Slashdot Mirror
3DLabs Releases Linux Drivers
wilfie writes "3DLabs have released linux drivers for their for Wildcat III and Wildcat 4 Graphics accelerators. Being closed source they'll taint your kernel, but what the heck. Press release with penguin-friendly quotes available too." DataSquid has a note about ATI's Linux support: "While on the job hunt, I came across this posting at ATI seeking a project team lead. Last on the list of key responsibilities is "Act as a leader to improve the overall quality of Linux support at ATI." Good news? Certainly better news than what was suggested before."
Looking at the plethora of video cards with differing amounts of VRAM, performance specs, drivers for Linux, stability problems with Windows (especially newer OS versions and Service Packs which often make video drivers unstable), I've got a suggestion.
Why not make a commodity video card with about 8MB video RAM (a Mattrox 8MB card out-performed a 32MB S3 hands down), and a stable open-source Linux driver? Will this lead to commoditisation of the video card and drive all other mfrs to imitate?
Just wondering...
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
Are the card companies afraid more of revealing technology to their competitors, or of revealing their benchmarking cheats...er optimizations?
I has to be closed source, so application specific cheats^H^H^H^H^H features wouldn't be so blatant. I wouldn't expect any graphics card driver from a manufactorer to be Open Source.
(This sig intentionally left blank)
Yeah, it is probably illegal or something like
that (DMCA violation or the like I am sure) but
OTOH, when you shell out between $300 and $1500
for a 3dlabs I would think you "own" it enough
to make it work on your system.
In 2 words: I agree.
It may not be acceptable for gfx card manufacturer to release full specs for their hardware immediately after hardware.
But there is no reason to hide specs for hardware older than 6mo or a year.
(Currently running radeon 9000, because of it's open source dri drivers. I'm buying r9500 or higher as soon as there are open drivers for it).
I've nvidia too, but if they don't start releasing some of their hardware specs, I'm not buying their stuff again. I won't even mention the closed drivers for their motherboard here.
These are not Linux drivers. These are Red Hat 7.3 drivers. I'll stick with NVidia for now, thankyouverymuch.
Workstation cards are optimized for SPEC Viewperf, 'consumer' cards are optimized for Quake3. Case and point.
In particular compare the Radeon 8500 (a reasonable but not really spectactular 'consumer' card) to the Wildcat3:
e.g.
R8500 is ~ 17% faster in q3 but the WCIII is ~39% faster for ProCDRS
Thoughts on tech, Software Engineering, and stuff
Well, since they've only released rpms for specific kernels that are shipped with redhat 7.3, I don't know that you can say they're supporting linux, so much as supporting a very small subset of linux.
Too bad if you need to step outside the box, but then, if you're using high-end workstation graphics software, that's probably something you don't want to do, since the software's probably targeted at the same place. You tend to lose support from vendors quickly, even tho 99% of the time, the differences mean jack, unless the vendor's got crappy software to begin with. (you hearing me oracle?! your installer is a PITA)
Still, redhat 7.3 is miles out of date, and that you're SOL if you need to say... use your own kernel for some reason, or hell, NOT use redhat at all.
I really hate companies that do that. Redhat's always been far more annoying to configure and use than I'm even remotely interested in dealing with, and they keep making it more useless every time they make a release. Hell. I'd happily tell people to use windows than deal with the annoyances that come with trying to use redhat to get stuff done.
[end generic rant]
If course, since I just ragged on the HOLY REDHAT, I'm probably going to be on the receiving end of a massive moderation smackdown. oh well.
ashridah
Comment removed based on user account deletion
They suck at Quake 3, but are great for 3D professional work.
Sorry but if I am working with live 3d rendering the damn card had better give me fast-ass quake speeds.
We switched to Geforce 4 ti's here from the crap-quality $2000.00 3d labs cards because the customers when previewing the 3d renderings thought it looked BETTER on the low end geforce card under openGL.
final rendering has NOTHING to do with the video card anyways, and it's only good for preview.
if you are lucky to have apps that will use OpenGL for preview rendering... toss the "workstation" crap out. get a el-cheapo gamers card and make your clients thing you upgraded the hardware.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Thanks for the (OT) correction. it is late here. There are some companies out there that do in fact do this. Sigma Designs drivers for the EM84xx chips have a GPL'd kernel driver and a closed source shared library.
The only issue with this is that even though the kernel driver is open source, it exists purely as a "RING 0 gateway" for the shared library. So if bugs exist, they cannot be fixed by the open source community.
it is only after a long journey that you know the strength of the horse.
I have been observing that most of the notebooks dont use Nvidia graphic cards. Instead they prefer using mobility Radeon or some cheaper on-board cards. This is problem for me, because I am looking to buy a notebook on which I will install linux. Nvidia has fantastic linux drivers, so I wont have to worry about hardware 3D acceleration, if I buy a notebook with Nvidia graphic card. But I just dont see any notebooks in the market with Nvidia graphic cards.
How does Radeon behave under linux in notebooks? . How is the 3D acceleration in mobile Radeon 8500+ ? Are the opensource drivers good for full screen DVD playbacks? (I usually test hardware acceleration by playing TuxRacer)