This can do nothing but good
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| Scott_Ruecker Jun 19, 2008 7:24 PM EDT |
Whether or not you like or use ATI this is good for Linux and FOSS in general. What used to take months, now only takes days if not the same day when they release new hardware. 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? |
| jacog Jun 20, 2008 12:50 AM EDT |
>> Who am I imitating? Depends... are your armpits really sweaty? Do you look like you are about to have a heart attack and die? |
| thenixedreport Jun 20, 2008 1:15 AM EDT |
Quoting:Do you look like you are about to have a heart attack and die? That's funny. |
| tuxchick Jun 20, 2008 7:13 AM EDT |
Or a gorilla in a suit. |
| azerthoth Jun 20, 2008 9:10 AM EDT |
"Grape Ape, Grape Ape" |
| rgviza Jun 20, 2008 12:21 PM EDT |
>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 |
| jdixon Jun 20, 2008 12:34 PM EDT |
> If not, ATi will begin to slowly and inexorably crush nVidia's market share. You say that as if it's a bad thing. :) |
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