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3Dfx seeking Linux developer
PowerPC sent us
a post from 3dfx.glide.linux asking for someone interested
in working at 3dfx. Specifically to work on developing,
evangelizing and maintaining 3dfx under Linux. Glad to
see another vendor joining the fray. I've attached the
full request and contact information below.
From: Marty Franz <mfranz@141.com>
Newsgroups: 3dfx.glide.linux
Subject: Linux Job Opening at 3dfx
Date: Thu, 06 May 1999 20:35:58 -0700
Organization: 3Dfx Interactive
Reply-To: mfranz@141.com
All,
I'm looking for a hard core Linux/3D programmer to join the Voodoo Porting Group at 3dfx. This person must live/eat/breath Linux and 3D graphics. Imagine working all day every day in Linux....Sound cool ? Think you have what it takes ? Email your resume to the email address below.
Voodoo Porting Group Job Description
- Answer developer questions in a timely manner.
- Evangelize 3D API?s and 3dfx hardware to developers.
- Develop tools to ease development on 3dfx platforms.
- Develop 3D demos and technologies to promote the use of advanced graphic techniques.
- Help maintain and improve the quality of 3dfx software distributions.
- Develop and present technical presentations at 3dfx developer conferences.
- Help maintain 3dfx developer web site.
- Publicly promote 3dfx and the use of 3dfx hardware under Linux.
Skills Required
- Strong C/C++ experience required. Assembly experience a plus
- Must have a minimum of one year 3D graphics experience.
- Glide and OpenGL experience a plus.
- Strong math background a plus.
- Strong written and verbal skills required.
Marty.
--
Marty Franz
Director of VPG
3Dfx Interactive, Inc.
mfranz@3dfx.com
From: Marty Franz <mfranz@141.com>
Newsgroups: 3dfx.glide.linux
Subject: Linux Job Opening at 3dfx
Date: Thu, 06 May 1999 20:35:58 -0700
Organization: 3Dfx Interactive
Reply-To: mfranz@141.com
All,
I'm looking for a hard core Linux/3D programmer to join the Voodoo Porting Group at 3dfx. This person must live/eat/breath Linux and 3D graphics. Imagine working all day every day in Linux....Sound cool ? Think you have what it takes ? Email your resume to the email address below.
Voodoo Porting Group Job Description
- Answer developer questions in a timely manner.
- Evangelize 3D API?s and 3dfx hardware to developers.
- Develop tools to ease development on 3dfx platforms.
- Develop 3D demos and technologies to promote the use of advanced graphic techniques.
- Help maintain and improve the quality of 3dfx software distributions.
- Develop and present technical presentations at 3dfx developer conferences.
- Help maintain 3dfx developer web site.
- Publicly promote 3dfx and the use of 3dfx hardware under Linux.
Skills Required
- Strong C/C++ experience required. Assembly experience a plus
- Must have a minimum of one year 3D graphics experience.
- Glide and OpenGL experience a plus.
- Strong math background a plus.
- Strong written and verbal skills required.
Marty.
--
Marty Franz
Director of VPG
3Dfx Interactive, Inc.
mfranz@3dfx.com
It is pretty nice to get some serious interest from a hardware company like 3dfx, and hiring people to work on Linux drivers and support qualifies as serious interest. It is not something to throw your hat in the air and yell about because it is so great (people have already pointed out the down side of 3dfx "style" of support, so I won't elaborate). The news (IMO) should be received with a smile and a silent hope that they "get it" sometime soon.
:-)
...yellow number five, yellow number five, yellow number five...
by the level of animosity here. It's not professional, and it's clear most of you are running your mouths without having a clue what you are talking about.
/. posting. Meanwhile, let's demonstrate that Open Drivers is a viable option. That's the best way to convince companies like 3Dfx and nVidia to open their specs.
1. Glide doesn't suck
It's not a perfect API, but at least it's fast, easy and flexible. In fact, as far as we can tell (using VTune to benchmark) it's actually physically impossible to make a D3D card faster than a V3-2000 running Glide -- M$'s code is slower than Glide, so even if the card was infinitely fast, it the program would run only as fast as Glide on a V3 (it turns out D3D runs code in two chunks, the M$ part and the card driver part).
2. Yes releasing full specs would be better
Matrox has done it. Which means that 3Dfx can be convinced to do it. We do need to fight the culture of hardware secrecy that permeates many parts of the electronics industry
3. But binary only is fine for now
At least they're making an effort at OS support. It's their hardware, and Glide is their code. They should have a choice about how they want it used. Why should we turn down binary support for an important API?
4. Writing our own drivers, even from the specs, it hard
I know they're doing it for Matrox with GLX. It remains to be seen whether it will ever be a usably fast GL tho. 3DCards are about the most complex peripheral you could put in your computer. Writing drivers for them isn't trivial, and the drivers need to be really good to be usable -- right now the G200 drivers aren't even near there yet. I would like to see the Open Driver movement prove itself with truly excellent G200 drivers before we go demanding the right to write drivers for other hardware.
The way I see it, the ball's in our court, not theirs. I'm sure they'll find the right person with all the resumes they'll get after a
... They are merely attempting to exploit it. Folks, we need to remember that the only thing that 3dfx ever did for us was release *ONLY* the 2d specs for their cards, give *ONE* developer access to specs to write a *BINARY-ONLY* GLIDE port, and put up a silly little web page. 3dfx has always been an extremely proprietary company that is openly hostile to open standards and open source. If I recall correctly, there are several independent, clean-room developers of GLIDE implementations that are being sued by 3dfx. 3dfx is not supporting the Linux community, only the Linux platform. We should be boycotting 3dfx, not cheering them along as they undermine the open standards and open source communities that have made Linux what it is today.
3Dfx is serious about wanting to work with Linux. This isn't marketting fluff. They've appreciated the work I've done, and they understand the value.
Glide is a hardware abstraction layer. They use it for their in-house applications. You don't have to write to it if you don't want to. Mesa talks through Glide and that's a fine way to access the hardware. There is essentiantially no performance hit for doing so.
Linux users complaining about Glide only games don't know what they are talking about. Most of the "Glide only" games you see are OpenGL games, that need Glide only to talk to the hardware. They won't be Glide only when more hardware has OpenGL support under Linux. Hopefully that'll be soon.
No, Glide will not be Open Source anytime soon. That might be less than optimal, but I take the position that having it be well supported by the vendor is almost as good. (As an example, do you have the source to the BIOS on your PC? Why don't you complain about that?) Having their own team in house to work on Linux is the way to get it well supported
I asked them a while back to start looking to hire people in house. They really wanted to hire me. I seriously considered their offer, but decided to work for Precision Insight instead. I figured being vendor neutral was better. I hope to continue working with 3dfx and whoever they hire in house.
If anyone from here is interested in the job with 3dfx, please feel free to contact me. They are a great group of people. They want to do some really cool work. I believe it'll be good for Linux in general.
- |Daryll
See5 204&mode=thread 2 219&mode=thread
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=99/04/08/134
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=98/12/31/115
oh ye of short memories
"Blah blah blah, eveyone should develop for Linux!"
"Blah blah blah, now that they do - they suck!"
This is really p*****g me off. ANY exposure of the name Linux on any high profile product is FANTASTIC NEWS - even if the support actually sucks. Other compnaies will see what they are doing and follow their lead. Competition then ensues, one day someone will take the extra step we all hope for.
Why do some advocates insist that if it's for Linux then it must be utterly free and open from day one, or they shoudn't bother? Have you no sense of history? - Openness *GROWS*, it doesn't magically appear!
I think this is top news (regardless of wether they achieve anything). PHB's and marketing exec's will take notice of this.