AMD Publishes Evergreen Shader Documents

[phoronix]

Phoronix: AMD Publishes Evergreen Shader Documents

Yesterday some R500+ PowerPlay code was started on (but not yet usable), and now at the same time we have more exciting AMD news to report. AMD has just released their shader instruction set documentation for the R800 "Evergreen" graphics processors!This PDF document is available from AMD's developer area and is entitled "Evergreen Family Instruction Set Architecture - Instructions and Microcode." This documentation that covers their very latest GPUs in the Radeon HD 5000 series (like the Radeon HD 5750 and Radeon HD 5770) is important since its required for having the knowledge to provide 2D, 3D, and video acceleration for these newest Radeon graphics cards in the open-source Linux driver.In regards to the open-source status for the ATI Radeon HD 5000 series graphics cards, with AMD's internal open-source code-base they do have VGA outputs continuing to work with these Evergreen GPUs, but digital outputs continue to be troublesome -- though they are making process...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=NzgzMg

[sturmflut]

This is great news. AMD is really showing some serious effort.

[portets43]

i really wish intel would release their larabee soon. sick of closed source nvidia, so i think i might have to switch to ati.
or wait for intel, whih i prefer because of their open source only drivers

[sturmflut]

i really wish intel would release their larabee soon. sick of closed source nvidia, so i think i might have to switch to ati.
or wait for intel, which i prefer because of their open source only drivers

erm Larabee has been cancelled some time ago? And about the quality of Intel drivers, have a look at the GMA500. The upcoming Atom N450 "Pine Trail" also comes with a GMA500 derivate, so this silliness isn't going to stop.

In two years time ATI will probably be the only manufacturer left who's able to deliver high-performance graphics with free drivers. I am definitely supporting them and not Intel.

[sylware]

i really wish intel would release their larabee soon. sick of closed source nvidia, so i think i might have to switch to ati.
or wait for intel, whih i prefer because of their open source only drivers

Good point. Larabee was canceled though or will be something different taken from the tera stuff from Intel.
AMD has more and more resources (non obfuscated code, documentation...) that will leverage in many ways abilities to use their GPUs to the best they can do. For instance, we can expect direct to AMD pipeline 3D engines, shortcutting opengl.
Having a first set of fully working drivers is the first step to start momentum on this. The only picky point is the delay between the programming doc is available to open source driver devs and the fact it's already is the closed source driver. AFAIK, GPU generations are all very similar, then adding support code will be, if there is no significant architecture breakage, less and less work further the open source drivers get completed.

[portets43]

oh, just looked it up. they announced on december 4th that larabee will be released to the professional market only now.

and i was talking about intels in-house gpu's. the gma 500 and successors are made by a different manufacturer.

well, maybe it's ati for me. unless nouveau becomes amazing

[sylware]

oh, just looked it up. they announced on december 4th that larabee will be released to the professional market only now.

and i was talking about intels in-house gpu's. the gma 500 and successors are made by a different manufacturer.

well, maybe it's ati for me. unless nouveau becomes amazing

It will be very hard to nouveau people to match amd drivers without docs. IMHO, it won't happen if nouveau people are not near full time on this or some have a secret NDA with nvidia (that would be such a treason... well...).

[agd5f]

Just to clarify the content of this post, the power table information for r5xx/rs6xx/rs740 has been available for several years already. The latest power tables that were added yesterday are for r6xx+.

[Adarion]

>R8xx specs published
One more reason the be a fanboy.
But still I have to see if my R6xx chips go flying with the recent Mesa and kernel releases.
Cheers AMD-ATI! What a nice xmas gift!

[Louise]

Now, why do I download the specs everytime AMD releases something? I know I don't understand any of it