Open source 3D graphics drivers for ATI R600 garphics cards has been submitted to the kernel-next tree for possible inclusion in the Linux kernel 2.6.32. "David Airlie has pushed a horde of new code into his drm-next Git tree, which is what will get pulled into the Linux 2.6.32 kernel once the merge window is open. Most prominently, this new DRM code brings support for kernel mode-setting with R600 class hardware as well as 3D support."
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Member since:2007-02-17
http://www.phoronix.com/forums/showpost.php?p=91985&postcount=96
http://www.phoronix.com/forums/showpost.php?p=92070&postcount=98
Member since:2005-10-13
Yes, I saw that myself. Those 2 cases are, in order: a relatively easy task that doesn't require very advanced drivers, and a bug in the fglrx driver (or wine) that allows this new one to work at a similar (DX7) low level that again doesn't require very advanced 3D.
You can definitely pick out specific cases where the new drivers work as well as the binary ones, for example I think the 2D acceleration and general desktop feel are probably superior. But I stand by my original statement, which was that for the most part I doubt the "difficult" things like 100% performance equivalence will ever be met. That would require things like program-specific optimizations like the binary drivers have that I don't think the OSS drivers have enough manpower to implement. And that's not just my opinion, the developers working on the drivers are the ones saying it, that they think 80% speed is a reasonable target.
Member since:
2005-10-13
Agreed, although I'm not quite as pessimistic as you are. I don't think the OSS drivers will ever match AMD/NVIDIA's binary drivers 100%, but I think we could have something by next Christmas that is reasonably full-featured and fast.
I don't think you can necessarily blame the fact that the drivers are OSS for why they have come about so slowly. I mean the NVidia drivers work pretty well, but the ATI ones were horrible for years. And the Intel drivers on Windows were very bad when I tried using them once. I don't think others were much better - I heard terrible things about Matrox's drivers as well. It just takes a lot of time and effort to really optimize your drivers fully for hardware as complicated as a modern graphics card.