[Mesa-dev] new i965g pipe driver for Intel GEN6 (and later)

[Jose Fonseca]

----- Original Message -----
> >> Those are just ideas.  I'm open to discussion.
> >
> > The driver is disabled by default and needs to be enabled via
> > --with-gallium-drivers=i965.
> 
> I think a warning + maybe something like
> --with-gallium-drivers=i965g-unofficial might work,

If not, then I'd recommend s/i965g/x3c5g/ :)

Now more seriously, as long as this is actively maintained, and kept in a buildable/workable state without relying on significant thirdparty assistance, I have no objections against this being commited to master FWIW. 

It is very impressive what you achieved, from what I can understand, single handed.  But please bear in mind that, if left alone and without the backing of Intel, then this driver will most likely share the same fate of previous attempts.  I think that being educational will not be sufficient to justify its long term existence, when there is softpipe, and so many other open-source gallium drivers to learn from.

I think that a LLVM backend might make this driver to reach critical mass and self-sustainability.  There might be some challenges using LLVM for GPUs, and in particular 3D shaders, but I believe it is now clear to everybody that writing compilers is hard, and there is no bigger giant than LLVM, to whose shoulders we can climb.

Jose