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Insight Into AMD's Linux Driver Development

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the they-should-all-wear-hats-while-they-code- dept.

Cowards Anonymous writes "It's no secret that ATI Technologies has had a rough time in the past delivering display drivers that met the expectations of their customers. When ATI started out producing a FireGL and Radeon Linux driver they for some time were greatly behind NVIDIA's feature-rich driver. The early ATI Linux driver had lacked essential functionality such as PCI Express and x86_64 architecture support and was also affected by stability and performance problems — not to mention a great deal of bugs."

44 of 221 comments (clear)

  1. rough start by phrostie · · Score: 3, Informative

    when i switched from NVidia to ATI, it was a rough start.
    for the longest time i couldn't get the driver to build/install, then one day everything just worked!
    i can't tell you which version it was, but from then on, i've had no problems or complaints.

    an open driver would be nice, but even still, my compliments to them.

    1. Re:rough start by IllForgetMyNickSoonA · · Score: 2, Insightful

      So you had a rough time gettint the driver to even compile, let alone instal or even (gasp!) work. Then, one day, it just started working.

      So far, so good - this is a typical "ATI on Linux" story, but of the happy-ending sort (which are rather rare, from what I saw so far).

      What I do not understand is which way do they deserve your compliments for providing such sub-par software? I'd bring the card right back to the shop I bought it, demand my money back, and buy a nVidia! I haven't had a problem with nVidia drivers for years now.

    2. Re:rough start by Chandon+Seldon · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Everything works? So you can use Firefox at a reasonable speed when logged in as a second user now? You can use Beryl now? Those things sure don't work on the X1300 I bought (a horrible mistake) a couple months ago.

      It's really absurd - if they'd just release the programming info for their hardware the X.org drivers would support this stuff inside a week.

      --
      -- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
  2. Not really surprising by Endo13 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It's also no secret that ATI has long had problems with their drivers for Windows too.

    No, this is not a troll. I use ATI cards almost exclusively myself and I prefer them over NVidia, but I do have to admit that Nvidia's drivers as a general rule seem much better designed and simpler to install.

    --
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    1. Re:Not really surprising by Scoth · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Not sure what kind of "supporting evidence" you might want, but I once bought a Radeon once to replace my aging Voodoo3. I forget the exact model number, but at the time it was about $175 or $200. In some games it was *slower* than the Voodoo3. I gave up and reinstalled Windows clean, but still had the same trouble. Took it back, got a GeForce 3 Ti 200 for about the same price, and it worked beautifully out of the box. Fast forward to several years later and I was looking to replace that card, and I got another Radeon. Installed the drivers, slapped in the new card - poof, blue screen on boot in the video drivers. Stuck the GF3 back in, removed it from the DevMan, and manually installed the VGA driver. Rebooted with the ATI, installed the drivers - back to Bluescreen on Boot. So, another clean install of Windows, and still got bluescreens on boot. Took that Radeon back and got a GF 6600GT again for about the same price, slapped it in, and it's worked ever since. I have a hard time believing I had other bad hardware in there to cause the troubles since in both cases the GeForces worked perfectly. Not to mention the GeForces worked much more nicey in Linux than the Radeons ever did. I genuinely gave ATI two tries now, and both times I was hit with troublesome drivers. I doubt I'll be buying another Radeon anytime soon.

    2. Re:Not really surprising by Endo13 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Sigh, yet another general statement without supporting evidence. I think your post is a sly bit of astroturfing for NVidia. No it's not. I can't really say much about the Nvidia drivers because I've never owned an Nvidia card personally. But when I have to install them for someone else, they always just seem to work.

      I've used ATI ever since I finally gave up my Voodoo2. I have just about every version of drivers ATI released since the first Catalyst came out, and quite a few from before. They all worked, for the most part, but the install process does not seem as streamlined as Nvidia's, and I still keep hearing from people who have a problem with this or that part of the driver install process crashing, not working properly after reboot, etc. I've also encountered a few drivers over the years myself that required some extra work and a couple reinstalls to get them to work properly. However ATI has come a long way, I'll readily agree to that. Their drivers today are much better than they were when I first started using them.

      For WHQL certification, we all know that doesn't mean a whole lot. I've used non-WHQL drivers that worked perfectly every time on many different machines, as well as certified drivers that caused BSODs.

      Yes I know this is all just anecdotal evidence, and it is only intended as such so please take it with a grain of salt.
      --
      There is no -1 Disagree mod. Slashdot.org/faq defines mod options. USE IT.
    3. Re:Not really surprising by yourexhalekiss · · Score: 2, Informative

      This also not a troll... I just figure that the people that read this thread might find this relevant.

      I had a hellish time installing ATI drivers for my laptop with a Radeon Xpress 200M chipset on Ubuntu Edgy and Feisty.

      I ended up following the instructions at http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=321766 and it worked great.

      The instructions are written for Ubuntu Edgy, but they also work for Feisty if you use a newer driver from ATI's site and adjust the instructions accordingly. The instructions seem generic enough that they should work for other distros as well, although I don't want to be quoted on that.

    4. Re:Not really surprising by nschubach · · Score: 2, Insightful

      WHQL does not guarantee ease of use, installation or compatibility. It just means that it tells Windows what it wants to hear instead of what it might need to hear.

      --
      Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
    5. Re:Not really surprising by stewwy · · Score: 2, Interesting

      quote from their latest driver

      This release of Catalyst(TM) introduces the second generation ATI Theater(TM) 650. This product will provide support for the new MCE 2006 requirements such as DRM support. Further, it will include features to support ATI All-In-Wonder products. It will also provide improved TV quality and Broadcast Flag support which enables full US terrestrial DTV support.

      this is written as if its a good thing!

    6. Re:Not really surprising by gstoddart · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Sigh, yet another general statement without supporting evidence. I think your post is a sly bit of astroturfing for NVidia. ATI has had WHQL ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WHQL_Testing ) certified new driver releases for years now.

      Hmmm .... "Windows Hardware Quality Laboratories testing" .... is this like buying a PC which says it's "Vista Ready" only to find out that means "well, not Vista with the new GUI stuff, just running with the old GUI"? It's got no credibililty with a lot of people. (eg. , specifally about ATI cards)

      A Windows compatibility rating is frequently not worth the paper it's printed on, except to the company who sells it because people think it will work and buy the product. Many of us don't actually take that to mean anything significant in terms of how well the hardware actually works. It merely seems to mean you paid Microsoft for the right to put on that sticker.

      And, anecdotally, I've known quite a few people over the years to have huge problems with ATI drivers -- on Windows or any other platform. They may have gotten better, but for some of us, they still have a bad reputation for quality when it comes to their drivers.

      Cheers
      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    7. Re:Not really surprising by Cal+Paterson · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Sigh, yet another general statement without supporting evidence. I think your post is a sly bit of astroturfing for NVidia. ATI has had WHQL certified new driver releases for years now. NVidia has only recently been able to get their new releases WHQL qualified. Sure, there is more to drivers, but it indicates that ATI has had a solid development, testing, and qualification regimen in place for a long time.
      This statement is utterly untrue. WHQL is pretty much just a case of;
      1. Co-operate with MS on driver releases (and institute their "minimum-standard" level of QA)
      2. Pay MS what I'm sure is a large some of money for the privilege
      Lack of WHQL doesn't indicate anything about driver quality apart from that certain companies are co-operating with MS to institute a minimum standard; many, many third parties develop drivers over and above this already. That fact that companies do not do WHQL says less about their hackers' development style than it does about their executives attitudes towards unjustifiable costs.
  3. So ? by BESTouff · · Score: 4, Insightful
    When ATI started out producing a FireGL and Radeon Linux driver they for some time were greatly behind NVIDIA's feature-rich driver.

    And they still are.

  4. The best way... by twoboxen · · Score: 5, Insightful

    to build a customer base is to alienate your existing customer base. I bought an R200-based laptop a couple years ago. ATI decided to just not support those cards in their fglrx driver package one day. Why would I buy from a company who won't continue support for their own products for more than a couple years? I will make every effort to never support them again until they get customer/product support in order. NVIDIA, bravo.

    --
    TODO - Insert Creative/Witty Signature
    1. Re:The best way... by the_humeister · · Score: 4, Informative

      If you're using some sort of Linux/*BSD/etc, you shouldn't have to worry because X.org has had mostly full and useable R100, R200, and recently R300 open source drivers for quite some time now. They're decent. I've been playing Unreal Tournament (and variants) without problems. The only issue is visuals with Doom 3 do to S3 Texture compression being patented. If you're using Windows, well good luck!

  5. what a joke by radarsat1 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    While ATI/AMD is working steadfast in addressing all of these issues and further enhancing their level of Linux support, many of their customers do not realize all of the work that goes into these drivers.


    Whatever. They don't need to do any work. All they need to do is open up the specs, and people will do all the work for them. People aren't bitching that the drivers don't work, people are bitching because they aren't allowed to improve them.

    There's a whole community out there willing to do all the software work from scratch, but they don't have the resources to create the hardware. The hardware developers somehow see this need to provide the software themselves, instead of taking advantage of the community, but then go and do a shoddy job of it. That's why people are annoyed by the whole thing. It could be so much better, with very little effort from ATI, but they steadfastly refuse to play nice, forcing developers to resort to reverse engineering. Same goes to Nvidia by the way, but at least they seem to be a bit more competent in Linux/X.org driver development.

    This whole argument is just a big excuse. We don't want excuses, we want some damn drivers.

    --- someone who's been buying Nvidia since he realized that ATI doesn't work as well on Linux.
    1. Re:what a joke by Kadin2048 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The hardware developers somehow see this need to provide the software themselves, instead of taking advantage of the community, but then go and do a shoddy job of it.

      Bingo.

      When hardware companies try to make software, the result is almost inevitably shit. There are some exceptions, but big hardware companies tend to see software development as a 'cost center,' an afterthought to be minimized as much as possible, rather than a critical and major part of their product.

      Look at scanners if you want. I've used some great film scanners in the past; brilliant hardware engineering, but coupled with the absolutely shit software that came in the box with it, it was practically a doorstop. To get anything else done, you had to get VueScan or Silverfast -- addon software written by people for whom software is their primary focus.

      --
      "Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
    2. Re:what a joke by michrech · · Score: 2, Interesting

      When hardware companies try to make software, the result is almost inevitably shit. There are some exceptions, but big hardware companies tend to see software development as a 'cost center,' an afterthought to be minimized as much as possible, rather than a critical and major part of their product.

      There is absolutely nothing wrong with this, SO LONG AS THEY OPEN UP THE DAMNED SPECS SO THE COMMUNITY CAN WORK WITH IT PROPERLY. I can only assume I'm not the only one who thinks so, either.

      I'm sure "the community" would be quite content to have a sample available to them before the hardware comes out (so they can write a driver/software package for it) to help the hardware company. Hell, I'm sure the developers (and the community) would be HAPPY to PAY for the development hardware (don't most console game companies doe this?). I know I'd chip in where I could, and I very much doubt I'm not the only one.

      --
      bork bork bork!
    3. Re:what a joke by revengebomber · · Score: 3, Informative

      The community COULD do their own drivers, but the specs aren't available. Everything about how to interface with the card would have to be found via reverse engineering.

      I'm fairly sure the reason the specs aren't open, is because it would disclose some "secrets" about how the companies optimize their cards.

      --
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    4. Re:what a joke by jimstapleton · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Or because they use the OpenGL and DirectX specs to develop their card interfaces, both of which cost money and NDAs to attain, and thus they can't release the specs without risk of violating some copyright or patent, setting the leagal war machines of two companies upon them.

      --
      34486853790
      Connection too slow for X forwarding? Try "ssh -CX user@host"
    5. Re:what a joke by jZnat · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It's also possible (and likely) that they are violating patents they don't have a license for, so giving the specs out might bring light to this. A stupid legal reason rather than a technical reason...

      --
      'Yes, firefox is indeed greater than women. Can women block pops up for you? No. Can Firefox show you naked women? Yes.'
    6. Re:what a joke by Kadin2048 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Company 'N' produces chips. Some come out great when tested. Some have minor failures when tested. They use software to disable features of the hardware so that the broken bits don't fail since they're not being used. Then you have a premium card and a 'value' card that's cheaper. But sometimes stuff works and they disable it in software anyway so they can still sell 'value' cards and premium cards at different price points. If you were to look at the source, you'd see this and just re-enable those bits to see if they worked, and possibly get a 'better' card than the arbitrarily-disabled one you'd paid for.


      I agree this is an issue. However, I think it's more of a marketing problem than anything. E.g.: Foo, Inc., makes a device called the Widget. The produce two versions; the Widget Jr. and the Widget Pro. The Pro model is advertised as performing x, y, and z; the Jr. only does x. If Foo, Inc. opens its hardware interface to outside developers, they just need to make it clear that even if the Widget Jr. can do y and z, this isn't a supported feature, just an accident. Might they lose a few sales here and there, to hackers who'll purchase the Jr model, with the intention of enabling the unsupported features in hardware? Sure. But most companies aren't kept alive by the 'hacker' market. People want support; they want to know that what they bought is going to work.

      As long as you differentiate your produces in sales and advertising, and give software developers a way to sense what version of the hardware they're working with (so that they can enable the right set of features by default), I don't think that the dilemma you're talking about is world-ending.

      Just to continue more generally: an example of hardware design that I like, would be older serial modems. They had a nice clear line between the hardware and the software, and they interacted over a well-known and widely-supported interface. The hardware guys could make the modem work however they wanted; but it was going to interface with the computer over RS232, take ASCII commands ("ATDT", etc.), and interface to the POTS system on the other end. It's not the greatest example -- the standard command set was just a de facto standard because of the popularity of Hayes-brand modems, and lots of models had different command strings, but you rarely had to worry about actual driver or firmware issues, like you might for a "Winmodem" PCI card today. (And of course, sometimes the modems couldn't agree on the communication protocol for the POTS side of the equation -- anyone remember K56flex vs X2?) But in general, by abstracting the hardware at a fairly high level, and using a standard communications interface, using different types of modems was easy and seldom required actual recoding. That's the goal that hardware designers ought to be aiming for.
      --
      "Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
  6. Nvidia is not the competition by crush · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The article is a long excuse explaining why AMD/ATI are unable to release decent GNU/Linux drivers. That's interesting enough as far as it goes: AMD/ATI and Nvidia both have crap closed, proprietary drivers which don't work well, make kernel updgrading difficult and are unauditable for security. So why bother with them? Further ATI have a history of dragging their ass and blocking the release of Free drivers,

    Why bother with this crap? Just get an Intel GMA X3000 integrated motherboard and save time, power, money and hassle due to Intel "getting it" and releasing Open Source drivers and full specs. (You'll probably also be able to benefit from their free wireless drivers.

    If you're into hardcore gaming then you're probably running a PS3 or an Xbox on the side anyway.

    1. Re:Nvidia is not the competition by dc29A · · Score: 2, Insightful

      If you're into hardcore gaming then you're probably running a PS3 or an Xbox on the side anyway.

      Let me know when good RTS, MMO and strategy games come to consoles. Until then, I'll stick with my PC!

    2. Re:Nvidia is not the competition by the_humeister · · Score: 2, Informative

      Or you could use an R100, R200, or R300 based ATI card. They're not hard to find, relatively inexpensive, and still powerful enough for a casual gamer (at least R300s are, possibly R200). Oh, forgot to mention that they have mostly full open source drivers written already.

    3. Re:Nvidia is not the competition by Mad+Merlin · · Score: 4, Interesting

      You think you want a stable kernel ABI, but you really don't.

      --
      Game! - Where the stick is mightier than the sword!
    4. Re:Nvidia is not the competition by ceswiedler · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Not for drivers, it's not. The Linux userspace API is extremely stable, and the ABI somewhat less so. But anything inside the kernel can change drastically. That's why Linux hackers want all drivers in the kernel tree, so they can find anything which breaks due to an API change, and fix the problems.

    5. Re:Nvidia is not the competition by kscguru · · Score: 3, Insightful

      That's why Linux hackers want all drivers in the kernel tree, so they can find anything which breaks due to an API change, and fix the problems.
      And that's exactly why hardware manufacturers DON'T want their drivers to live in the kernel tree. They don't get:
      • Bug fix backports: Kernel hackers apply a patch to the latest vanilla kernel, then say backports are the distro's problem. Two distros do, fifteen don't, users of those fifteen scream at the hardware companies for having buggy drivers. With an out-of-tree driver, you just need to update the driver. Windows and OSX are light-years ahead of Linux here.
      • Community contributions: Kernel hackers only add GPLed code; very few even allow dual-license, and certain vocal hackers are zealously GPL-only (to the extent of rewriting code JUST to make it GPLed). Which means the hardware vendor can't take a fix from a linux driver and integrate it into a Windows driver without GPLing that too. The vendor has to either GPL all drivers (Windows included), or maintain two separate trees (GPL and non-GPL), or not open drivers at all. Guess which is easiest / cheapest?
      • Driver API stability: a modern 3D graphics driver is a full OS in its own right, with internal threading models, schedulers, memory management, context switches, etc.; a modern driver needs more than just bugfixes. Every good developer knows the way to keep two large codebases manageable is a stable API between them; the only people who don't seem to get this are otherwise-intelligent Linux kernel hackers.
      • Kernel API freedom: Kernel hackers like stable userspace APIs (for good reason). But hardware vendors don't need to provide stable APIs if they have a shim library that actually talks to the cards (e.g. atioglxx.dll, the ATI OpenGL implementation). It's a lot easier to let the API change rapidly and only commit to a stable API at the library interface (the OpenGL API).
      • Easier work. The Linux kernel development process is optimized for making the kernel hacker's life easier at the expense of the driver developer's (hint: saying "we'll update your driver for you" clashes very badly when the HW vendor is simultaneously making changes). If kernel hackers want to see better device drivers, they need to stop treating drivers as second-class citizens. Microsoft is very good at courting driver developers; Linux is the definition of arrogance.
      --

      A witty [sig] proves nothing. --Voltaire

    6. Re:Nvidia is not the competition by jhol13 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      And, most importantly, they do not get testing. Those who change API/ABI cannot test.

  7. Branding problem..."FireGL?" by xxxJonBoyxxx · · Score: 2, Funny

    Now, I don't pay much attention to video cards, but when I saw "FireGL" I thought "why would you need to optimize OpenGL graphics for Firefox?".

  8. ATI and Fedora 7 / X.Org 1.3 by harrypelles · · Score: 5, Informative

    I made the same mistake as many Fedora users - jumping (to Fedora 7) before looking. I'm not poking at Fedora here, on the contrary, I am a loyal Fedora user. It's ATI I'm upset with. ATI released a new fglrx driver (version 8.37) since Fedora 7's tests and final release that also does not work with X.Org 1.3. We're all sitting around waiting for the 8.38 which ATI claims will be compatible. And don't even get me started on ATI's absent AIGLX support for Linux. My next card will nVidia.

    1. Re:ATI and Fedora 7 / X.Org 1.3 by drgonzo59 · · Score: 4, Insightful
      The difference is that here Vista is to blame, while on Linuzz everyobody magically undarstand that this is a driver's problem.

      Perhaps because 'Linuzz' is open it is easy to see where the problem lies. With Vista you get huge binary blob and if it's broken you don't know if it is the drivers or Vista -- you can't debug it and look at the source so you call MS tech support and wait 6 months for a service pack or MS tells you to call ATI/AMD and you wait 6 month for a fix. Binary drivers suck that's the problem here...

  9. Nothing to see here. by BESTouff · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Basically, TFA says that "ATI has a release cycle". They even have an unofficial bugzilla and an unofficial wiki. Oh, and they'll drop R200 support too. And all that's supposed to make better drivers for Linux one day. I really wish they'd go the Intel way: hire some top-notch developers, give them specs and make them do Free drivers.

  10. Re:Misleading summary title? by bouchecl · · Score: 2, Informative

    WTC does this have to do with AMD?
    ATI is now part of the big AMD family. Where have you been in the last few months?
  11. Where we're at by TheGreatOrangePeel · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I have to say I'm not finding anything insightful in the linked article. It's just a long winded way of saying, "The drivers aren't very good, but AMD/ATI is working hard on it." which we most of us likely already knew. It would have been good to see some insights on what AMD did to improve the driver development process, what impact the open source announcement made, etc.

  12. Re:Misleading summary title? by RingDev · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Yeah, in the same way that Mazda is a part of the big Ford company. But you wouldn't submit and article called "How Ford Builds Cars" and then cover only the Mazda factor's stereo installation.

    -Rick

    --
    "Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
  13. Translation: ATI fails to release OSS drivers by dwheeler · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Wow, a lot of text to paper over the obvious problem: ATI is still failing to release OSS drivers for Linux. The paper describes all the ways that ATI tries to avoid releasing the drivers, and how they all fail to solve the problem. ATI has testing processes, etc., sure - but later on, when X.org and the Linux kernel change, there's no way for me to update the driver - so I have to hope that they will EVENTUALLY do so (leaving me vulnerable to any security problems) OR throw away the ATI card.

    Dell has solved this problem by including the Intel stuff instead for their Linux offering. It's time for ATI to release their drivers as OSS.

    --
    - David A. Wheeler (see my Secure Programming HOWTO)
  14. Re:Three years of problems by lp_bugman · · Score: 2, Informative

    I had huge problems with all my AGP nvidia cards. The video use freeze. After a couple of minutes using X in my AMD Athlon 64 with a VIA chipset. The problem was VIA implementation of AGP. There is a setting in the closed source drivers to disable the NV AGP implementation.

    Section "Device"
      Driver "nvidia"
      Option "NvAGP" "0"
    EndSection

    Hope it works for you :).

    --
    BSD licensed software can't be stolen....
  15. apologist article by lib3rtarian · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The article basically says "thanks for these power point slides, AMD/ATI, I'll kiss your F**** asses in my article" Seriously, that article sucked.
    Also, when they say that customers don't realize how much work goes into drivers, is that an excuse? I don't care how much work goes into drivers, I know it's hard to do. It's hard to develop the cards to begin with, and to engineer them. The entire process is hard and full of work. The bottom line is that if you can't produce working drivers for a product that you created and manufacture and sell, that you are in the wrong business and wasting my time.

  16. Intel has not release docs by dmoore · · Score: 4, Informative

    > Intel "getting it" and releasing Open Source drivers and full specs.

    Actually, Intel has not released docs for their GMA X3000. Their current stance is that the driver is the documentation. That's fine and good, except the driver is still very incomplete (missing OpenGL features, no XvMC, no tv-out, etc.). See here:

    http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/xorg/2007-Ma y/024582.html

    1. Re:Intel has not release docs by crush · · Score: 2, Interesting

      That's interesting. Thanks for the link. Is there some productive way to pressure Intel and help them make the final step?

  17. nVidia blob isn't crap. by gukin · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I know that lots of folks are vexed that nVidia won't open their 3D driver, saying "If nVidia stops supporting Linux you're all doomed." Well just who do you think supports the open source nv.c driver? How about the nVidia SATA driver? Yes, it's nVidia, so even though the 3D stuff is closed source, they're still supporting OSS.

    Next about the "Crap" drivers from nVidia, I've ordered a bunch of new Linux PCs, each will have a low-end nVidia video card added when it arrives? Why? Well I need dual headed support and that can be spotty with other video card vendors. I also need to run them in 8-bit color (don't ask, I just need to.) and my experience with the glorious wonderful OSS Intel video drivers is a nasty little box that follows the cursor around on the screen. I don't have ANY issues with nVidia's "Crap" drivers, everything looks great and works great.

    I applaud ANY vendor who makes efforts at supporting OSS but I buy stuff from vendors who support Linux. Every system I own is either an nForce mobo with an nVidia video card or is simply sporting an nVidia card. When asked about what to buy, I recommend nVidia products. They have the best quality 3D support and performance of ANY vendor (which isn't much), they make it possible for me to play games under Linux that I'd otherwise have to play under Windows and that is worth a lot to me.

  18. Re:Does AMD just not yet it? by mrtom852 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    That article took ages to get approval from the management at ATi (~two months) - if they're that paranoid about releasing information on their release cycle then I don't think we stand a chance of getting any open source/specs from them.

  19. Re:Does AMD just not get it? by ArcRiley · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Like McDonald's board of directors meeting over poor sales in India, clueless to the ethical views of that market. Sales VP: "They don't like our beef" Marketing VP: "So we'll give them better beef, fresher!" Technical VP: "We could slaughter the cow on site if it helps" Sales VP: "That could be a great slogan, 'fresh from the cow'" [cue standard nods of agreement and voicing of support from around the table]

  20. nVidia by Z34107 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    All they need to do is open up the specs, and people will do all the work for them

    Yes... if ATI opens up their specs, their people will do all the work for nVidia's people. And vice versa.

    I, for one, can understand why there's some animosity towards releasing the blueprints of your state-of-the-art 5-hojillion-manhours-in-the-making video card to all the tubes on the internets.

    Granted, it's not the same as giving nVidia a briefcase of trade secrets, but you have to be careful when your company's existence depends on that extra frame per second your hardware gets in Doom VII 1/2

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