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AMD Publishes Open-Source "ATI Evergreen" Driver

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the still-watching-and-waiting dept.

Several readers have written to tell us that AMD has published their code to support the Radeon HD 5000 "Evergreen" graphics cards on Linux in an open-source driver. Unfortunately the driver isn't quite as complete as some might hope. The current offering doesn't promise 2D (EXA) acceleration or 3D support. "The DDX driver supports mode-setting on the Evergreen/R800 series GPUs with VGA and DVI connectors while the DisplayPort connectivity is still not working right, according to AMD's Alex Deucher who had written most of this code. These new AMD graphics cards have been around since September while there was no open-source support at that time. In December just before Christmas there was Evergreen Shader documentation that was made publicly available and around that time it was confirmed via our forums that initial VGA mode-setting was working with Evergreen internally on unreleased code. Since then the digital connector support has been added in and this code has finally cleared AMD's legal review. The revised target was to publish this code by FOSDEM, which is this weekend so AMD did hit the target this time."

5 of 159 comments (clear)

  1. So what does it do? by Darkness404 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The current offering doesn't promise 2D (EXA) acceleration or 3D support.

    So if it doesn't offer 2D acceleration or 3D support... what does it do? Framebuffer mode? Seriously why would ATI even release a driver in this pathetic of state, at least when I can buy an nVidia card for the same amount and have 100% of features work just fine.

    --
    Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
    1. Re:So what does it do? by Jurily · · Score: 5, Insightful

      why would ATI even release a driver in this pathetic of state

      To gather developer attention. At this stage, it's not about the features, it's about the mindshare.

    2. Re:So what does it do? by WeatherGod · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It gives a basis for the community to work around. The entire issue with NVidia has been that developers have been asking for at least some sort of documentation so that they don't have to reverse-engineer everything. Companies have said that they don't want to support Linux or handle bugs, and we reply "you don't have to!". With documentation and a core set of code to work around, AMD has done exactly what we have asked for. Now, it is up to us to take that code and build it up to be a full-fledge graphic driver.

      AMD/ATI has nothing but my fullest appreciation for what they have done.

  2. Re:Name Says It All by Daffy+Duck · · Score: 5, Informative

    Wow, attack the guy's name. Nice. Maybe he should go by "Anonymous Coward" like all the cool kids.

    In fact, Alex has been developing open source drivers for ATI cards for years on his own dime, and AMD only relatively recently hired him to do the same thing for money. Would a little gratitude to either of them kill you?

    Alex, the only reason I could see anything from my Radeon card for the last six years was because of your work. Thank you!

  3. Re:Nightmare by MostAwesomeDude · · Score: 5, Informative

    Actually, we're fortunate to be able to reuse most of our code on lots of GPUs -- there are some bits that apply from r100 to r700. The "fun" is in the sheer complexity of the hardware, the inability of the hardware to cope with incorrect programming, and the lack of documentation, manpower, and testing available to assist us.

    Oh, and hardware bugs. You don't wanna know how many there are. Really. Try getting an RS480, or RC410, to do 3D. It ain't fun.

    --
    ~ C.