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Open Source 3D Hardware
An anonymous submitter writes: "Open Source haven icculus.org has updated with a new project: Manticore. Different from most Open Source projects however, Manticore is hardware. It is a 3D graphics acceleration design, coded in VHDL. Although still fairly early in development, its goals are similar to those of other 3D cores, from companies like NVIDIA and ATI. The project includes an SDRAM controller for storage, and a VGA unit for display, in addition to the 3D rendering core. It is available under the Design Science License. Source, Documentation and other information available at the Manticore Homepage."
Why dont they put it on Open Cores?
Thats where all open hardware projects are.
Mouse powered Chips, Open source Processors and Lego
No way! just get your 2400dpi laser printer to print resist onto a copper-clad board, then etch in your coke (don't drink coke afterwards, might taste like PitrCola) ... umm.. then jam the chip into a wad of steel-wool [for the interconnects] then get 5min epoxy with some black dye to seal it... then...ummm. Oh bugger it, just drink the coke and wait for someone else to do it.
Than the bitboys!
:-)
Belief is the currency of delusion.
if they ditched the VGA it would be better
simply because you would not have to add all that redundant crap into the hardware
I dont care much for VGA other people do because they are lazy or cant modify their source code (-;
(even MS will be ditching VGA for longhorn)
regards
john jones
Bugger! Lets try again.
What they need is an XESS board
I used one when I made my MIPS clone and it was huge. I could fit an array of 14 full 32 bit processors on one Vertex chip all working at 100MHz. The cool thing is that they also have a VGA port and a DAC.
Mouse powered Chips, Open source Processors and Lego
Now all we need to do is get a computer to emulate the graphics card, hook it up to an open slot in another computer, and write a linux driver for it. Then we, too, can experience the joy of playing Quake 3 through Wine at a resolution of 200 X 180 at 10 FPS.
If Mr. Edison had thought smarter he wouldn't sweat as much. --Nikola Tesla
...do they have to develop a 3D accellerator that is compatible with most software (OpenGL, DirectX, etc)? It seems to me that many of the design concepts in this arena are mired up in patents by giants like nVidia and ATI. For instance, doesn't nVidia have 'rights' to per-pixel vertex shader techniques?
Why bother.
All you need is for some one to design a card you can place in your AGP/PCI slot which has an FPGA.
These cards do exist and once open hardware becomes more popular you will be able to download your new graphics card compile it and stick it on your computer.
Or even recompile your card to work better with a perticlular game or video standard.
Mouse powered Chips, Open source Processors and Lego
Such cards do exist. They generally cost at least a few thousand dollars though.
Also don't expect a fpga based card do outperform a dedicated circuit. Youll need an order of magnitude (at least) more silicon area to make a circuit on an fpga than on an asic, and you can never hope to match the speed.
Furthermore you will need appropiate software to synthesize and run place and route on the fpga. These generally cost from around $10000 each, Though prices are negotiable. If you can manage with less you might be able to make do with the vendor provided synthesis software, but don't expect good results. Synplicity or leonardo spectrum (to be replaced with Precision Synthesis) are the good choices.
There are many patents related to 3D graphics processing, hold by companies like nVidia, Matrox, ATI (just go to www.uspto.gov and search for your favorite graphics hardware company). And since this are not "software patents", they are already valid around the world. Are these guys considering this?
I've had 100Mhz designs running. If you pipeline them well then they they can go very fast. I'm currently running Delay Insesitive (DI) Asynchronous designs and they go really fast.
The software can be free from Xilinx but I would prefair an open source project to have a linux version.
The boards we make in the university cost £100 each with a spartan or £300 with a Virtex 300 (damn big I got 14 MIPS R3000 CPUs on one ).
As for the spartan you can still make some cool stuff with it. These are some of the things I made with it.
Mouse powered Chips, Open source Processors and Lego
Q: I grabbed Manticore from CVS, but it won't compile on my x86 1.8 GHz P4.
A: Manticore is a hardware project. You must fabricate the chip using the VHDL files.
Q: Help, I can't get Manticore to fab.
A: Are you using an Applied Materials Silicon Etch DPS II Centura 300 etcher? This is the only machine we have access to, we can't support other models.
Q: I produced a wafer, what next?
A: Many people use a dremel tool to cut the chip to size and mount in a 432-pin test carrier.
Q: Do you have a PCB design for AGP4x?
A: Check the mailing lists, most of the PCB layout guys are quite active there.
Q: I finally have my Manticore graphics card. Where can I find the drivers?
A: We need software developers! See http://www.manticore.org/contribute.html for details
Unfortunately the xst synthesis software that xilinx provides is next to useless. If you do your own optimizations, then fine. If you rely on the synthesis software to optimize (and quite frankly handcrafting logic optimizations isn't my idea of fun) then you won't get very good results.
Xst isn't terribly compatible with regular synthesizable VHDL either. Expect some revriting.
As for fitting a cpu core on a fpga: Sure cpu cores aren't particularly big (even on state of the art designs, the die area is largely used for cache rather than core.)
As for pipeling: Sure you can get it up to a 100 MHz or so, but pipelining incurs penalties. You can very easily be bitten by data dependencies.
As for size, we are working on a virtex II 6000, and it can barely fit a dprototype of a design which will occupy approx 4mm^2 of silicon area on the final 0.18um asic (granted the design would have been done somwhat differently if we actually targeted the fpga)
While I'm sure this is an admirable project, I'd much rather see icculus rescue me, and remove the only reason I still have a Windows filesystem: Serious Sam. It'd be nice to get AvP, too, but Serious Sam is the one that counts for me. Yeah, I know it's a volunteer effort, but I'd love to see it deliver anyway.
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
I've seen Dark Angel, but I was always more fond of Manticore's software than their hardware...
do not read this line twice.
Or better yet, game designers could design their own cores and load these at run time, window managers could have special cores to speed up window management routines...
What we want to do is learn how a 3D core works, and get some exposure.
The reality is I want to work for NVidia or ATI, and what better way to learn the ropes than to try it yourself.
Its not for mass consumption. So far we have a working board which can plug a monitor into it and render triangles. Further along than I thought I may ever get.
Then again maybe some already large company would like to expand their scope, and bring in what will one day be a complete core.
The reality is, its a learning experience.
Jeff Mrochuk
Manticore