No Stable RadeonHD 2D Driver This Year

[phoronix]

Phoronix: No Stable RadeonHD 2D Driver This Year

The key developers at Novell that are behind the open-source RadeonHD driver for the ATI R500/600 graphics processors have been doing a great job (as you can find out by reading a number of our RadeonHD articles). Previously we reported that the Novell developers had hoped to complete the 2D RadeonHD work by the end of the year; however, that will no longer be the case.

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pag...item&px=NjE4Ng

[Fixxer_Linux]

I'm about to buy a new system.
I'll buy from the company that gives best linux support.
If AMD confirms open-sourcing the specs of latest GPU for having open-source drivers, I therefore don't mind waiting a little to have the drivers. I also don't mind spending more bucks in acquiring ATI products. I don't even mind losing some FPS versus a cost-equivalent nvidia GPU.

But i don't mind on those points only if there is real open-source support, as ATI said. A full release of GPU specs, even from the latest GPU, both 2D and 3D.

If not, I'll go for nvidia, since, for the moment, is less expensive for better performance.

I feel confident that the community will be able, at the dire end, to best tweak the GPU performance as it would never been done with binary blobs. Just have to the phoronix test of open-source drivers .vs. binary ones. On ETQW, the performances are far better with open-source. And I don't want either my hardware to be dependent on the "goodwill" for writing good drivers from any manufacturer.

[Dandel]

Personally i don't really care that no stable 2d driver is out by the end of the year, although i'm more interested in the fact that AMD is releasing documentation on their GPU's without the requirement for a NDA.

[d2kx]

Btw., if anyone was wondering, the RadeonHD developers are working on RandR support since one week.

[remm]

Maybe the 2D driver would be stable enough to be in the next round of distros.

[yoshi314]

i could see that coming. it seemed way too fast.

the progress on radeonhd is pretty good, though.

[Mithrandir]

Maybe the 2D driver would be stable enough to be in the next round of distros.

Even now radeonhd is usable if you do not want to play 3d games or use compiz. After three months I believe that 2d should be stable enough to be included in distros by default.

[butdie]

AMD still holds up specs this late, while they suggested 2D by this year.

Just don't get feed up by AMD propaganda. They do not really care about customers. They couldn't get fglrx for years, therefore, no miracle for open source either.

Everything from AMD is propaganda. There benchmarkings, like, "super fast barcelona", "open source video".

Remember, RMS still holds the sign, "Don't buy from ATI, enemy of your freedom", now we can safely s/TI/MD/.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:R...n_sign_ATI.jpg

Even now radeonhd is usable if you do not want to play 3d games or use compiz. After three months I believe that 2d should be stable enough to be included in distros by default.

[Uchikoma]

AMD still holds up specs this late, while they suggested 2D by this year.

Just don't get feed up by AMD propaganda. They do not really care about customers. They couldn't get fglrx for years, therefore, no miracle for open source either.

Everything from AMD is propaganda. There benchmarkings, like, "super fast barcelona", "open source video".

Remember, RMS still holds the sign, "Don't buy from ATI, enemy of your freedom", now we can safely s/TI/MD/.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:R...n_sign_ATI.jpg

I'm taking this as an attack on not just AMD here, but to the developers contributing to the open source RadeonHD driver. I dislike people making these statements. Put some backing into them, not just "OMGSJTHEYRE LIES!"

If you've ever looked at the git repo (I look at it every couple days), there's quite a bit of activity going on it - lots to say the least. To bash them just because they can't get 2D out by the end of the year even though it visibly shows that they are working away at it is ... shortsighted I would say? Lack of patience? Overdemanding? Unrealistic?

Maybe they shouldn't have said they would have 2D done by end of the year, but hey, if you've ever developed before, delays usually happen.

AMD itself also has a decent relationship with OSS to my understanding, and their processors have worked well with Linux.

I should also mention, specs WERE released. Were they complete? No. But did they release something? Yes. Actions speak louder than words, and while we all have our doubts, I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt this time around (given that they have released 2D specs already). The next thing we know, when 3D specs are released (hopefully), people will complain that they can't get DRI soon after, therefore everything AMD spews is a complete lie.

[elanthis]

Keep in mind guys that the newest ATI chipsets don't even have a 2D component. AMD *must* release 3D docs, or there will be no 2D rendering on those cards at all. 2D rendering and acceleration is all done with the usual 3D operations, shaders, frame buffer objects, and so on.