Open ATI Specifications For R100-200

[bridgman]

>>Right after the release of the first set of specs there were a lot of changes, which corrected a lot of things.

The funny part is that a lot of those changes happened in the same room. After XDS ended, all the graphics developers headed over to Matthew Garrett's flat -- there were perhaps 15 developers stuffed into Matthew's living room, mostly on the floor, all with laptops open, all hacking on the driver. One of the Red Hat guys took pictures.

[libv]

>The funny part is that a lot of those changes happened in the same room. After XDS ended, all the graphics developers headed over to Matthew Garrett's flat -- there were perhaps 15 developers stuffed into Matthew's living room, mostly on the floor, all with laptops open, all hacking on the driver. One of the Red Hat guys took pictures.

The SUSE X Devs, the authors of the radeonhd driver, were stuck at stansted though, and didn't partake in -avivo driver hacking Besides, we had to release a driver the following monday.

[bridgman]

The SUSE X Devs, the authors of the radeonhd driver, were stuck at stansted though, and didn't partake in -avivo driver hacking Besides, we had to release a driver the following monday.

Good point. You guys had been working like that non-stop for a month *before* XDS

[FiNALSErAPH]

WHEN will ATI re-open the Specifications for R100-R200? And how about R300?

[Arch4Ever]

Has there been any progress made on this? Does anyone know? Lots of people with older laptops would really enjoy improved 3D performance with these early Radeons.

[glisse]

Has there been any progress made on this? Does anyone know? Lots of people with older laptops would really enjoy improved 3D performance with these early Radeons.

What lacks here is not specifications but people to work on that code. I am pretty sure we already know most of the things even for hyper-z on r100/r200.

[bridgman]

AFAIK the main benefit of re-releasing the R200 documentaiton was to provide a decently written "here's how to program a GPU" guide for new developers. As glisse said, the radeon driver has all the reg info and code for pretty much every function except IDCT/MC, it's just a question of folks having time to work on it. For R3xx, Alex did assemble an R3xx register spec package similar to the one we did for R5xx, and the same "here's how it works" documentation covers pretty the 3xx to 5xx range.

[Alex W. Jackson]

What lacks here is not specifications but people to work on that code. I am pretty sure we already know most of the things even for hyper-z on r100/r200.

Err, how about fixed-function vertex blending? (ARB_vertex_blend) It's not used much (nVidia's binary drivers don't even support it) but I seem to remember some discussion on the Wine mailing list that it would be nice to have, since its D3D equivalent is used quite a bit by games of a certain vintage.

[stan]

the radeon driver has all the reg info and code for pretty much every function except IDCT/MC

Don't R200 cards have pretty advanced power management capabilities, which the FOSS radeon driver knows nothing about?

[bridgman]

I didn't think so but will add it to the list of things to check after we get 6xx 3d going.