Valve & Intel Work On Open-Source GPU Drivers

[orome]

Hmm, playing the naive guy here; have you thought about approaching Valve+Nvidia after the Steam on Linux "thing" is official now?
Maybe there is a slight chance Valve can convince NVidia to provides som docs to you under at least NDA now.
I doubt this strange company will ever freely distribute it...

I don't think you can write open source drivers under NDA. It's how those devices work that is protected not the text, OSS driver discloses that information although it uses C instead of English.

[MùPùF]

Hmm, playing the naive guy here; have you thought about approaching Valve+Nvidia after the Steam on Linux "thing" is official now?
Maybe there is a slight chance Valve can convince NVidia to provides som docs to you under at least NDA now.
I doubt this strange company will ever freely distribute it...

Valve already contacted us. I told them what could be done to improve Nouveau and one final suggestion was that they could talk to Nvidia about docs for Nouveau. I haven't heard from them just yet but I'm sure they'll do whatever they can when they can.

It is possible that some of us refuse to get some docs under NDA. I, for one, would be really reluctant to accept it. The only part of the GPU that we really need documentation for is clock/power management. If they stick an NDA on this, I'll first laugh hard and then get angry.

I don't think you can write open source drivers under NDA. It's how those devices work that is protected not the text, OSS driver discloses that information although it uses C instead of English.

Nope, you can write an OSS driver with documentation under NDA. It just sucks though....

[F i L]

Simply awesome!

Intel, Valve... you both win 2012's best companies of the year awards, IMO. I sincerely hope AMD follows Intel's lead here.

[entropy]

Valve already contacted us. I told them what could be done to improve Nouveau and one final suggestion was that they could talk to Nvidia about docs for Nouveau. I haven't heard from them just yet but I'm sure they'll do whatever they can when they can.

Thanks for the information. That doesn't sound too bad.

It is possible that some of us refuse to get some docs under NDA. I, for one, would be really reluctant to accept it. The only part of the GPU that we really need documentation for is clock/power management. If they stick an NDA on this, I'll first laugh hard and then get angry.

Isn't that one part which is held back from AMD as well (due to a difficult legal review) up to now?

Good luck on your mission!

[AJSB]

I am really excited to hear who they fly out next week to their offices!

Optimize unity3D or compiz perhaps?

Compiz MUST die

I know , i know...it's beautiful but it's such a hog resource....

Unity3D also.....not to mention that i don't like the layout from a desktop POV....YMMV.

I would prefer an improvement in some aspects of XFCE or more optimizations in MATE....

[kraftman]

AMD, it's your step now!

Exactly. It was always about some hidden and secret optimizations in fglrx that allows it to perform better, so... with the access to Left4Dead source code they can optimize radeon open source driver to perform exactly like fglrx or even better, right?

[RussianNeuroMancer]

Optimize unity3D or compiz perhaps?

Isn't games-related performance issues already addressed by Unity 6.0 release?

[orome]

Nope, you can write an OSS driver with documentation under NDA. It just sucks though....

Learning new stuff every day...
Would the result be something other than obfuscated unusable/unmantainable mess?

[kraftman]

I would prefer an improvement in some aspects of XFCE or more optimizations in MATE....

XFCE without compositions doesn't need optimizations...

[grenadecx]

Compiz MUST die

I know , i know...it's beautiful but it's such a hog resource....

Compiz, a hog resource? Wow, are you kidding me?
I've been running Compiz with proprietary drivers from Nvidia and Open Source drivers from Intel, never had any problems with it being a "hog resource".

Do people have computers from 1990 or what? Seriously. In 2006, I had a school project and one of the things I did was playing around with Compiz/Compiz Fusion/Beryl on Ubuntu with AMD open source drivers. The graphic card that was used was quite old. I never had problems with getting it to run - and it ran smooth.