On September 5th AMD announced that with the upcoming Catalyst 7.9 driver they will add Linux support for the Radeon HD 2000 series and other newer chipsets. They also announced that it will become open source and AMD is also going to disclose documention for the drivers to ensure developement support for other OSes.

Press Release: http://www.amd.com/us-en/Corporate/VirtualPressRoom/0,,51_104_543~119281,00.html

Christopher Blizzard's Blog: http://www.0xdeadbeef.com/weblog/?p=302

What does this have to do with Amiga? Well, once OS4 is relaunched it will be now able more than ever to fully optimize the latest batch of video cards.

@ReverseGTR

just a little note- they wont opensource the current drivers. they will provide specifications for all gpus from r500 onwards and provide a skeleton driver as well as a 2d driver. the drivers themselves will have to written by the opensource community.

/stone

@ReverseGTR

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What does this have to do with Amiga?

Nothing?

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Well, once OS4 is relaunched it will be now able more than ever to fully optimize the latest batch of video cards.

What's the point when there's no hardware (ok, I could stop here, but I'll continue) that works with the latest ATI video cards?

Of course the release MIGHT contain code that's useful for the drivers for older boards aswell...

And it wouldn't help the forthcoming MESA-based OpenGL implementation either (one of the things still missing from initial feature lists)

Last edited by Jupp3 on 06-Sep-2007 at 07:39 AM.
Last edited by Jupp3 on 06-Sep-2007 at 07:38 AM.

@stone

Hence why they as well as I specified it will be implimented for the upcoming 7.9 Catalyst driver, they are probably implying once it is out of beta. But aside from that, thanks for specifying which GPUs this will apply to. But thanks for alaborating on the fact that it will take time before a fully featured 2D and 3D driver is created.

@Jupp3

I am sorry if I may seem out of line for saying this but do you think I'm stupid?

Obviously, I know it only implies if OS4 is officially released once more with new hardware. However, this should not stop the current A1s users from getting a head start with these drivers considering there are plenty of AGP R500 core based video cards still being sold. And what would be AMD's motivation to suport Mesa when this upcoming ATi driver along with later GPUs will offer full fledged support on Linux or any other OS this will be re-compiled the possibility for supporting latest OpenGL itself?

As for it ever implementing Mesa extentions I only have three words to sum up my argument, open source drivers.

Last edited by ReverseGTR on 06-Sep-2007 at 08:15 AM.
Last edited by ReverseGTR on 06-Sep-2007 at 08:02 AM.
Last edited by ReverseGTR on 06-Sep-2007 at 08:01 AM.

@ReverseGTR

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Obviously, I know it only implies if OS4 is officially released once more with new hardware. However, this should not stop the current A1s users from getting a head start with these drivers considering there are plenty of AGP R500 core based video cards still being sold.

Well it sounds like you know better than I. Never bothered following "the latest specs" too much, but I guess I was wrong assuming there wouldn't be any R500 boards compatible with A1 AGP slot.

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And what would be AMD's motivation to suport Mesa when this upcoming ATi driver along with later GPUs will offer full fledged support on Linux or any other OS this will be re-compiled the possibility for supporting latest OpenGL itself?

Of course when AMD releases the specs, it's very likely that the open source community will code fully functional open source drivers based on the information, with OpenGL support, obviously.

But what I meant was that the release of the specs themselves probably won't help much with the OS4's OpenGL implementation. I just mentioned "MESA based" becouse that's the official word from the feature list for OS4 final.

@ReverseGTR

"Hence why they as well as I specified it will be implimented for the upcoming 7.9 Catalyst driver, they are probably implying once it is out of beta."

No. the release schedule for the open driver and specifications is entirely unrelated to the closed driver releases.

"And what would be AMD's motivation to suport Mesa when this upcoming ATi driver"

Open source 3D drivers in Linux are all implemented as part of Mesa. This one won't be any different, especially since the r500 3D core is basically identical to the r300 one.

@ReverseGTR

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Hence why they as well as I specified it will be implimented for the upcoming 7.9 Catalyst driver, they are probably implying once it is out of beta

you are confusing the fact that the 7.9 drivers will support linux and the fact that they are encouraging opensource development of a new set of drivers based on the specifications and skeleton they supply. the binary catalyst drivers will not be opensourced.

anyway, its definitely a good thing- also for the amiga as we will be able to get proper supported drivers for our platform of choice. most likely it will be at least a year or more until this results in a useful working set of drivers though.

/stone

@ReverseGTR

It'd be nice to see the open-source part from AMD themselves... I don't know who that Christopher guy is.

Even if that is true, it's only part of any Amiga-related story. Will an Amiga driver have to be open-source as well, or can implementations be kept closed? How does that affect availability of the Amiga API and driver development kit? Do the OS4 API guys want their API exposed by an open-sourced driver? If not, does this do us any good whatsoever? Hopefully someone is looking up answers to this instead of just talking about how great open-source is?

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@Jupp3

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Nothing?

Not now but had OS4.0 been released it would have paved the way for faster support of the higher end cards.

Which wouldn't have been a solution in itself - like you say hardware would have to exist too. ;)

Last edited by -Sam- on 06-Sep-2007 at 01:05 PM.

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@billt

Where is Helgis ?

@Kicko

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Where is Helgis ?

Who knows? Are he and Helge the same person?

He had a very high entertainment factor.

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@Jupp3

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What's the point when there's no hardware (ok, I could stop here, but I'll continue) that works with the latest ATI video cards?

1. Get things ready for when there is hardware. Why "wait" for ACK or SAM or whatever when some of us have workign AmigaOnes?

2. I have a PCI-Express X1950 Pro in my AmigaOne right now. I haven't tried it with OS4 yet as I'm still getting it up and running, need to get a keyboard/mouse as the wireless ones I tried are borked. But uboot displays fine. I'll find out more this weekend if OS4 displays on it. (I have a PCI->PCIexpress bridge adaptor from PLX Technologies) From my point of view it's a software thing, not a hardware thing. I'll have to try this with Prometheus and Mediator someday too, but my classic machines are not assembles either.

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@-Sam-

Yes they are one and the same.

Rude!

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@-Sam-

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Who knows? Are he and Helge the same person?

Here at AW.net I believe they are the same person. He wanted his Helgis account terminated but then came back under the Helge name anyway.

Over at amigans.net I think there is a different person that had the Helge account name before out Helgis got there, and he took the old Helgis name there, two people.

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@billt

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I have a PCI-Express X1950 Pro in my AmigaOne right now. I haven't tried it with OS4 yet as I'm still getting it up and running, need to get a keyboard/mouse as the wireless ones I tried are borked. But uboot displays fine. I'll find out more this weekend if OS4 displays on it. (I have a PCI->PCIexpress bridge adaptor from PLX Technologies)

That's something I didn't even think of, but I guess that that way you should be able to at least connect a new gfx card to A1. Definitely not optimal, but "with what we have".

Of course the "software side" is a totally different story, but now it makes more sense

A bit like using AGP riser with Efika. Sure, you can't get full AGP speed and PCI cards would do just fine. But the reality is that AGP cards are easier to find.

@Rudei

Ah! That makes sense.

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@billt

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Over at amigans.net I think there is a different person that had the Helge

That's why I stay here - it's less complicated. ;)

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@billt

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billt wrote: 2. I have a PCI-Express X1950 Pro in my AmigaOne right now. I haven't tried it with OS4 yet as I'm still getting it up and running, need to get a keyboard/mouse as the wireless ones I tried are borked. But uboot displays fine. I'll find out more this weekend if OS4 displays on it. (I have a PCI->PCIexpress bridge adaptor from PLX Technologies) From my point of view it's a software thing, not a hardware thing. I'll have to try this with Prometheus and Mediator someday too, but my classic machines are not assembles either.

Are those bridges available in general, or just in development kit form? I wouldn't mind experimenting a little, except all the newer cards that have AGP don't support AGP2x voltages, and all the bridge cards I've seen are expensive development kit models.

Hans

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@Hans

I've posted links to the bridge before. Costs about $500 I think. I'm pretty sure you'd want the "reverse" version, not the "forward". You might check with PLX to make sure www.plxtech.com This thing is a development kit for people wanting to use this bridge chip in a system design.

http://www.semiconductorstore.com/pages/asp/item.asp?ItemNumber=8111RDK-R

Some time ago olegil was wanting to make a cheaper version of this, perhaps with a switch to alow multiple PCI-Express slots instead of just the one, but I've never seen if that happened or not.

Last edited by billt on 06-Sep-2007 at 03:25 PM.

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@billt

You may have posted those links before. I remember seeing links to such hardware, but couldn't find them. It's way outside my budget so I'll have to wait until someone makes an Amiga with PCI-Express (if that ever happens).

Hans

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