I have a question...

I'm a long term C++/OpenGL programmer but I know nothing about driver development, where would be a good place to start so I could perhaps help out in future? I mean, what could I do to help in the short term and how can I learn about graphics driver development to help in the long term?

Try to look on the Internet, Google always help me. use filters.

If the specs are under NDA for a select few, what is the best way for the part-time tinkerers to help out?

Report specific bugs with specific test cases?

well the thing is most bugs can be fixed without specs, so for a part-timer or someone interested in starting in driver development, finding a bug that looks minor and trying to fix it yourself is the best way too start...

So does it mean that the r300 driver will also benefit from that? or only for specific new cards?

yes. initially new cards, but we are going to have access to ppl to ask questions about older drivers.

As the r500 and r300 3D cores are quite similiar, a new r5xx 3D driver would help fix the r300 3D driver...

What will happen to Jerômes driver?

And will you be able to release yours now?

More than likely we'll abandon avivo..

I won't release my driver code as it has been surpassed in most ways, but I will be able to port some of my code into the new driver if required.

Please excuse if it's considered a rude question, but should will we have something to play with (testers)? I have 1 ATI card right now, and will be ordering a much better one to get rid of the Nvidia I have in my computer once a testing driver becomes available that supports one of the newer cards.

Thanks for all your work on this, it's a dream come true.

There will be a 2D driver release next week that will set modes, not much more.

The thing is it'll take probably 6 months to get something really useful out, but testers can start on whatever ends up in the git tree when it gets published.

It is really a great news that AMD has finally listened to the Linux community and did the right step towards open development of the drivers. What I would like to know is if all this also includes graphics integrated into laptops. There are many laptops with chips like Radeon Xpress 200m and similar. Is this also going to help here? Do they also provide all specifications and support for integrated graphics chipsets? Can we expect any big improvements towards open source driver for laptops?

These are the same as legacy graphics chips really, so there will be benefits for them from this deal, but not manpower or the like, as in now we can ask questions and expect answers instead of just guessing how certain things are meant to work..

We can probably also get powerplay and such things implemented...

The open source Xpress 200m chip should mostly work (except compiz) due to work I've done lately before this stuff went ahead..

How does the fglrx driver fits with this new driver?

thanks

So the plans are:
r200 and r300 -> will be improved
r500 avivo -> will be rapleced with new framework gived by amd/ati

And i forgot to underline that last message was an question :)

as I'm getting a new laptop in October I'm not sure whether I should try to get one with Intel GMA or ATI xpress.
power saving and Xorg features are the most importants aspects to me.

So does this mean you can also release some of the information you've collected on how XvMC is done with ATI drivers?

Hi,

Don't you think that putting all community devs under the same NDA is potentially dangerous ? Imagine there's a feature they don't want to be implemented in the free driver, they could block all of you from doing or talking about such code and we have no one left (with the required experience).
I know you understand me pretty well because you've already been bitten by this.

Xav

Daniel Stone just blogged that, apparently, there won't be much of an NDA for specs. Talk about good news !

This is great news! Especially since its the first (and so far only) real fact that corroborates their claims.

I do wonder about the 3d though... If they release to linux full specs so that we can write our own GPL'ed driver, and maintain that relationship, then its reasonable to expect that fglrx will, even if well maintained, eventually become an inferior driver, no? I just don't see the point in maintaining it in the long run, unless they intend to keep certain chip features private or something. Do you think we'll get full 3D acceleration out of these chips when all is said and done? Or are we going to end up with an open but partially crippled due to undisclosed chip features 3D driver?

80% performance with few bugs and no guesswork would be far better than what we get now, but it would suck if they intentionally hold back the 20%.

Will you have access to information that would aid in adding xvmc support to older (r100/r200) Radeons? How about the 'pixel shader assisted video deblocker'?

Thanks,

IIRC, the R100 supported some form of pixel shaders, which were exposed via some ATI-specific GL extension a long time ago. Would this information allow access to those features, to gain some pixelshading functionality on the r100 chips? (I have a Radeon 7500, I'm being hopeful. :))

Would you have access to their mobile chipset docs too? We could use some help with the w100 and w3220.

Matt