XGI has released some source code of their Linux driver hoping for some help from the community.
XGI Releases Source Code for Linux
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Eugenia Loli
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An example to follow….and if all others companies would at least release some specs of their devices….
Hopefully more companies looking to expand market share will follow this move.
Pseudo-monopolies may stall longer due to IP capital, but if more businesses like XGI both open their code *and* show benefits from their actions in the future, we’ll see others follow suit.
Thanks XGI.
not just for XGI and the linux community. but i see this helping other alternative OS’s create video drivers that actually work.
Anyone running linux on a athlon 64 or mac can tell you that open source graphics cards are important. Hopefully xgi cards will work well enough to replace the old radeon cards that are begining to get hard to find.
How do the products of XGI compare to the open graphics project from tech source?
Appartently, the xgi open-source drivers are only the 2d portions of the driver and only support kernel 2.4. This is still a good start, and hopefully we will see some nice open source drivers in the future. XGI cards are avaible now and are probably more powerfull than the tech source graphics cards will be.
The open source graphics project, on the other hand, is going to be completely open, but they are still in the planning stage and don’t have any actual hardware.
If you want an open source graphics card, I would stick with the radeon 8500/9000/9200 series for now.
I would sure buy one of these if it worked 100% out of the box on Linux with 100% open drivers
These cards even look like they deliver good performance and cover the mid-high to the low price range.
If they don’t open the 3D core drivers for OpenGL then what’s the point? That would be hardly any better then using the card in VESA emulation mode.
I hope this is successful for them. If it is, hopefully they will follow with the release of the 3d portion of their drivers.
I haven’t been able to find one of these cards on the market. I’ve been eyeing the component out feature as an HDTV solution, but nobody seems to actually sell the card.
http://www.xgitech.com/products/products_2.asp?P=8
> If you want an open source graphics card, I would stick with the radeon 8500/9000/9200 series for now.
Now what’s so cool about those? If I recall correctly FreeBSD DRI subsystem doesn’t support these cards in 3D mode, and they only have Linux drivers, while NVidia has a FreeBSD one too, and that one supports all newer cards as well. Or am I wrong here?
Sure, but the drivers are closed source. It isn’t a big deal to me, but it looks like it is for some people. I’d rather have binary drivers than a card with the speed and the features from 2001 but I guess they are okay for GL screensavers and basic screen composing…
You are probably thinking of the newer radeons. The old radeons had good documentation and has full 3d support by the dri project. I assume freebsd has 3d support for these cards.
Sure, if all you want is 3D acceleration. Of course, if you want to watch TV, weeeeell…
If I want to watch TV, I will open my TV. Personally, I don’t see the point in watching a low resolution signal on an high resolution monitor but that’s just me.
It sound really hopeful, truly I’ve hardly heard about this company but today they are becoming real rival for other (guess which) companys according to linux community, however my wallet will choose…
I’m an open source advocate as much as anyone but just because they open sourced a portion of their drivers, suddenly over night they become a real rival to NVIDIA and ATI? Somehow I don’t think so.
Hopefully it will set a precedent though.
It will only set a pecedent if we the consumers go out and buy xgi cards for our open source systems…
So lets go show ATI and nVidia that we appreciate open source drivers.
Looking at various tests, XGI cards seem have good [hardware] potential, but weak drivers. Seems to me that opensourcing is their [last?] hope to make their product competetive – of course this needs opensourcing 3D drivers too.
Another good thing would be some marketing pressure from XGI side to actually sell these cards somewhere… Closed source drivers on existing hardware are much more usable than opensource ones without any hardware.
XGI cards review at TomsHardware:
http://www20.graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20031107/index.html
It’s dated November 7, 2003. Nothing changed since then – ATI/NVidia don’t need to worry yet.
werd to that! How many times did I and others have to tell new comers that their 500 usd ATi video was was useless because of ATi’s inability to get drivers for Linux x86-64 out the door. Then when they did make those drivers they only worked some of the time. I hope this opening up of the code allows for some big collaboration and great drivers in the end, and that this may act as a historical lesson for other hardware companies.
if SIS , who makes very good cheap chipsets , is behind this company they will not cooperate with OSS community. they dont even help the guy(s) who writes the SIS chipset and graphic drivers.
bad bad bad
Hopefully they’ll release the 3d drivers as well.
And maybe this means SiS will open up their drivers…I love SiS chipsets…