AMD Releases Cayman Documentation, Open Driver Is Close

[phoronix]

Phoronix: AMD Releases Cayman Documentation, Open Driver Is Close

AMD has put out their first public documentation concerning their Radeon HD 6900 "Cayman" series graphics processors. This 492 page document describes the Cayman instruction set architecture. We have also received an update at Phoronix from AMD concerning the Radeon HD 6900 series open-source support under Linux...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=OTA4OA

[d2kx]

And that is why you don't buy nVidia. Can't wait for my AMD Fusion-powered Lenovo ThinkPad X120e to ship shortly.

[Thatguy]

Wow, props to AMD.

[glxextxexlg]

March 05, 2009

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pag...0_legacy&num=1

Will this move generate greater benefits within the open-source ATI stack? It does not appear AMD will be ramping up on their open-source efforts. In fact, just this week the RadeonHD driver took a serious blow as one of the three Novell developers that were responsible for its development was laid off. The remaining developers are also facing shorter work hours.

*** VERSUS ***

http://www.nvidia.com/object/linux-d...19-driver.html

This is why you should buy:

[NomadDemon]

gtfo with nvidia.. they have crap chips.. heat heat heat heat.. no. no more heat.. better to take radeon, radeon have poor drivers.. but... no.. i cant take nvidia, sorry

[mirv]

Let's all look at nvidia's open source efforts.....
*tumbleweed*

Right, now let's get back on topic discussing the awesome work of AMD releasing hardware specs (or, ISA specs as it may be).

[Game_boy]

Isn't Cayman just Barts with more shaders? They're both 6xxx series, Northern Islands. The driver support shouldn't be that hard unless I'm missing something.

[curaga]

Isn't Cayman just Barts with more shaders? They're both 6xxx series, Northern Islands. The driver support shouldn't be that hard unless I'm missing something.

The 69xx Cayman is a big change from 68xx and before. It was a shader redesign IIRC.

[blackshard]

Isn't Cayman just Barts with more shaders? They're both 6xxx series, Northern Islands. The driver support shouldn't be that hard unless I'm missing something.

Nope. The architecture behind is kinda different. Shader processors are 4-way (cayman) instead of 5-way (barts), and they are also organized differently.

[nikai]

Let's all look at nvidia's open source efforts.....
*tumbleweed*

From my perspective it's not entirely that black and white.

Granted, in the last two decades I've never owned any Nvidia GPU exactly because they refuse to support open source drivers. But this doesn't mean that Nvidia wouldn't support open source in other areas.

Why is it that using ATI/AMD cards and Linux I have to use Nvidia's texture tools to compress S3TC textures? Because these texture tools are MIT-licensed open source, while ATI/AMD's ATI_Compress library and Compressonator are closed source, and worse, they're Windows only.