Linked by Thom Holwerda on Fri 9th Nov 2012 22:11 UTC
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Member since:
2010-06-01
Intel case showcase why aproach of AMD/Nvidia is a bit better.
Instead of X people working on Linux driver, they have 10 * X working on driver that is usable both on Win and Lin (OpenGL part, Video Decoding, etc.).
Intel have bigger team for Win, and thus they are able to make big leaps in Win driver (OGL 4.0, better perf), than Linux team.
On the other hand both AMD and Nvidia have separate efforts for SoCs drivers, and AMD choosed to pick up open source Linux drivers (but close it), instead of rewriting Catalys. It show that Bot catalyst and nvidia driver are COMPLEX.
And for sure MS FORCE closed source model for GPU drivers on Windows (Vista, 7, 8). With code SCRAMBLED and OBFUSCATED on purpose. All to "protect" its DRM subsystems.
That is also why Video engines on GPU are kept secret. Too much too loose on Win side of things.
Other area that is kept secret is Power Management, as it is area where competition is high, and innovation possible.
And 3rd highly competitive area is driver development itself. Good drivers make or break hardware. And writing those for GPU is hard.
So there are solid and sound reason for not releasing gpu driver as FLOSS.
Yes we loose a lot on that. (Eg. support for new kernels and X.orgs would come way faster for FLOSS Catalys)
But AMD/Nvdia have their reasons.
Intel is/was newcomer, so they did not care much (they had least advanced gpu hardware, and least advanced drivers), but even they keep their PM docs secret.