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AMD's R9 Fury On Open-Source: Prepare for Disappointment, For Now
An anonymous reader writes: With Linux 4.3 AMD is adding the initial open-source driver for the R9 Fury graphics cards. Unfortunate for Linux gamers, the R9 Fury isn't yet in good shape on the open-source driver and it's not good with the Catalyst Linux driver either as previously discussed. With the initial code going into Linux 4.3, the $550 R9 Fury runs slower than graphics cards like the lower-cost and older R7 370 and HD 7950 GPUs, since AMD's open-source developers haven't yet found the time to implement power management / re-clocking support. The R9 Fury also only advertises OpenGL 3.0 support while the hardware is GL4.5-capable and the other open-source AMD GCN driver ships OpenGL 4.1. It doesn't look like AMD has any near-term R9 Fury Linux fix for either driver, but at least their older hardware is performing well with the open-source code.
Re the last paragraph. That is not entirely true, as Intel appear to be able to integrate new chipsets during the time they are released (but only to next tier manufacture) before the public can buy anything using it.
What kind of "peeing on it" has been done to the Intel drivers to get them integrated ?
Exactly the same kind. It's possible to do for anything, it just takes time.
The reason Intel is able to do this ahead of general release, when other vendors aren't, is that it does not lose them a competitive advantage.
First, there is no issue of another manufacturer producing "pin and register compatible devices", and undercutting Intel, because Intel's graphics are integrated into the CPU; you'd have to build an entire Intel compatible CPU as well, and you'd have to do it competitively in terms of price point.
Second, no one really wants to emulate Intel Integrated Graphics in silicon, since there's really no advantage to doing so, since the chips have inferior performance relative to the competition.
So there's really nothing lost by Intel pre-announcing all of the information needed to make a driver, or even publishing source code for the driver, since doing so will sell more Intel chips, not less. For other GPU vendors, this is simply not the case, and there's no economic value in such pre-disclosure.