ATI&Linux

[Jelc]

It's been a long time in the making, but the xf86-video-radeonhd 1.2 driver has just been pushed out the door. RadeonHD 1.2 is the first new release for this open-source ATI R500/600 driver since December of last year. The RadeonHD 1.2 driver includes support for new AMD graphics processors, 2D XAA/EXA acceleration, and other changes.

Among the new parts supported include the Radeon HD 3400 and 3600 series (RV620/635), Radeon HD 3870 X2 (with support for only one of the two R680 GPU cores), and enhanced support for the RS690 IGP. This release also marks the adoption of AtomBIOS usage, but just for handling the Uniphy transmitter found on the Radeon HD 3400/3600 GPUs. What currently lacks when it comes to this new graphics support, however, is DisplayPort capabilities. The ATI RS690 improvements revolve around the DDIA block (better known as the Mystery block that few knew was actually being used). The RadeonHD driver also has yet to support the Radeon HD 3200 (780G) IGP, but some 780G code will be pushed out soon.

While the Radeon developers have beginning to work on the Mesa and DRM implementation for the R500 series, the RadeonHD developers aren't there yet. However, this is the first RadeonHD release that integrates 2D EXA and XAA acceleration support. This XAA/EXA acceleration currently only covers the R500 (Radeon X1000) series with no support currently for the R600 series.

This release also has significant underlying changes when it comes to splitting up encoders and transmitters and reworking digital and analog outputs. TV-Out support for the RadeonHD driver is almost ready, with all of the various components being in place but just not hooked together and tested, yet. On the opposite side of the table, the xf86-video-ati R500 driver already supports TV-Out (though it may not work in all configurations).

The newest addition to the RadeonHD driver is a basic register dumping utility, which users can run as rhd_dump to provide basic register information on their graphics processor. This will be helpful where AMD has yet to provide register documentation on certain functionality.

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pag...eonhd_12&num=1

[danij3l]

samo da ostave taj OS pjurizam sastrane i prihvate se razvoja pomocu AtomBIOSa i bit ce znacajnijeg (brzeg) razvoja.
kada je AMD izbacio prvu turu dokumentacije letjela su obecanja da ce 2D akceleracija biti gotova do kraja godine (2007),a evo sad je Q2 2008 ...

bezveze se rasipaju napori na dva paralelna drivera (radeon i RadeonHD)

[Jelc]

Je, jedno vrijeme su se opako razbacivali obećanjima bolje podrške pingoljupcima...

[Jelc]

RadeonHD Driver To Use AtomBIOS

We've talked all too often about AtomBIOS and there being two different open-source drivers that support the same ATI Radeon hardware with the key architectural difference between the two just being the use of this video BIOS abstraction layer. From the beginning, AMD was planning to have their Novell partners use AtomBIOS when writing this new (at the time, R500/600) driver, but the developers ultimately declined. These developers have expressed their opinions on AtomBIOS, which range from it being an unbearable mess to this design being nothing more than writing open-source code to power someone else's closed-source work. However, under pressure by AMD, the developers are now preparing to use AtomBIOS to a much greater extent within the xf86-video-radeonhd driver. In this article we'll tell you more about what's gone on and where you can checkout this AtomBIOS-bearing RadeonHD driver.

In March we had explained the Radeon vs. RadeonHD driver situation in full. In theory, this common API for programming all of ATI's R400+ graphics hardware is a godsend, but in the real world it's the RadeonHD developers that argue its benefit and expose its faults -- going as far as calling it legacy code and untouchable byte-code. AMD's Alex Deucher and Red Hat's David Airlie use AtomBIOS within the xf86-video-ati driver so that they can quickly deploy the basic mode-setting support and other fundamental work, thereby allowing them more time to focus on the driver's "bells and whistles" such as OpenGL hardware acceleration and other features we've previously shared (Open-Source ATI Driver Achieves 3D Success). Meanwhile, the RadeonHD developers prefer hard-coding the driver and accessing all registers directly. These differences plus other factors have led to little cooperation between the xf86-video-radeonhd and xf86-video-ati driver development groups until recently when the xf86-video-ati 2D and DRM work started being adopted by xf86-video-radeonhd.

One very recent example that highlights the difference between these two programming models is with the recently introduced Radeon HD 4850 and Radeon HD 4870. AMD had delivered same-day support with the fglrx driver (their proprietary driver also uses AtomBIOS), but on the open-source side there was even same-day Linux support using xf86-video-ati. While there are plenty of architectural changes between the R600 series and the RV770, the AtomBIOS on the graphics card's ROM is able to conceal most of these differences to the driver.

With writing a simple patch that just adds in the RV770 chip family identification and PCI IDs for our graphics cards we were able to experience open-source Radeon HD 4850 and open-source Radeon HD 4870 support. We had experienced a DDC (Display Data Channel) bug that caused the incorrect resolution to be set by default, but that's only a minor issue for now. With the current xf86-video-radeonhd driver, a trivial patch cannot be created to add the RV770 graphics processor support. Developers are left to either utilize AtomBIOS or wait for AMD to release documentation -- whether it be publicly or under NDA to Novell -- in order to hard-code the support for this high-end graphics processor. As we have seen from past product launches within a same product generation, it has taken the RadeonHD driver weeks to deliver even proper mode-setting support.

However, we can confirm that the RadeonHD driver now is moving to an AtomBIOS model. In a branch of xf86-video-radeonhd driver, they have now created an atombios_support branch that contains this initial work. However, before going to fire up git, be forewarned that this atombios_support branch is still considered experimental and isn't yet complete. We've been experimenting with this branch for the past 24 hours with the Radeon HD 4850/4870 as well as earlier R500 and R600 graphics cards, but there are some areas of the AtomBIOS support that aren't yet addressed that will likely lead to show-stopping issues for the time being. However, this AtomBIOS support is rapidly developing and we would expect many of the issues to be worked out within a matter of days. Following that, this AtomBIOS support will likely be merged to the master branch. Previously AtomBIOS was used within the RadeonHD driver for just supporting parts of the graphics processor they didn't have specifications on at the time of commencing development work (such as with the PCIEPHY transmitter).

Once the AtomBIOS support merges to the master branch of the xf86-video-radeonhd driver, the differences between that and xf86-video-ati will be even less. Ideally, this will lead to greater cooperation between the two groups of developers and settling for a de facto standard driver for the R600+ GPUs (likely xf86-video-radeonhd). Once the AtomBIOS support has been merged to master -- as well as their "quick and dirty" 2D branch -- they will begin focusing on open-source 3D support for the Radeon HD 4800 series. We'll have more on these open-source developments in the coming days and weeks.

[Jelc]

I još malo na temu:

A week ago we looked at the brand-new ATI Radeon HD 4850 graphics card under Linux. This graphics card launch was unlike any in ATI's history where with the introduction of a brand new product generation, Linux users were greeted by same-day Linux support -- both through their proprietary fglrx driver and with the open-source xf86-video-ati driver. In addition, some of the board partners are opting to put Tux on their product packaging and shipping the Linux drivers on their product CDs. As we had also exclusively shared, AMD will soon be approaching a feature parity between the Windows and Linux drivers (AMD Makes An Evolutionary Leap In Linux Support). Today we're publishing our complete review of the new ATI Radeon HD 4870 512MB as well as delivering additional benchmarks from the Radeon HD 4850 under Linux, of course....

Više:

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pag...nhd_4870&num=1

Dakle i pingoljupcima polako ide na bolje

[danij3l]

da, bolje vrijeme je doslo

[WraGG]

Da, sad kad sam ja laptop sa Nvidiom uzeo :s