ATI's X.Org DDX Driver Gets KMS Ready

[bridgman]

Looking good.

- OpenCL depends on Gallium3D

- TV-out is just a big pain in the butt and doesn't depend on anything other than a big heap of free time

- I would treat GLSL as part of "more advanced 3D", ie it could happen in classic mesa but will probably only happen on Gallium3D

- display port doesn't depend on anything

[Louise]

Looking good.

So when people ask "when will we get OpenCL" this can be pasted in as reply

memory manager -+-> KMS -> advanced power management (dynamic control of clocks etc..)
                |
                +-> DRI2 / RDR (RDR is what everyone really wants)
                |
                +-> advanced MESA 3D (OpenGL 1.5+) via chip-specific code
                |
                +-> Gallium3D -+-> advanced 3D (OpenGL 1.5+, GLSL) via generic code
                               |
                               +-> generic video acceleration framework
                               |
                               +-> OpenCL
No dependencies:
* TV-out
* Display Port

- TV-out is just a big pain in the butt and doesn't depend on anything other than a big heap of free time

When AMD started to make their own north- and south-bridges, I read an interview where someone from AMD was asked, why their south bridges didn't have an AMD developed sound codec.

The answer was something like: "The devil is on the analogue side, and we have no plans on waking him".

Is that also the problem with TV-out?

- I would treat GLSL as part of "more advanced 3D", ie it could happen in classic mesa but will probably only happen on Gallium3D

Because the API's are cleaner on Gallium3D?

[bridgman]

When AMD started to make their own north- and south-bridges, I read an interview where someone from AMD was asked, why their south bridges didn't have an AMD developed sound codec.

The answer was something like: "The devil is on the analogue side, and we have no plans on waking him".

Is that also the problem with TV-out?

I don't think so -- in theory we know how to program it, but it's not working and debugging takes a long time. We'll probably have to dig through the fglrx source code to see what is done there, but that is a non-trivial task as well.

(regarding GLSL) Because the API's are cleaner on Gallium3D?

Mostly because the GLSL compiler work can (in theory) be "done once" and used across multiple GPU families, where GLSL gets compiled to TGSI by common code then each driver only needs to convert TGSI into GPU-specific instructions.

Yes there's a lot of "in theory" here

[Louise]

I don't think so -- in theory we know how to program it, but it's not working and debugging takes a long time. We'll probably have to dig through the fglrx source code to see what is done there, but that is a non-trivial task as well.

Sounds a lot like the "GURU Meditation" from the Amiga

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guru_Meditation

Early in the development of the Amiga computer operating system, the company's developers became so frustrated with the system's frequent crashes that, as a relaxation technique, a game was developed where a person would sit cross-legged on the joyboard, resembling an Indian guru. The player was supposed to remain perfectly still with the goal of the game being to stay still the longest. If the player moved, a "guru meditation error" resulted.

Mostly because the GLSL compiler work can (in theory) be "done once" and used across multiple GPU families, where GLSL gets compiled to TGSI by common code then each driver only needs to convert TGSI into GPU-specific instructions.

Yes there's a lot of "in theory" here

Impressive.

Sounds like someone could pitch a job in the industry, if they made this their thesis

[bridgman]

Sounds a lot like the "GURU Meditation" from the Amiga

Interesting; I didn't know about Guru Meditation Errors.

Finding something in a large piece of software like the proprietary driver reminds me of a short story I read a long time ago. If I remember correctly, it involved an infinite number of monkeys with typewriters, an angel cast out from Paradise and tasked with supervising said monkeys, and a block of granite a parsec or so on each side. Every 1000 years a small bird would stop by and sharpen its beak on the block, gradually wearing down the block and providing a way to measure the passage of time.

EDIT - found it - "Been a long, long time" by R. A. Lafferty. There is an xkcd comic in a similar vein, but it's not as good : http://xkcd.com/505/

Impressive. Sounds like someone could pitch a job in the industry, if they made this their thesis

True. The best news, though, is that the work has (in theory) already been done and is (in theory) working on Intel 915 parts. I imagine it still needs some work though, or I would have expected the Intel devs to jump across to Gallium3D immediately (since GEM and DRI2 are already available).

[Louise]

Interesting; I didn't know about Guru Meditation Errors.

Could be inspiration for Linux' "Don't PANIC" screen =)

Or maybe is should read "Maybe it is a good time to panic"? =)

But it would probably offend some "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" fans

Finding something in a large piece of software like the proprietary driver reminds me of a short story I read a long time ago. If I remember correctly, it involved an infinite number of monkeys with typewriters, an angel cast out from Paradise and tasked with supervising said monkeys, and a block of granite a parsec or so on each side. Every 1000 years a small bird would stop by and sharpen its beak on the block, gradually wearing down the block and providing a way to measure the passage of time.

HAHA Is the proprietary driver that big? How many lines of code are we talking about here?

EDIT - found it - "Been a long, long time" by R. A. Lafferty. There is an xkcd comic in a similar vein, but it's not as good : http://xkcd.com/505/

I can find references to it, but it doesn't seam to be online.

True. The best news, though, is that the work has (in theory) already been done and is (in theory) working on Intel 915 parts. I imagine it still needs some work though, or I would have expected the Intel devs to jump across to Gallium3D immediately (since GEM and DRI2 are already available).

That is pretty strange.

I have added the dependency tree to
http://www.x.org/wiki/RadeonFeature

It stands a little out from the beautiful colour matrix, but hopefully it gets to stay anyway

[madman2k]

for you interest I made a blog post out of this thread, containing a nice graphics:
http://www.rojtberg.net/271/4-years-later/

[bridgman]

Looks good. I was expecting to see something with monkeys and typewriters surrounded by a flashing red border, this is much better

BTW it looks like the porting has now finished; when this thread started only the first part of the work had been ported back to master : http://airlied.livejournal.com/67545.html

[whizse]

for you interest I made a blog post out of this thread, containing a nice graphics:
http://www.rojtberg.net/271/4-years-later/

As you mention both AMD and Intel in your blog post, I think it should be fair to point out that the Intel drivers already support OpenGL 2.1.

[Louise]

for you interest I made a blog post out of this thread, containing a nice graphics:
http://www.rojtberg.net/271/4-years-later/

Very interesting to get a break down on things

Have you looked at Radeon Feature Matrix on x.org since yesterday?

The Gallium features have been added. There is quite a lot. Unfortunately many of them have been shorten, so some of they makes no sense at all. Like EGL and WGL.

Notice how R200 stands out.