OSS drivers for 8500 by weather.com
- Thread starter midnight
- Start date
LordKahless
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Computer generated 3D graphics of weather phenomena.
WindowLicker
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Well what do you guys think....you think the linux drivers ATI is gonna be putten out soon will be best or this privatly funded driver set? And ya....wtf does the weather channel have to do with 8500's and linux?
infowar
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with all of this great 8500 linux news, im deffinately going to upgrade my 7000 later this week. im either going for the stock ati or the gigabyte, just because the gigabyte looks evil-er. they seem to have exactly the same layout. so im hoping the firegl drivers and these once they're released will work just as well with the gigabyte. anyone tried this?
superand44
New member
Open source drivers _is_ great news, just be careful. Radeon hasn't even support for a lot of it's advanced features and even less will Radeon 8500 have. Let's hope they build a solid foundation for the future driver development of modern gfx.
Shadowdancer
New member
As they said on the DRI maillist, it's very improbable that we'll see hardware pixel shaders on linux anytime soon, so that's it for "advanced features". Hopefully the driver architecture will allow for "easy" addition of features.
Translation: No Doom 3 , or a severely crippled Doom 3 experience. But John Carmack did say he was willing to help on driver devel but this is alot of work. By the time Doom 3 ships though R300 linux driver work probably won't have even started if the R200 is any indication.Shadowdancer said:
PGHammer
New member
However, Tungsten/TWC isn't starting from scratch...
However, Tungsten/TWC isn't starting from scratch...
They aren't exactly starting from scratch here, people.
They have ATI's own FireGL DRI drivers as a base (which *does* work on the R8500 right now), and the current R100 TCL alpha (which is at Tungsten Graphics right now if anyone wants to play with it).
On top of that, the lead driver guru at Tungsten is darn near *entirely* responsible for the existing R7XXX DRI driver (which is pretty darn spiffy).
The target is darned ambitious (Q4 2002), but not exactly impossible, since they have solid working code to start with.
And given that the current *NVidia* drivers are *closed source* (while, except for the FireGL drivers, the Radeon drivers are open-source, and I honestly expect the FireGL drivers to wind up open-source themselves later this year), it is *still*
Advantage: ATI.
However, Tungsten/TWC isn't starting from scratch...
terracon said:
They aren't exactly starting from scratch here, people.
They have ATI's own FireGL DRI drivers as a base (which *does* work on the R8500 right now), and the current R100 TCL alpha (which is at Tungsten Graphics right now if anyone wants to play with it).
On top of that, the lead driver guru at Tungsten is darn near *entirely* responsible for the existing R7XXX DRI driver (which is pretty darn spiffy).
The target is darned ambitious (Q4 2002), but not exactly impossible, since they have solid working code to start with.
And given that the current *NVidia* drivers are *closed source* (while, except for the FireGL drivers, the Radeon drivers are open-source, and I honestly expect the FireGL drivers to wind up open-source themselves later this year), it is *still*
Advantage: ATI.
Shadowdancer
New member
terracon said:
Don't be quick to say that. ATI will have severe competition by that time. nVidia will surely offer their closed driver for whatever they're gonna throw at the market and Matrox seems to be willing to provide Linux drivers for their Parhelia.
I'd say the more or less sudden release of the FireGL drivers could be a good indication of a (slow) development progress beginning. The copyright notice on the drivers says they were developed at ATI research Germany and I don't recall seeing that mark on any other set of drivers. Plus the drivers are for their top-notch product which indicates a certain acknowledgement of the OS.
scragglyka
New member
Linux drivers
Linux drivers
Personally I only use Linux for my webserver at home, but if they release decent drivers for my radeons, I may give it another chance as a workstation OS...
I hang out in a Linux chat room and ATI gets a lot of crap first about the fact that many have used the old rage pro cards that were very slow, and secondly, for not having Linux drivers developed inhouse as nvidia does. I think ATI really needs to concentrate on this as Linux is becoming much more prevelant as a free OS and a secure OS. Most Linux users will buy nvidia for the driver support rather than ati.
So far the DRI drivers for xfree86 are decent for the radeon 7500, although my radeon LE runs like a rock at the bottom of a pond under linux (10fps on UT 1024x768@32bit) but I can get around 50 for my 7500... and of course my 8500 runs not in Linux with 3d support... just 2d. I've tried the Xi Summit x server with its drivers for the 8500 and they simply rock... the 7500 drivers they have also rock, so what's the deal with ATI? if the drivers are obviously possible, then what's the hold up on deciding to develop some free ones (Xi Summit x server costs money... like Windows XP store price money... I only used the demo). We pay a lot of money for these cards, the least they could do is offer free drivers for several OS choices.
By the way, the 7500 under Summit actually does perform very well, right up there with a geforce3... which seems to show that the drivers for windows still need some work, since nvidia professes to have windows speed for their linux drivers.
Linux drivers
Personally I only use Linux for my webserver at home, but if they release decent drivers for my radeons, I may give it another chance as a workstation OS...
I hang out in a Linux chat room and ATI gets a lot of crap first about the fact that many have used the old rage pro cards that were very slow, and secondly, for not having Linux drivers developed inhouse as nvidia does. I think ATI really needs to concentrate on this as Linux is becoming much more prevelant as a free OS and a secure OS. Most Linux users will buy nvidia for the driver support rather than ati.
So far the DRI drivers for xfree86 are decent for the radeon 7500, although my radeon LE runs like a rock at the bottom of a pond under linux (10fps on UT 1024x768@32bit) but I can get around 50 for my 7500... and of course my 8500 runs not in Linux with 3d support... just 2d. I've tried the Xi Summit x server with its drivers for the 8500 and they simply rock... the 7500 drivers they have also rock, so what's the deal with ATI? if the drivers are obviously possible, then what's the hold up on deciding to develop some free ones (Xi Summit x server costs money... like Windows XP store price money... I only used the demo). We pay a lot of money for these cards, the least they could do is offer free drivers for several OS choices.
By the way, the 7500 under Summit actually does perform very well, right up there with a geforce3... which seems to show that the drivers for windows still need some work, since nvidia professes to have windows speed for their linux drivers.
PGHammer
New member
ATI *DOES* support Linux!
ATI *DOES* support Linux!
The current Radeon DRI drivers (written largely while the Tungsten Graphics team was at Precision Insight) was *bankrolled* by ATI. (This is acknowledged by DRI (http://dri.sourceforge.net) and Tungsten Graphics.) At that time, the Radeon 8500 was still in the *taping out* stages.
However, *unlike* NVidia, they (ATI) don't write the drivers themselves; instead they allow third-parties, under NDA, to write drivers for their non-professional cards under Linux and other OSes (Xi comes to mind, along with Tungsten Graphics/TWC's partially ATI-funded open-source R8xxx DRI work.).
Now, with the FireGL drivers and ATI Germany: remember, Linux is a larger marketforce in Europe than in the US for a wide variety of reasons (in the governmental entities, there is *still* a strong streak of nationalism when it comes to operating systems and with low-cost/no-cost Euro-sourced Linux distros such as Mandrake (France) and SuSE (Germany) available, of *course* a nationalistic administration would select those vs. US-sourced Windows). Will ATI Germany write a closed-source R8500 DRI driver? Possible, but only as a last resort.
ATI *DOES* support Linux!
The current Radeon DRI drivers (written largely while the Tungsten Graphics team was at Precision Insight) was *bankrolled* by ATI. (This is acknowledged by DRI (http://dri.sourceforge.net) and Tungsten Graphics.) At that time, the Radeon 8500 was still in the *taping out* stages.
However, *unlike* NVidia, they (ATI) don't write the drivers themselves; instead they allow third-parties, under NDA, to write drivers for their non-professional cards under Linux and other OSes (Xi comes to mind, along with Tungsten Graphics/TWC's partially ATI-funded open-source R8xxx DRI work.).
Now, with the FireGL drivers and ATI Germany: remember, Linux is a larger marketforce in Europe than in the US for a wide variety of reasons (in the governmental entities, there is *still* a strong streak of nationalism when it comes to operating systems and with low-cost/no-cost Euro-sourced Linux distros such as Mandrake (France) and SuSE (Germany) available, of *course* a nationalistic administration would select those vs. US-sourced Windows). Will ATI Germany write a closed-source R8500 DRI driver? Possible, but only as a last resort.
PUDAK
New member
WOO-HOO, the Weather Channel uses the R8500! Seriously, this is exciting news for me, because I am a huge meteorology enthusiast and I watch the Weather Channel often, especially during hurricane season. I suppose for 24 hour satellite data collection and weather modeling Linux and ATI are the way to go...
PGHammer
New member
The Weather Channel and ATI
The Weather Channel and ATI
TWC has *always* been a heavily-ATI shop. Not just the 8500s and 8500DVs, but even 7500/7200s also, and they run *lots* of Linux (primarily RedHat and Mandrake), but also run Windows 2000 as well.
In a way, TWC's underwriting is a vested interest, but it is also a *no-brainer* for them.
I also watch TWC a lot (here, it's the winter weather that drives my TWC watcheage).
The Weather Channel and ATI
TWC has *always* been a heavily-ATI shop. Not just the 8500s and 8500DVs, but even 7500/7200s also, and they run *lots* of Linux (primarily RedHat and Mandrake), but also run Windows 2000 as well.
In a way, TWC's underwriting is a vested interest, but it is also a *no-brainer* for them.
I also watch TWC a lot (here, it's the winter weather that drives my TWC watcheage).