Slashdot Mirror
nForce2 GART Driver Finally Released For Linux
Rejoice, Radeon owners! For those of you who bought an nForce2 motherboard with the hopes of doing a bit of linux gaming on it, I'm sure it was a pretty hard let down to find out there was no AGPGART driver for the nForce2 -- until now. nVidia has finally released a kernel patch for the 2.4.20 release that is now providing GART support. Perhaps this means that nVidia is re-thinking their closed source-isms in favor of a more open policy in the future. A note on AGP 3.0: Note that AGP 8x mode is not available in 2.4.xx series kernels. If you find that X will not start, try disabling 8X mode in your BIOS. AGP3.0 has been implemented in the 2.5 series.
I believe nVidia's 'closed source'ism is due to the fact that their drivers for their video cards include code that is not theirs, and licensed from other companies, and thus not publishable... Thus, I can't really see this as a shift to a more open source view.
Alright, NVIDIA's 3d-drivers are closed-source. But they do offer kick-ass performance under Linux.
Unfortunately, they have been jumping through all sorts of hoops in order to keep releasing closed source 3d driver binaries, while keeping them up to date with XFree86 and Linux kernel updates. This is unnecessary, since XFree86 already has an infrastructure in place, which is well suited to solve this problem: The Direct Rendering Infrastructure, or DRI.
In the past, NVIDIA's argument against DRI could have been that DRI wasn't a sufficiently mature technology, but nowadays, this is no longer an issue. Also, NVIDIA is the only company in the graphic card business, which used a different proprietary infrastructure for their 3d drivers. All the other companies, such as ATI, Matrox and Videologic (regardless if they release sources to their 3d-code or not) all use the DRI-model.
Currently, there DRI-model fits NVIDIA's predicament perfectly: NVIDIA has already released the sources to the 2d-part of their drivers long ago (and they have been part of XFree86 for quite some time), but they just want to keep the 3d-aspect closed source. That's exactly how DRI-based drivers work! A 2D-part, which is part of XFree86, combined with a 3d-part, which plugs into the 2D-part of the driver through a (standardized) modular architecture!
An added advantage is that these binary DRI modules are OS-independent, just architecture-dependent. It is even possible to use DRI modules with GUI systems other than XFree86. DirectFB has been (successfully) working on DRI-support.
In other words: had NVIDIA already switched to the DRI model for their driver, then they wouldn't have had to go through the trouble of porting their drivers to FreeBSD. The same binary module already available for Linux would have worked on a FreeBSD system with a DRI-enabled kernel (which FreeBSD already supports). The DRI modular architecture has been deliberately designed that way. All NVIDIA would have to do is release the 2D specs under open source (which they already have done) and compile DRI module releases once for each architecture they'd want to support: x86, Motorola/IBM G4, IA64 and AMD64 architectures. These modules would then work out of the box on any OS with DRI support (on any of these architectures).
Example: if Zeta, the BeOS "reincarnation", would be updated to work with DRI modules, then it would be able to make use of the 3d capabilities on NVIDIA-cards right away!
Furthermore, the DRI model would have made it a necessity vor NVIDIA to release open source AGPGART kernel code for the NForce2 in the first place, because this would be required for even NVIDIA's drivers to work. A proprietary alternative AGP handling hack (like what they have been using in their drivers until now) would have made no sense.
Lastly, the fact that NVIDIA would then not be using a different architecture then the other companies would be causing a lot less headaches for 3d application developers under Linux. Right now, many games and other applications under Linux, such as Winex 3.0 and the Neverwinter Nights port, have been optimised to work with NVIDIA's drivers, but still need work on proper support for DRI (basically covering all other 3d solutions for Linux).
If any NVIDIA driver engineer is currently reading this: please seriously consider switching your drivers to the DRI model! It would save both you and others a lot of work and potential compatibility problems, without having to release any 3d driver sources. This way, you would also instantly be expanding the number of operating systems able to support 3d on NVIDIA cards, without you having to do any additional work for it!
The only disadvantage for NVIDIA that I can think of is the status quo that NVIDIA would possibly like to uphold: games and other 3d applications having better support for NVIDIA (currently being the market leader on Linux) and all the DRI-using competitors remaining behind. In the longer term, how
"Oooh, does that mean we get to kick some puffy white mad zionist butt?"