xorg Digest, Vol 39, Issue 95

[Bridgman, John]

>>fgrlx won't build on current kernels.  End of discussion.

Corbin is talking about the NDA repository where we are working on open
source driver support in parallel with the IP review. We tried doing a
review and release on the documentation for the new engine, but after
two failed attempts decided to focus on initially releasing just the
information we need to make a good working driver (rather than all the
other capabilities we are not using yet). 

>>Which doesn't seem to be available to us Joe Lunchbucket folks NOW.
And I'm tired of waiting while the AMD support goes bass ackwards.  I
could run tvtime on an 9200SE just fine using the radeon driver, now a
new pci-e card, an HD2400-pro, cannot with either radeon or radeonhd as
driver, although the hd version seems stable enough at what it does do.

The support isn't going backwards, honestly ;) What is happening is that
we started the open source project a year ago and we haven't quite
caught up with the last 5-6 years of hardware introductions yet.

>>Since everyone recently is so busy with the intel stuff, is it
possible to buy a pci-e card with intel chips on it, say for under a
$150 bill now, or are they still motherboard only chipsets, which
because of shared memory, are generally frowned on because they won't
run an rtai kernel to drive machinery.  Those shared memory lags can
make the machinery dangerous.

Motherboard only so far.

>>I would like this 4 core phenom on an ASUS mobo, to be able to do the
things that an xp2800 and an AGP video card on my old Biostar board
could do.  The only thing I've gained for a $550+ investment is that I
can now run goggle sketchup which I couldn't before on the 9200SE.  

Right now the R5xx has pretty much the same support as earlier chips
(5xx support went in earlier this year) with the exception of TV out. We
are still having a tough time getting tvout to work on the new display
controller and will have to spend more time on it once we get caught up
with 3d.

>>But losing the ability to play anything that needs XVideo overlays
sure includes most of the video players extant.

Do you actually need Xv overlay or just Xv ? The general industry trend
is away from overlays and towards implementing Xv with Textured Video
processing using the shader core. 

>>Bearing in mind that cards with a separate connection to Con Edison
for power will probably not be considered here.  So, can I actually buy
(newegg/whereever) a video card (pci-e) that IS fully supported by the
available drivers?  
If so, what brand, model & where please?  

Any 5xx card (X1650, X1950 pro etc.) should work well if you don't need
analog or component TV out. Those are still resisting our attempts to
get them working.

>>My goggle foo seems inadequate for the task. (and if I knew who to
write an email to at ATI/AMD, I sure would, they are letting the lawyers
shoot ATI in the feet) 

You can email me, although note that this has very little to do with
lawyers and a lot more to do with making sure we draw the IP line in the
right place so that we can write good drivers while not accidentally
violating any of the agreements we have signed relative to other OSes.
The lawyers just ask "so, is it safe ?" and a bunch of our top technical
folks all need to nod their heads in the same (vertical) direction.