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Intel Releases 5,000 Pages of Open-Source Haswell Documentation

Posted by samzenpus on from the pages-for-the-people dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Intel has ended out 2013 by publishing 5,000 pages of new GPU documentation about their latest generation 'Haswell' graphics hardware. The new documentation complements their longstanding open-source Linux graphics driver that has supported Haswell HD / Iris Graphics since last year. The new documentation covers the hardware registers and special information for 3D, video acceleration, performance counters, and GPGPU programming."

8 of 111 comments (clear)

  1. I received them earlier ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    ... thanks Snowden!

  2. is it complete? by waddgodd · · Score: 5, Funny

    Does it include APIs for the NSA backdoors?

    --
    Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you
    1. Re:is it complete? by TheGratefulNet · · Score: 4, Funny

      what a relief to find that the arguments (of the api calls) only need rot13 applied twice in succession. its not at all cpu-intensive, so that's a relief.

      alarmingly, the result is returned in plaintext. waiting for nsa api v1.1 for the fix to that one.

      --

      --
      "It is now safe to switch off your computer."
  3. Dear Nvidia... by KazW · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Please take notice, this is how to support GPU hardware correctly.

    --
    Geeks don't grock information, they grep it.
    1. Re:Dear Nvidia... by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 5, Interesting

      What I wonder is what really makes it harder / impossible for Nvidia or whomever to do it but works for Intel? If anything.

      The standard rumor is that they they all violate bogus patents rampantly and only by keeping their code secret (and possibly backdoored) can they stay afloat, in face of the patent trolls.

      A deep cynic might claim that Intel can survive more of these trolls than nVidia could so this could be a competitive move. IIRC Intel and nVidia had a cross-licensing deal that involved Intel staying out of the discrete market - maybe that's due to expire soon.

      --
      My God, it's Full of Source!
      OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
    2. Re:Dear Nvidia... by jedidiah · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I'm still waiting for Intel drivers that are on par with their Nvidia counterpart.

      Despite all of the noise made about Intel's cooperation, this is the first time we've actually had full disclosure from them. Prior to today what they offered was incomplete. It was all empty promises despite of all of the rhetoric from the political purists about how Intel does things better.

      Someday, this might lead to a proper driver. Although Intel hardware will probably still be just as lame then.

      --
      A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
  4. Re:Code. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You make a good point, however you are incorrect. As an author of a handful of drivers, and contributor to a handful more - we like specs. If you are incapable of taking an RFC or spec and outputting a working driver, then you aren't quite the programmer you think you are. Specs are often all a driver author ever receives, and you should be able to produce working code with nothing else. It's *nice* if the vendor sends best practices or additional notes about deprecation of certain methods...but it's not the norm, and should not be expected. Being a good developer means being able to benchmark methods described in specs and determine what performs best, and when that applies.

  5. Re:Code. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    lots of blah blah blaa

    The Haswell GPU driver source code has been in the upstream kernel and userspace parts for maybe a year now.