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AMD Makes An Evolutionary Leap In Linux Support
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Comments (7)
>> Who am I imitating?
Depends... are your armpits really sweaty? Do you look like you are about to have a heart attack and die?
Depends... are your armpits really sweaty? Do you look like you are about to have a heart attack and die?
Quoting:Do you look like you are about to have a heart attack and die?
That's funny.
Or a gorilla in a suit.
"Grape Ape, Grape Ape"
>Late to the party or not, you still gotta be happy to see them now that they have shown up.
They're actually not late to the party, they are starting the party.
There are open source ATI drivers now, not closed source binary only ones. I've been saying since September when they opened the specs (http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3108) that within a year they'll overtake nVidia in linux driver quality, shortly thereafter even on windows.
Better drivers = better hardware given equally powerful GPUs.
nVidia still doesn't have an open driver that supports their latest GPUs. They open the stuff on 2 year old GPU's but that doesn't do squat for people living in the here and now.
Those binary scripts you run to install nVidia's driver on a linux distro only compile a kernel interface, not the driver. The driver itself is a proprietary binary. This wrapper matches nvidia calls to the proper ordinals in the kernel, (which change whenever you update or compile the kernel) nothing else.
There is a project to do open drivers for nVidia GPUs, but they are working blind with no specs and have barely got a 2d driver working. Since the GPU hardware is always changing, this is hopeless because they'll always be way behind the hardware, even if they can get 3d working. Each new GPU is a black box that needs to be reverse engineered.
I have the feeling that AMD's move will *force* nVidia to open their drivers so they can compete with driver quality. If not, ATi will begin to slowly and inexorably crush nVidia's market share. Their cards will eventually simply work better.
Bugs and issues will be addressed very quickly because anyone with the programming skills can fix them.
-Viz
There are open source ATI drivers now, not closed source binary only ones. I've been saying since September when they opened the specs (http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3108) that within a year they'll overtake nVidia in linux driver quality, shortly thereafter even on windows.
Better drivers = better hardware given equally powerful GPUs.
nVidia still doesn't have an open driver that supports their latest GPUs. They open the stuff on 2 year old GPU's but that doesn't do squat for people living in the here and now.
Those binary scripts you run to install nVidia's driver on a linux distro only compile a kernel interface, not the driver. The driver itself is a proprietary binary. This wrapper matches nvidia calls to the proper ordinals in the kernel, (which change whenever you update or compile the kernel) nothing else.
There is a project to do open drivers for nVidia GPUs, but they are working blind with no specs and have barely got a 2d driver working. Since the GPU hardware is always changing, this is hopeless because they'll always be way behind the hardware, even if they can get 3d working. Each new GPU is a black box that needs to be reverse engineered.
I have the feeling that AMD's move will *force* nVidia to open their drivers so they can compete with driver quality. If not, ATi will begin to slowly and inexorably crush nVidia's market share. Their cards will eventually simply work better.
Bugs and issues will be addressed very quickly because anyone with the programming skills can fix them.
-Viz
> If not, ATi will begin to slowly and inexorably crush nVidia's market share.
You say that as if it's a bad thing. :)
You say that as if it's a bad thing. :)
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Late to the party or not, you still gotta be happy to see them now that they have shown up.
Edit:
Wait, I've got it!..
Driver support! Driver support! Driver support! Driver support! Driver support! Driver support! Driver support!
Who am I imitating?