn't be marketing their card as supported in Linux. A release of a binary-only driver on Linux generally means they have marginal support of Linux/i386, which is far from proper Linux support.
No manufacturer has an obligation to live up to the ideological dictates of the open source movement. Perhaps they may eventually be disadvantaged in the marketplace if they do not, but I'll let the market place sort that out.
True, but a manufacturer has a legal and ethical obligation to do what they say they are going to do. Otherwise it is fraud and false advertising. NVidia is on the edge here, if they start pretending they have Linux support without releasing Open Source drivers (or releasing binary drivers for every PCI or AGP Linux platform, which would be financial suicide for them to develop), they should be held accoutable.
Corporations should not be allowed to just do whatever they want with no fear of repercussions, either legal or social. So quit your whining.
Much of the problem here may be the the looseness and immaturity of the driver interface for XFree86. NVidia has a constantly shifting target, and I am sure Linux is not their highest priority. Thus the quality of their drivers is going to lag a bit.
One of many arguments for just releasing the source or proper technical specifications. Hardware manufacturers are on very tight margins, they can't afford to do justice to driver development.
Considering how long it took NVidia to get their Windows drivers to properly work with new motherboards, I would think they'd be happy to be relieved of the burden of having another platform to support binary drivers on. Open Source is just less work on the company. Hand a reference driver (a real one this time) to the XFree86 group, licensed under the XConsortium license, and I, for one, would be thrilled to buy their hardware.
Don't like it? Buy another card. Or sign an NDA, get the source code, and create and distribute (maybe even sell) your own binary only driver. (Has anyone ever done this, if not, why not? Aren't MetroX and OSS exampes?)
OSS? MetroLink (makers of MetroX) and XiG do this. Their drivers are expensive. MetroLink doesn't support many cards, and only supports i386 and Alpha. Xig supports more cards (and costs more), but only supports i386. Costs involved in NDA development (even if the NDA iself is free, which is rare) make it prohibitive for most individuals to do this. Your suggestion helps nobody.
Buy another card? Of course, that's what it looks like I will be forced to do because NVidia doesn't live up to its promises.
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Open mind, insert foot.
Of course, no one is suggesting that NVidia is not free to do as they wish, assuming they honor the licenses on the code they use/link to. What is being suggested is that it's bad for someone like NVidia to force their users to go to an all-proprietary solution.
I think Frank said the following would be acceptable from NVidia:
- open-source DRI driver (obviously)
- closed DRI driver
- open-source "different" driver subsystem
And I would wager he wouldn't have a problem with:
- open-source "different" driver subsystem with closed driver
What NVidia is doing, however, is:
- closed "different" driver subsystem with closed driver
(as far as we know at this point)
As you point out, this causes problems. NVidia cards won't play nice with other vendor's stuff in, for example, dual-head systems. Furthermore, NVidia users may not be able to take advantage of advances in XFree86 until NVidia gets around to porting their driver subsystem to the new stuff.
If other binary-only drivers are any guide, the driver and subsystem will be a piece of crap. Even if the new subsystem is really a good advancement, all the advantages will be overshadowed by the poor implementation (which we won't be able to improve in any way).
Also, and most importantly, any proprietary driver subsystem partially closes the entire system. If it comes to the place where you have to pay NVidia, sign an NDA, or whatever in order to write video drivers for Linux, then how can we claim that Linux is "open" or "free"? And, as Frank pointed out, if we wanted proprietary stunts like this, we'd just stick with Microsoft, who is a lot bigger and has a lot better proprietary support than Linux.
In the MS world, no one seriously suggests implementing a different/new way of doing graphics outside of GDI, DirectX, or OpenGL; the one company that has (3Dfx) eventually abandoned this plan. The reason is simple: no one wants to worry about whether their game or whatever is compatible with your particular video card's preferred graphics API, so the standards are a big win for consumers. Why should it be any different for Linux?
It's actually up there with the TNT2 in performance levels- and I'd rather have the slight increase in quality of rendering at the expense of a couple of fps.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
NVidia's been this way from the onset. Which, on retrospect, is extremely disappointing in light of their previous open stance (The details of their first chip attempt was totally open for download by anyone .)
They make a big to-do about releasing 3D drivers for Linux. When the drivers are obtained, people find out that the sources to the same are obfuscated (Meaning that it's nigh impossible to fix the damn thing if there's a bug or make changes to the ABI for the acceleration support.) and it doesn't support DMA pathways, etc. (Meaning it is dog slow compared to 3DfX' drivers or the ATI Rage PRO drivers...) along with being buggy and unstable.
This is followed up by an announcement of a release of technical information about their chips. This was supposed to be a way to better write open sourced drivers for the chips. What we got was this unsupported Glide type library that was source obfuscated, broken, and DMA-less. Not any better than the driver that preceeded it.
Now, we find out they're trying to jam down our throats another pathway that is proprietary and the drivers are completely closed.
Not as nice a company afterall- seems they don't want to support us as much as they say they do.
As for the Creative drivers, I think they're bound by NDA so I don't think they can do much in this regard.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Interesting how you put that- but it's true. I'm one of the people specifying what hardware goes into our groups desktops, etc. And, I can guarantee you that we're not purchasing any NVidia cards in the forseeable future. Also, I've been telling my friends when they're off buying new accelerators to look into Matrox as a definite possibility.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
A few things in response to the various opinions I've seen posted so far:
Yes, it is NVidia's right to release binary-only Linux drivers, or even to not release any drivers at all. It would also be their right to not produce enough video cards to fill market demand, to produce cards with blurry video quality, or to produce only video cards to sell for $800 a pop. They don't do any of those things because it causes them to lose customers, and that's a big reason why they shouldn't keep their driver source code and programming specs a secret either.
NVidia is losing customers this way - and I'm not just talking about the die-hard Linux geeks like myself and regular Slashdot posters. I have a diehard gamer friend who bought a $350 DDR GeForce, had to return it when the hardware died quickly, and is planning to get a G400Max or G800 instead, because the limitation of having to play at "low" (below 1024x768) resolutions to get a high frame rate was outweighed by the limitation of having to deal with Windows every time he wanted to play Quake 3.
NVidia will be losing opening markets, too. Embedded devices and set tops are looking better and better, now that there's a good operating system to use with them. And while the TNT2 may be the chipset of choice for Windows, it just doesn't cut it compared to what Matrox, ATI, and 3Dfx will let you put in a Linux box. Sure, NVidia's next chipset will go in Microsoft's XBox when that comes out in 2 years, running an operating system "derived from Windows 2000". Does anyone believe any Microsoft promises made one year in advance anymore, much less promises made two years in advance regarding Windows 2000??? I've got this bridge I'd like to sell you...
But regarding the XBox, Microsoft didn't pick an NVidia chipset because they wanted to "cut a deal" and get NVidia to screw Linux users. They did it because NVidia has the fastest video cards available for current PC games, and has the fastest chip bar none for future high-polygon 3D games.
Yes, NVidia's heard the "open source is good for hardware manufacturer" line a thousand times already. They'll hear it a thousand times more before they get it, if that's what it takes. Matrox, Adaptec, Creative Labs, ATI, all of them were in the "we can't release our precious register specs" stage for some point, or for years. But we now have open source drivers for all of them for their leading products. NVidia will concede eventually; it's just a question of whether the resulting drivers will be supporting Quake 3 or Quake 5.
The fact that the NVidia modules won't be using DRI is important. It means they won't be benefitting from the kernel DRI support, from future improvements to the infrastructure (and even Windows closed source drivers don't see the speed of improvement that Linux free software does; Linux closed source drivers can only be worse than both), from things like multihead support as the article here mentions...
And most importantly to me, it means that we'll have a binary-only program banging directly on our hardware. That means NVidia owners won't be able to count on 100% Linux stability, that means SMP users will be even less likely to have bug-free drivers, and that means that security-conscious NVidia users will never be able to turn off module loading and direct memory access to prevent intruders from modifying the kernel.
Well, enough rambling. I guess from my perspective it's probably a good thing; if NVidia had good (read: nonobfuscated, using DMA, starting to use hardware T&L) open source GLX drivers for the GeForce (even if they hadn't been moved to DRI yet) I would have blown hundreds of dollars on a DDR card months ago.
... I've got a box that needs upgrading which I plan to use as a linux workstation (plus videogames ;) and I suppose that seals it: Matrox G400MAX for me...
Your Working Boy,
Let me start with a simple statement: fsck Open Source!
Normally, I wouldn't care a bit about this, I have a G400 at home. But lucky me, at the university I've got a TNT2. One thing I can tell about the NVidia drivers: they are unstable as hell. The 2D driver is ok, but then again, I don't care about the 2D driver. The 3D driver is hell on earth. The only game I've run on this box is bzflag. Besides that, everything is pretty "normal" in house 3D applications. I was kind of waiting for the XFree86 4.0 drivers, which NVidia hinted were going to have source for them (mind you, real source, not the crap they spitted the last time), but it looks like it won't happen.
Why is it that I want to have source? Because if there's a problem with the dammed driver, I want to be able to take a look at it.
Why did NVidia release source? They did it as a publicity stunt (just like the one they have pulled with SGI and the one they pulled with the X-box). Nowadays you get some good press coverage if you put the words open and source close enough. Another reason they released source: "Quit bitching already! Here, have some source..." someone else already pointed that under normal circumstances, once "some" source is released someone will be able to improve on it, so releasing "some" source makes everybody happy... for a while. In this case it has not happened, because improving means "improving blindly", there's no specification to work with.
So there. fsck Open Source! That's what NVidia is saying. What would have happened if most of the people still refered to it as "Free Software" (assuming it was truly free) First of all, it would be pretty bold for a company to say fsck free software because that's easier to interpret as fsck freedom!, so they would just have to go with the alternative: ignore it, or play by the rules. There's no rules you say? It's their hardware, they get to do what they want? Ok, granted. But then stay out of the playground, will you NVidia? That way they won't show up as a possibility on the next batch of boxes we buy here, and I won't have to explain why I don't want cards that are faster on the paper but a PITA once you are actually using them.
What you mean, constantly shifting? The 3.3 series have been out there for quite a while, and the 3.3.6 in particular has been out for more than six months, IIRC. I wouldn't call that constantly shifting...
Yeah, having Carmack working for free on drivers for your chip must really hurt your bottom line.
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Keep in mind that I haven't even /tried/ using it for 3D under linux. I don't play games under linux, I use my windows partition for that. If Sierra would port Tribes (or that nifty-looking Tribes 2) to Linux, /then/ I'd investigate further..
Lastly, for anyone who uses linux and doesn't have a card that does what you want under linux, write the manufacturer. Video games won't come to linux until the hardware support is there - especially FPS games. We need more drivers than just what MesaGL and Glide support.
Okay, maybe I oughtn't reply to my own post, but... I've just uploaded the nVIDIA Rant Page, outlining my side of the story. I'll keep it updated and put some stuff in place to gather names and stories from other less-than-satisfied customers. Please spread it around.
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how to invest, a novice's guide
Because it is an public, open-source system, generic problems across all graphics cards can be fixed. The common problems probably outweigh the specific problems by a huge margin.
If you doubt this, download the papers from www.precisioninsight.com, and skim them (there are too many too read, but an overview will give you the idea). They have solved problems with robust, elegant solutions, whose existence I would never have dreamed of.
Frank LaMonica is good to point out nVidia's policy at this time -- as nVidia can choose the correct path now with minimal loss-of-face. I have no problem if they want to release closed-source drivers, but if they think that they can release and maintain a closed-source equivalent of DRI and all the parts of XFree86 that are dependent on the DRI, they are almost certainly wrong. Precision Insight has the very best people in the world working on it's own interface, and years of time invested, and they are only just now able to release something that begins to work. Precision Insight can, and has, taken advantage of the goodwill of the rest of the open-source community -- amplifying their efforts many times. nVidia, if they turn their back on the DRI, will not be a factor on Linux.
Perhaps they don't care. Truly, this wouldn't bother me very much at all except that nVidia is wedded to SGI; and will pervert SGI's ability to work with Linux; and that saddens me greatly.
thad
I love Mondays. On a Monday, anything is possible.
As far as I know, Matrox has the most open specs so far (with the possible exception of S3) and the G400 is a kick-ass 3D card that compares favorably to NVidia both in terms of price and performance. This should be a no-brainer.
Too bad, NVidia, you're losing it *just like 3D fx did*. Do the words "those who can't remember the past are doomed to repeat it" mean anything to you?????
Life's a bitch but somebody's gotta do it.
I'd also bought an NVidia card due to their initial steps in the right direction. However, it's now apparent that I've been terribly misled. Sure, they never promised me anything. However, they certainly led me to believe that they would continue to do the Right Thing. Now that they're failing to do so, they've lost my trust. It's too late for me to do anything about this now, but I certainly won't buy anything from them or believe any promises that they make until they make right on this.
I can (sort of) understand their reasons, but, even simply as a consumer with no interest in any software philosophy over any other, I believe I stand far more to gain from truly open drivers than from a 5 FPS lead over the next best card.
NeoMagic came around eventually. Hopefully, NVidia will as well. Explain to them politely, by E-mail, why it matters and don't buy their product until they come out with open source drivers.
It seems everyone and their mother wants to run this card in Linux. Why not? It's fast, stable, 32Meg card that has a good refresh rate at high rez. Everything you want in a 2D/3D card. Oh wait, it does not run 3D too fast in Linux and the 2D performence is not max'ed out. Time to use something else.
I think, as well as everyone else, this a HUGH mistake on NVIDIA's part. In the free market, someone is going to make a card is much like NVIDIA's, but not only does it have good drivers in Win32, but also in Linux/FreeBSD* (XFREE86 in general). So all people like me, who run both Win32 systems and Linux/FreeBSD systems are going to buy something else. Word will get around and soon NVIDIA cards will be something to be avoided. Voodoo and Matrox sales in the Linux/FreeBSD area will increase and continue to increase as the use of Linux/FreeBSD increases (Well, DUH!) because their drivers are Open Source and supported in the Kernel.
You might say to yourself, "big deal". Who cares if a handfull of Open Source people who run Linux/FreeBSD don't buy NVIDIA cards. Well, Linux/FreeBSD users tend to be the Alpha Geeks in their areas. I myself can get the company I work for to buy what I recommend. Why? I am a knowledgable Geek that knows his hardware. If NVIDIA does not satisfy me, I will recommend some other video card to the company and a lot of other people. Word gets out and NVIDIA loses a couple more sales. The same happens with other Alpha Geeks at other companies. Soon it starts to add up. Sounds dumb, but it happens. That is what word of mouth is all about.
NOTE: I speak of Linux/FreeBSD in this topic although it is about XFree. Support for the video card in the kernel is big step to getting max speed out of the video card. You can do all you want to XFree, but without support in the kernel it will not be the fastest it can be.
Linux O Muerte!
Matrox has learned two valuable lessons for the years.
Regarding #1, Matrox has learned. I am surprise how everyone talks about 3Dfx and nVidia when the G400Max holds its own against all but the latest nVidia GeForce (but scales better on newer processors from what I've seen). And the 2D and 3D image quality is #1 ... I'm sorry, but true (just look at a G400 at 1920x1440 screen and you'll agree too)! And Matrox actually supports ALL of the 32-bit color goodies where nVidia's supposive 32-bit color "superiority" lacks functions that are only in their 16-bit color mode. And Matrox tries hard to get speculation out of the public, and consistently denies any forthcoming product rumors until the chips are sampling and can be seen for what they are.
Regarding #2, the Linux/OSS Matrox developments, from an flexible frame-buffer driver to a well-respected GLX/DRI effort with top-developers is just a testament to the community Matrox has created by finally opening up. While they still require a NDA for something, anything and everything is availble to developers. And I'd say developers would rather see it all and have no help, then have some help with a lot of restrictions.
Just my $0.02 ...
-- Bryan "TheBS" Smith
-- Bryan "TheBS" Smith
Independent Author, Consultant and Trainer
I did this last night, though not exactly the way you did. I was ostensibly shopping for parts for my i-opener and a PCMCIA Ethernet card. I walked out of the computer store spending $250+ because:
1) I bought a Linksys Etherfast PCMCIA 10/100 card (bought because of their excellent Linux support and encouragement of Open Source drivers)
2) I bought a Linksys USB 10/100 ethernet adapter (I can always run NetBSD on the i-opener)
3) Logitech mouse (I know, they don't open drivers on their bigger products, but I wanted a quality mouse that wasn't Microsoft)
4) Generic keyboard (three new keys? gonna check the scan codes)
5) PS/2 KB-Mouse splitter
6) Voodoo 3 3000 AGP.
The last item was almost an impulse (returned, open-box, and 20% off that for a total of $86...whee!). I felt good about the purchase, though, because I've had my STB Velocity 128 (nVidia RIVA 128, 4mb) for almost two years and am sick and tired of not being able to play any interesting new games. I can't play Quake III, Quake II is unplayable with the mouse, Parsec can't run without Voodoo, Heavy Gear II is coming, etc. It was a choice between the Matrox and the Voodoo 3, and the Voodoo won on price.
nVidia's support has been pathetic. I had copies of the old drivers, but I couldn't get the Quake III demo running. It seems obvious to me, just as it was a year and a half ago on my Windows game box, that if I want to play games, I need to get the best hardware. Direct X saved my RIVA 128 on the Windows box for a while, but nVidia isn't supporting DRI very quickly or well, so I've had enough.
I had bought the nVidia card because I wanted the best, most complete OpenGL support available in an economy card at the time. Today on my *NIX boxes, the Voodoo 3 will give me more complete support than the RIVA ever did.
I'm disappointed with nVidia and have voted with my dollars for companies that support Linux: Linksys and 3DFX.
If you have a Matrox G200, a G400, and ATi RagePro, Intel 810, RivaTNT or an S3 Virge, Utah GLX will support your card
I guess I'll be buying one of those then. Currently I have a Diamond Stealth III s540 16MB which develops unpleasant rubber banding problems under gimp. Enough to make it unusable in fact. From the UtahGLX mailing lists I note that several people have been trying to get S3 to release specs so that they can work on the Savage4 chipset. No dice so far apparently. I've also noticed several messages on comp.windows.386.x with people complaining about the rubber banding and freezing on Savage4/StealthIII implementations.
Basically it seems that manufacturers want to keep their hardware specs secret, they don't have too much of a problem if it's an older chipset (e.g. ViRGE for S3) but they perceive an advantage in secrecy for newer cards. The result of this is that their cards won't work for "advanced" functions such as GL and have weird glitches in ordinary, but intensive applications such as gimp. Result? A hearty recommendation from me not to buy a recent S3 chipset containing card - specifically the Savage chipsets.
My question would be, what is it that makes Matrox able to grok this and S3 not? Anyway, I'm dumping this thing and going for one of the one's you've mentioned. It might be useful if people went to The Linux Hardware Database and gave their experiences and ratings of graphics cards. This site provides a nice tabular, user reviewed summary of hardware and it's obvious from the XF86 FAQ that "what card should I buy" is something lots of people want to know.
Hmm. As it happens I've just done that very thing. The response that I got arrived within 30 minutes of sending from Derek Perez of their PR department. His response? "Where is this campaign originating from?".
Doesn't sound too friendly or hopeful!
> I wonder if I can talk them in to buying back my card.
Probably not, but the fact of your asking will be priceless for the cause you espouse.
Microsoft gets away with its antics because consumers willing drop, bend, and forego the grease. Let NVidia know you're not going to do that for them.
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Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
> Now I'm not at all clear whether the GLX module as it stands will just plug directly in to XFree 4.0.
.plan, where he reasoned that we G*00 owners were going to have to wait a while for some issues to be resolved with XF4/DRI, and that UtahGLX development for XF3.3 should continue meanwhile?
Didn't we have a link a week or so back to JC's
[Forgive me if I remember wrong -- no FUD intended. I'm a happy G200 owner, and that's the conclusion I drew from whatever it was that I read.]
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Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
What are nVidia thinking? They don't charge for the driver, so it's not like they are losing revenue by opening the source. It sounds like they are really balkanized within the company, and the software guys have lost site of the fact that they are a hardware company. Even if some other company copied their driver, they would still have to duplicate the hardware. And by the time they've done that, nVidia will have a new card out.
So, given that they have (wrong-headedly) decided to develop a binary-only driver, why are they developing one that will not support DRI? Multi-heading is a small issue (not that many people do it) but this seems calculated to piss people off. In a community where reputation is everything, nVidia is laying the tarnish on with a thick brush.
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E_NOSIG
I don't know why I should be forced to copy protect my desktop.... .
You know what the biggest impediment to reaching an agreeable spec for DTV is? Content producers want hardware layer copy protections, but the manufacturers don't want to put it in. Why? Because it costs too much and is technically useless....
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+&x
I have a TNT card. I like it. In fact, it's really great when I play quake and other 3D games. This is all under Windows, though, since the TNT drivers are slower and less reliable under linux. Hence the G200 under linux. Not as great for the 3D, but blazing 2D, and well supported (throw in your plug about open source drivers here). My concern isn't as much the open-sourcedness of the drivers (though I think they should be), but that the quality of the drivers on two different OSs should be comparable.
Now we hear again that they won't open up on this. So? Nothing has changed, but more importantly, nothing has improved. In fact, it almost seems as if relations have gotten a little more strained... I'll be thrilled when *my hardware* works under linux with similar or better performance than it does under windows, but until then, there's not much that we can do. I've sent letters to Nvidia, asking nicely for them to open up and work with the community, take advangtage of the ready and willing people that will nearly do your work for you. Scratch their back, and they will scratch yours. Make them happy, and they will buy a GeForce DDR when they get a chance. Granted, most of the sales are through deals with OEMs and not individual purchases by the open-source community, but I'd think that any small effort to improve your market share would be a worthwhile one.
An increasing number of people using Linux and BSD these days are in the young, game playing market. Take advantage of this! Create even a little bit of customer loyalty. It's worked on me with Matrox. I'm leaning towards a G400Max instead of a GeForce. Why? It works with my setup, and it works *well*, the manufacturer has given support, and I give it back. It's as simple as that.
"It's tough to be bilingual when you get hit in the head."
Matrox and 3dfx products work great under Linux and Windows. Why bother with NVidia?
I'm sure that there's geeks at NVidia bitching to their superiors after reading this. and as much as the suits typically ignore their employees, I'm sure there's some marketting droid that's correllated the number of complaints they recieve relative to their sales growth for a given time period.
Me, I'm building my next linux box.. And sure enough, here I am shopping for a video card again. I got a TNT last time because of the promise of Linux support - and let me tell you, those drivers are just getting stable now (on the windows side). I think that they should disclaim on the box "For use with Quake III only". Quake accellerators, heh heh.
I look around, and ya know, I'm going to get me one of those Matrox cards. Their 2D is unparallelled, and their drivers are coming along nicely. I might even look and see if I can't help out that project. If matrox has great open source drivers, then more people will buy their cards - and umpteen million linux users can't be wrong. :)
Kudos..
..don't panic
Everyone here does realize that nothing they do, no threats of boycott from the Linux market, no jihad against closed source is going to do anything for their core business. Most people could care less about Open Source, and most people don't use Linux. Their core business is high-performance graphics. Something that Linux is not asociated with. When it does become associated with it (if SGI pulls through) then they will release closed source drivers for some kick-ass hardware, and no-one except the Open Source fundementalists will care. If its the fastest hardware, they'll use it. I've made this arguement before. Long as the drivers exist, the company could care less about open source. Think about it, what good do open source drivers do for nVidia? You think you hackers could write better drivers for nVidia hardware than nVidia? A graphics drivers is not like regualar programs. The intracies of the PC arch. are well understood, thus programming Linux with a bunch of hackers works. But if I came up with a brand new architecture, and asked you to code an OS for it, are you saying you could do it better than the guys who designed it? If so, why don't the Voodoo linux drivers whoop the voodoo windows drivers? Same source, they've had as much devel time, so where's the beef? I get the sad feeling that when the NV25 comes out with awesome binary only linux drivers and a tweeked OpenGL service, I'll be sitting here enjoying it while the Linux OSS fundementalists sit their with the voodoos refusing to give up their religious belief in open source software. C'mon guys, its a driver! Also, and I've made this arguement before, Linux is being used by these companies to get some kind of competetive advantage. Thats why dead/dying/tiny companies are jumping on the bandwagon. Market leaders have no use for it until it becomes mainstream (a place were OSS won't matter. Free will, but OSS won't.) Matrox, ATI, 3Dfx, all companies who have seen better days. Proof: Linux people are about the only people who bought the Voodoo3, an inferior product to the TNT2, after the TNT2's release. Without Linux, there would be no reason to even consider Voodoo3.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
To: graphics.sales@matrox.com
Bcc: info@nvidia.com, emailsupport@3dfx.com
Subject: Matrox Millenium G400, NVidia and linux
Hello.. I've been a very happy linux user for the last 3 years. I am also
about to graduate. I appreciate that you've realeased most of the specs
for the Matrox Millenium G400 and worked on open-source drivers.
This was the primary reason I chose your video card to put in my new
system. As long as your company is the one with the foremost support of
linux and its ideals and you continue to make great hardware, I will
always be your customer and reccomend your hardware to my friends and
family.
Today it was announced that NVidia will be releasing binary-only drivers
for linux. I had slightly considered their video chipset as the one for
me, but they were beginning to show their lack of support of the ideals of
linux two months ago when I was to make my choice. With the recent
announcement, many people who had purchased NVidia's hardware specifically
because it appeared to promise support now feel betrayed.
I heartily encourage you to not make the same mistake.. Continue to
release specs and start to release the remaining specs that you've not yet
releasted.
Myself and many other young computer professionals are looking for a
company who fits with our ideals on open-source and linux. We may be a
small market now, but we will become much more critical as enter industry
over the next few years. Our purchases have been and will be dependent
on how well our software and ideals are supported.
Thanks for your great product, and thanks for your support.. Next time I
crack open my case to read off the serial number, I'll register the card
as a happy linux user.
I do not understand why companies must feel that giving away information on how to operate the hardware they sell is somehow wrong. This is like saying, "here is a large black box. To use it, you must also get one of our trained operators. If the operator somehow misoperates the box for some reason -- tough" This is totally isane from a consumer stand point.
Take they NV3 (the Riva 128). I have a Diamond V330 (using the Riva 128) for doing 2D things. Thanks to the closed-source drivers for windows, I'm forced to deal with strange region redrawing issues that have not gone away after updating it to the latest BIOS and driver. Under X, there is not problem because it is driven via an OpenSource X server which has been properly debugged thanks to its opensource nature.
For 3D, I have a Voodoo 2 which works fine in both operating systems (thanks to a nice quality commitment from 3Dfx, whom I will heartily recommend to people, alongside Matrox).
Conclusion:
There is no excuse for not including information on how to operate the product you are selling. If your products are so flawed as to be obviously broken from its interface, it shouldn't even be purchased in the first place. Let things stand and fall on their own merits.
---
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
It's hard to imagine why they would not use the DRI, it would mean supplying their own complete incompatible X Server, their own GLX implementation and probably their own implementation of Mesa or OpenGL as well. Otherwise all the pieces would not fit together, they can't replace DRI without replacing EVERYTHING.
There is two small reasons I can think why they might go to all this effort. First, performance, if you browse through the Utah-GLX list, John Carmack has expressed concerns about the design of DRI and the memory and performance limitatons of it. His feeling is that the Utah-GLX's direct rendering design is more efficient that the DRI and maybe for this reason Nvidia is going their own way.
Secondly it could be a stop gap measure. The release notes for XF86 4.0 say that the API for the DRI is still not finalised yet and may still change. Maybe Nvidia doesn't want to support it until it's final so they are putting out their own high performance drivers in the meantime.
If in the end they do support DRI but with binary only drivers it's not that bad is it? As I understand the design of the DRI, you could use multiple cards together and upgrade kernels etc without having the source to the DRI driver.
However; even if drivers don't have to be open sourced (IMHO offcourse) I can imagine that people are complaining if some drivers don't function the way they should. But that also depends heavily on taste I guess.
I bought a G400 Max when upgrading my system and am glad I did!
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
What i'm saying is that its going to be better for you to support open source drivers, because when something is wrong, some Godly wizard character like John Carmack (or myself!) is going to be able to fix it, and you now have 5 more FPS! It's very apparent what's better, and half-ass from any company is not good enough.
Mike Roberto
- roberto@soul.apk.net
-- AOL IM: MicroBerto
Berto
But is there a connection between Nvidia's sudden apathy towards the Linux community and their recent sweetheart deal with Microsoft to produce chips for the X-box?
Anyone remember when RealNetworks stopped putting out updates of realplayer for linux? It happened strangely after they licensed their realaudio codecs to Microsoft for windows mediaplayer.
This is an issue for the folks at NVIDIA, and not really one for mass arbitration. They created the video card, and they created the drivers, and they should be able to control the licensing.
That being said, it is kind of sad that they would handicap themselves in this way. They deprive the end users of the ability to compile the driver for their platform's available optimization. They will release their drivers after all other upgrades for XFree86 are available. And it is quite likely that their drivers will not work as well as other platforms under {free,net,open}BSD and linux.
Also, I've now seen things like the guy at U Michigan who hacked the ATI Mach64 driver for his Mobility card to get XFree86 working with something other than the VFB driver. Nice work if you can get it from your users.
Not for Nvidia. I hope this is not the demise of their drivers.
It bothers me to hear people chime in and complain about nVidia not supporting the DRI being anti-open-source. The DRI itself does not require that chip specifications be open-source for the very purpose of allowing IHVs to protect their IP. It seems that problem that Frank LaMonica has with nVidia is that they are not using "his" infrastructure. That may be a reasonable complaint in terms of multimon support and other interoperability issues associated with multiple heterogeneous graphics accelerators -- that issue will certainly need to be addressed. I don't think the answer should necessarily be that every IHV must use the DRI.
What is really disappointing to me is that nobody seems to take notice that nVidia is one of the few companies actually putting heavy resources into STRONG OpenGL drivers. They provide excellent documentation, examples, and whitepapers, for the extensions they support and useful rendering techniques. Other companies have generally let their OpenGL drivers fall by the wayside, instead devoting most of their time to Direct3D drivers. They farm out the OpenGL driver development to external parties or the open-source community because it is cost effective. If they had a genuine commitment to doing the "right thing" then they would have been devoting real resources to OpenGL all along.
Don't let the distinction between whose driver infrastructure is being used confuse the issue of which companies are actively supporting open standards, open-source products, and which ones are just releasing their specs and letting other people do their work.
I'm not knocking the companies that have released their specs! If they don't have the resources to develop OpenGL drivers for their hardware, I'm ecstatic that they're letting somebody do it for them.
Cass Everitt
-----
http://www.r3.nu/
Whether it's a binary-only driver or not doesn't matter much to me; and about programming resources? nVidia doesn't SELL their drivers- so writing drivers for Windows is just as much a resource drain as Linux (maybe even more so, considering what they have to work with...)
What does matter to me is that it is fully OpenGL compliant, and that I can get performance at least as good as in Win32 on some of those shiny new OpenGL games like UT, QuakeIII, and Heavy Gear.
And, as has been mentioned before- Carmack has his own reservations with DRI vs. Utah GLX. Having used Utah GLX for my TNT board, it's excellent. The only slow-down was a form of direct hardware access. Maybe nVidia, SGI, and VA Linux (Since they are all apparently working on the nVidia drivers) have a superior design to XFree4's - and will opensource it "when it's done."
Who knows? Maybe we will end up with 3 (or more) alternate direct-rendering systems- which will benefit the OpenSource community in much the same way the KDE vs. GNOME wars have: By providing alternate ways of doing things, and providing the source on how to do it. That way a superior design can get accepted, and a inferior one washed aside. And as long as they are 100% OpenGL compliant, that's just fine by me.
Netscape was closed-source once too... now we have Mozilla. And Netscape didn't profess the love for OSS that nVidia does. I'll take what I can get for now, and worry about improvements later (either from PI, or UtahGLX...)
-- Sometimes you have to turn the lights off in order to see.
I bought a TNT2 thinking they would be going in a direction that I could support and approve of. That being the DRI and GLX... I could have easily bought a Matrox G400 and am now wishing that I had. What happens when the TNT line is no longer supported and they stop updating thier drivers for it. API's can change and XFree may GROW in a direction that isn't compatible with Nvidia's drivers anymore. I want my money back!
If that's the case then I wonder if it might be more productive to try and persuade Creative labs to release open source drivers for their cards, or would Creative be limited by license agreements with Nvidia ?
Just because MS is working the project doesn't guarantee them success.
BOB.
WinCE.
The Actimates toys.
Each of these is either a qualified or unqualified failure in the marketplace. I'm pretty sure there's lots of others and people can point them out (by the way, please do!).
Any idea as to how brutal the console games marketplace is?
Any idea as to how razor thin the margins on the hardware is?
Do you honestly think that Sony, Sega, and Nintendo are going to sit still while MS tries to muscle into their market?
In reality, NVidia might be set for the next 2 years- but most likely, like many of MS' offerings, it's going to flop or end up like their reference chipset for Direct3D ended up being (vaporware, for those who don't know what happened there...).
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
A closed source video driver. So what? As long as the driver works, I don't care. If it doesn't work, don't buy the damned card, buy another one from a different vendor that does work, or is open source, whatever your priorities are. No manufacturer has an obligation to live up to the ideological dictates of the open source movement. Perhaps they may eventually be disadvantaged in the marketplace if they do not, but I'll let the market place sort that out.
I am sure that NVidia has been made sufficiently aware of the arguments for and against open sourcing their drivers. They have chosen (for the most part) not to. Quitcherfrigginbitchin and live with it.
Much of the problem here may be the the looseness and immaturity of the driver interface for XFree86. NVidia has a constantly shifting target, and I am sure Linux is not their highest priority. Thus the quality of their drivers is going to lag a bit.
Don't like it? Buy another card. Or sign an NDA, get the source code, and create and distribute (maybe even sell) your own binary only driver. (Has anyone ever done this, if not, why not? Aren't MetroX and OSS exampes?)
-josh
And this is only in addition to the multiple-architecture issue, right? An XFree4.0 module for i386 won't work on PPC, won't it?
What I often wonder is why hardware manufacturers can't just streamline the damn hardware interface so that the drivers don't tell what's going on inside! I talked with an Nvidia rep a while ago at a career fair, and he dropped hints that that was where they were headed-- and that future chipset drivers would of course have source-- but it seems they're still not taking the need for source-available drivers into their hardware design.
I'd at least hope they eventually release the driver source, once the GeForce/Quatro is old stuff, although the fact that they aren't using the DRI means a lot of work still remains to be done-- and since drivers like these are supposedly not easy to hack on, and their value then will be much less than it is now, it's likely we may never see a properly designed, source-available driver for our Nvidia hardware. Grrrr!
iSKUNK!
Where is this campaign originating from?
Short and sweet eh? I thought I'd written him a pretty civil letter explaining cogently what the problem was. Anyone else had any feedback?
Script Kiddies, Ruggies and the ilk, read no further. Alright, everyone else... Below is some of the contact info for NVidia. I suggest pointing out the following:
* You're an advid Linux User that supports OpenSource.
* That the Linux Effort at Nvidia could be done better if it were a collaberative Open effort involving Computer Professionals around the world.
* Other compeditors offer Open Solutions that you'd be more that happy to purchase.
* Binary Linux drivers do you no good when release of drivers is slow or (on older products) non-existant. Will there be a linux driver that works for your GeForce in 3 years???
* Be Polite
* To the point. Not too much tech. These are PR people.
Public Relations:
Derek Perez
3535 Monroe Street
Santa Clara, CA. 95051
Tel: (408) 615-2630
Fax: (408) 557-1200
E-mail: dperez@nvidia.com
Rich Black
3535 Monroe Street
Santa Clara, CA. 95051
Tel: (408) 615-2772
Fax: (408) 557-1200
E-mail: rblack@nvidia.com
Investor Relations:
Mary Ann Allencourt
3535 Monroe Street
Santa Clara, CA 95051
Tel: (408) 615-2750
Fax: (408) 615-2777
E-mail: mallencourt@nvidia.com
And then send a note to NVidia, "Hi, I wanted to buy your card, and although the promise of Linux drivers is tempting, I need to use it now."
You guys have enough to complain about; do you really want the "Linux community" to be characterized by whiners? :-).
I bought a TNT2 card for my machine, based on NVidia's actions at the time -- they were doing the Right Thing (my opinion, anyway). Then, the obfuscated code came, and the releases slowed. Finally in January they released a newer driver. Yes, it gave me 32 bit color, but the 3d performance was atrocious, and the Utah-GLX folks couldn't make much headway with the munged code. I waited for XFree86 4.0, though, believing that NVidia would make right, releasing a decent driver that took advantage of nice things like DRI.
Now it's not completely certain that they'll ditch the standard pipeline in XFree86 4.0, but the tone of the article suggests that. I wonder if I can talk them in to buying back my card. Matrox is looking better and better all the time. Sure, maybe NVidia gets better benchmarks, but when the company cannot put out drivers that let me run Q3 and will not put out drivers that the community can improve, well, they've lost the right to have my business.
Anyone with me?
--
how to invest, a novice's guide
Geek rants since like... 2000 or something.
I finally got off the dime and bought a Matrox G400. Not the fastest 3D, but I'm not a hardcore gamer. The main selling factors to me were:
1: Linux and Open Source support
2: Image quality
3: Decent 3D performance
4: Legacy support (liftime for THIS card)
Some card based on the nVidia TNT2 would have been a STRONG contender, and a great price/performance choice. I might even have tried to spring for a GeForce, especially an SDR after DDR became The Next Great Thing.
But I want Open Source drivers. I want the responsiveness of the community. I want the chance to fix it myself. (If/when my employer clears up the IP issues.) I don't want drivers coming out on/behind the Windows driver schedule.
Precisely because of Open Source, nVidia just lost a sale, and Matrox gained one.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
NVidia is going to take a lot of heat from the Open Source community over this. But the reason why its closed source is because they're stuck between a rock and a hard place.
... *BUT* ... (this is a
:).
The AGP DMA technology their cards use is licensed from this other company (forgot their name). They signed an NDA to get this technology. DMA plays a huge roll in a 3D card's driver, ESPECIALLY if its AGP. Its the element that lets it pipe information right from memory to the AGP Card (Ex: buffering textures in system memory, and various other good things). To put it bluntly, what makes these cards so fast is their ability to effectivly use DMA. It gives them about a 400-600% speed boost.
Why did they license the technology out you ask? Why were they so lazy, why didn't they just develope it themselves? Simple: Why spend an extra 3 months developing your own technology when its cheaper to just license it out. You grab your license, encorperate it into your product, and you get your card to market faster, beating out the competition. That = more $$$. It was a perfectly logical choice for them (as far as business goes).
Another reason why is becaue Nvidia wants the linux/Opensource "buzzword". That buzzword in your business stratagy goes a long way. Its powerful enough to raise stock prices.
What should you do? This is what I would do:
Tell Nvidia bluntly in a polite manner that what they're doing goes completely against Open Source and infact DESTROYING the fabric of it. Raise a stink. You might even want to go as far as a boycott. Then take note at "model" companies like Matrox and others, who are opening their specs up.
They will listen, even if you only account for 5% sales. 5% is alot.
You should also see who supplied Nvidia their DMA technology, and talk to them about letting nvidia opensource it. Remember, Nvidia isnt the only "bad guy" here.
Taken from utah-glx.sourceforge.net/faq.html:
Here's where the problem lies: While nVidia "opened" up and came out with the X server and glx mod for
their cards, they havn't "opened" up their specs. We can do stuff to the code they have given us sure, but
the problem is we don't know how to do stuff like do AGP/DMA i/o with the cards. They havn't told us how to
talk to the cards and do this. They have released their "Resource Manager" (this is what a nVidia
programmer termed as in an email to the glx-dev list) which is basicly a layer of software that you can
communicate to the cards and do stuff AGP/DMA i/o (or at least that is what I've gathered. Would I be
wrong in saying it's kind of like Glide for the Voodoo cards, but even more low-level?)
really big but), not only have they released it as preprocessed (ie. they made it nearly impossible to be of
any real use to linux hackers without spending a lot of time reverse engineering it.), but also as a kernel
module that I have yet to hear of a single person being able to compile/run (I've tried too)
Sorry about the gimped out pasting, blame Netscape
The simple solution to this is to vote with your dollars. Just yesterday, I ripped out my TNT2 and put in a Matrox G400 Max. I am extremely disappointed with the way NVidia has behaved. Their code release was merely playing lip service to the Linux community. I, along with many, many others, went out and bought NVidia cards because of their perceived superiority and support at the time. I was very disappointed to be shot down like that, especially when the card cost as much as it did.
Anyway, now I am becoming very interested in the reasons why Matrox has apparently not released all the specs for their cards, either. Fortunately, the 3D portions seem to all be there, but portions relating to DVD playback do not appear to be open (big surprise). Also, my card has the ability to do TV-out, but there are apparently some problems with releasing information about that. Somethig to do with that annoying MacroVision copy protection, I guess, but I don't know why I should be forced to copy protect my desktop....
Anyway, Matrox is still doing a great many Good Things for the Linux/Free Software community, and I am very grateful.
--
Ski-U-Mah!
Stop the MPAA
Seems that SiS, Matrox, ATI, and 3DfX (In order of the release of register information...) are happy with the results of doing Open Source drivers. In fact, ATI seems to have found something that would "save" their market position- they're quite happy at the results of what has been done by Gareth Hughes and John Carmack with the Rage PRO chipset.
We didn't present any drain on their programming or engineering resources of those companies- we just asked for the register level interfaces from them. They gave them to us and we produced drivers for their cards that work quite well for most things. In some situations, the drivers are faster than the Windows equivalents. In most situations, we're more visually correct than the Windows equivalents- less lighting screwups, etc.
To be sure, we're nowhere near done yet with these chipsets' drivers, but I don't see where it was a PR catastrophe or a drain on anyone's budget. NVidia chose to do a watered down, obfuscated release of source to a broken, buggy driver for their chipset. This is not the same as what the others have done- and it's not good enough by a longshot.
Save the FUD for posting on ZDNet- they want it, we don't.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Thanks
Bruce Perens
Bruce Perens.
Can you define "works" for us? Does that mean "works today," or "works next year?" How about "Works with any distribution" or "works in a specific environment?
Works for what architecture? Works with which games? Works with which X server?
All it takes is a quick little glance back to the Windows drivers that "work" to see that this is not the road I want to go down. (Hey, here's a new 4.14prerelease-Asubrev2 driver! Works great for shadows, but has some dithering problems! To install, just edit your registry this way, delete these system files, then reboot! Oh, and it only works with UltraGame patchlevel 3!")
No thanks. Binary doesn't "work" for me anymore.
---
A mailing list is started and bunches of expert hardware hackers pound on the code, improving it to a very usable state in a matter of months. Sometimes progress is slow, but that's OK because everything is open souce, and if you wanted things to speed up, you could help. In less than a year, and helped along by major OpenGL vendors releasing more information, the low level driver is extremely usable, stable and fast. The project also expands to include other chipsets and manages to incorporate 3DNow, MMX and SIMD capabilities.
Fantasy? No, I'm talking about the Utah GLX project which has more or less followed the pattern I've described above. If you have a Matrox G200, a G400, and ATi RagePro, Intel 810, RivaTNT or an S3 Virge, Utah GLX will support your card as a loadable module under XFree 3.3.x. Matrox support is so good that my G400 can run Quake 3 at between 50 and 60fps on a Celeron 400 machine.
Now I'm not at all clear whether the GLX module as it stands will just plug directly in to XFree 4.0. I suspect not. But if I have to wait a bit for it to be integrated, I'd much rather do that than get a card with binary only drivers that won't support the spirit (and the letter) of the new DRI.
Sometimes all it takes is a bit of patience. It can be irritating to hear GeForce owners boast about their frame rates. But if everyone's willing to contribute to the open source way of doing things, we'll end up with better drivers, better support and also encourage the current development teams that they're doing The Right Thing - which they are.
--- Hot Shot City is particularly good.
I have been working on the utah-glx project for about nine months now. I am proud of what we have accomplished, and I think it has been a good example of a working open source project. Matrox and ATI have been pleasantly surprised at how well things have worked out.
However, there are only a half dozen coders working part time on utah-glx, and we are split among three active chipset trees. Nvidia has more people than that working full time exclusively for their chips. We are pretty good. So are they. We can work from specs. They can go interrogate the designer of the hardware. It's a pretty simple equation - I expect their driver to be better than our drivers.
Nvidia is working to maintain a common source base between their windows drivers and their linux drivers. Bugs tracked down by the order of magnitude more windows users will be fixed automatically in the linux version.
DRI does not have all of its problems solved, and there are valid reasons for them to not use it. They might change their mind later.
It should be remembered that some people want to do 3D graphics on linux and don't care about open source principles. Most of the people coming from a technical workstation background just want a vendor to deliver a tool to help them get their work done. I also suspect that most game players will choose a faster driver, even if it is closed source.
The choice isn't between making their driver open source or closed source. They CAN'T open source it because of legal encumbrances on the code. The choice is between doing a closed source driver with their existing code, and doing a completely new driver. Not too many people get excited at the prospect of rewriting perfectly good code.
If you care about getting open source drivers, support Matrox, 3dfx, or ATI. They have released specs to the community, and put out cash for PI to develop and support DRI drivers.
If you just want good 3D, I think nvidia will satisfy you. As for not being done yet, it hasn't been that long since Xfree 4.0 shipped.
John Carmack