NVidia and Linux Troubles 368
The following was written by Frank LaMonica, who besides his work to better 3D on Linux, I'm told he also plays guitar much better then me ;)
NVIDIA developed a driver for its TNT chipset that rendered indirectly through the XFree86 3.3.x X Server. That driver used a clone version of GLX that was developed by Terence Ripperda, was released with source code, but was, by NVIDIA's own admission, an interim driver intended as a short term solution. They placed information on their web site which announced their plans to release a DRI based driver at some time in the future. They recently made a joint announcement with SGI and VA Linux to publicize their upcoming binary only XFree86 4.0 compatible driver. Although the binary nature of their driver presents its own problems, especially with distribution, code maintenance, and support, we have to acknowledge that some companies believe their IP needs to be kept confidential in order to protect the interests of their owners. If customers trust that their interests will be maintained adequately by the vendor of their closed source software, the mechanism exists under Linux to allow that to happen. XFree86 4.0 has the capability to dynamically load binary drivers, so it is possible for anyone to develop a binary only driver.
A question was raised as to whether their upcoming binary driver was based on the Direct Rendering Infrastructure (DRI) which PI developed and that will be part of XFree86 4.0, or, if their upcoming driver would use its own, closed source, proprietary infrastructure. If NVIDIA creates its own closed source, proprietary infrastructure, that violates that basic premise of the open source paradigm - that the "road" which all users must use needs to be open sourced and freely available. An open source, "tax free" infrastructure is the only way to protect all of us from having any single company control key interfaces to diverse technology in a computer system. The MicroSoft model is not acceptable under Linux. If it were, we'd stick with MicroSoft - they are well funded, have a huge amount of resources, and represent a smaller risk to the end user.
The most serious danger to the open source community is the proliferation of a closed source, proprietary infrastructure. An obvious example of a problem caused by multiple graphics infrastructures is how to handle heterogeneous multi-head environments. A common infrastructure will allow multiple graphics devices to cooperate at run time. That common infrastructure had better be open sourced, or we'll find ourselves locked into a proprietary solution - and probably not one that we control! The DRI is fully open sourced, and was designed to be extensible. SGI actually helped to fund the DRI and a large part of its design was structured to allow future support for high end graphics cards. Many 3rd parties are developing drivers and adding infrastructure to the DRI. If the DRI doesn't support particular hardware in its current form, adding new graphics chipset support is considerably less expensive and time consuming that creating an entirely different infrastructure.
I was told by Jay Stocki, NVIDIA's software manager, that NVIDIA would not be using the DRI for its upcoming binary driver. If they have decided to use the DRI, or if they intend to release their source code, it would be nice to hear from NVIDIA directly so we can all know the answer to those questions.
This all just a ploy (Score:1)
As an IT consultant with a leading agency engaged in research into the "free software" phenomenon I am writing this because this kind of maneuvering is something I have seen many times before in the cut and thrust world of software. I hope that people involved with operating systems such as GNU or Linux aren't taken in with marketing hype and "vaporware" promises.
NVIDIA, according to certain sources I have, are in a lot more trouble than they appear to be, and as such have been trying for some time to find a solution to their problems. Their support of the freeware operating systems was one of the more overt business strategies they decided to implement in the hopes of becoming a market leader once again. This, as I have seen, was welcomed by the community as showing how hardware companies have finally come to believe in Linux and how their dreams of desktop domination were almost at fruition.
Unfortunately, this is not the case. The sort of maneuvering going on here is indicative of a shift in corporate strategy as NVIDIA discover that providing support for the freeware operating systems is at best a drain on their programming expertise and resources, and at worst a public relations nightmare as investors shy away from any company involved with "open-source", a dubious business model at best.
Mark my words, you will see less and less from NVIDIA on Linux as they attempt to sneak back into the lucrative and reputable Windows market. It's unfortunate for Linux, but from their point of view it makes sound business sense. Thank you.
Curious that's not what their website says... (Score:1)
From http://www.nvidia.com/Products.nsf/htmlmedia/softw are_drivers.html [nvidia.com]:
"The 3D support is for development on XFree86 3.3.5 only, and IS NOT a high performance architecture. The upcoming XFree86 X server 4.0 will use the Direct Rendering Infrastructure required to take full advantage of the RIVA processors."and
"There are source code and binaries available for download. The components being made available are:1. XFree86 X Server for NVIDIA NV1, RIVA 128, RIVA 128ZX, RIVA TNT, RIVA TNT2, GeForce 256.
2. Development Mesa/GLX module for 3D graphics support for RIVA 128, RIVA 128ZX, RIVA TNT, RIVA TNT2, GeForce 256."
Re:NVIDIA is not noted for their promptness, eithe (Score:1)
I bought a Voodoo and never had a problem with it under NT, 95 OR Linux.
When do these people realize they're in the business TO SELL GRAPHICS CARDS, not fund lawyers???!!! F*ck em. Don't buy their stuff.
Forget nVidia...go Matrox. (Score:1)
The 2D performance is excellent...but wait until you try the UTAH-GLX drivers with it. WOW! Outside of SGI's I have never seen any OpenGL stuff run really fast (except in games, I'm talking demos and stuff)...but now, with a G400 under Linux, it SCREAMS!
Wanna talk games? Quake III blazes. It's downright beautiful... UTAH-GLX makes all the difference. You can get Quake I and II to work as well, with a little hacking about (Zoid has promised to update them to work with the latest UTAH-GLX...).
nVidia dropped the ball...the G400 is -the- OpenGL card (under Windows -and- Linux). The performance kicks ass, and Matrox -has- delivered a lot of info to Linux developers (not all...the Warp microcode is sadly absent, but still..). Support Matrox...screw nVidia. If they wanna bet their business on vapour like the X-Box...then let them.
Re:Don't support NVidia (Score:1)
I've grown to want more than just this lousy 1600x1200 display
I've search through Google and the like, but all I've really found were posts like "Wait for XFree86 4." Is there any resource (preferably up-to-date
Re:Support those that support you? (Score:1)
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Ski-U-Mah!
Stop the MPAA [opendvd.org]
Re:Is Frank Biased? (Score:1)
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Ski-U-Mah!
Stop the MPAA [opendvd.org]
Re:Don't support NVidia (Score:1)
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Ski-U-Mah!
Stop the MPAA [opendvd.org]
Re:Don't support NVidia (Score:1)
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Ski-U-Mah!
Stop the MPAA [opendvd.org]
Re:How Unfortunate (Score:1)
Yes, I'd like to play Quake 3, but the current drivers make it a huge pain to try to do so, I can't get the quality of the rendering of the drivers in Windoze (or even software Mesa rendering), much less the frame rate. Yes, the DRI would solve this, but NVidia have truly become bastards about this. They lured in people like me with the promises of REAL support, but let us all down.
I used to want a GeForce, and would have bought one, but NVidia is not committed to anything but money and doesn't do anything special. I really have very little hope anymore for my TNT to have decent performance under Unix. At the time I bought my TNT, the only other possibility was a Voodoo which was just as closed as anything else and not having drivers _I_ could have used. Now, they've got DRI drivers released, as Matrox also has.
My next 3D accelerator is going to be a Matrox. At least with a Matrox I'll know the company is actually going through with what they said they would.
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Re:What about?FreeBSD (Score:1)
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3dfx is open (Score:1)
my vodoo3 works great for Quake3 in linux, is directly supported right now by Xfree86 4.0 DRI and GLX. Everything i need.
nVidia, WHO ?
Re:Our path is clear... (Score:1)
Screw NVidia!
Re:I feel betrayed (Score:1)
Damn it galls me to post a "me too!" comment, but, well, me too! I bought an nVidia based card (Diamond Viper 770 w/ TNT2) a while back, not solely because of nVidia's apparent stance towards Linux, but that was a definite influence. Now.. well.. I'm not in the market for a new card now, but one day I will be. If nVidia's stance is the same then as it is now, I can guarantee that they won't be considered when I decide what to buy.
Re:No DRI? what if you dont want lintel? (Score:1)
Re:what if you dont want lintel? clarification (Score:1)
of course its thier right to only release binary drivers too, but they should not expect much bussiness from me.
for everyone dismissing thier recomendation, that depends on their needs/ethics etc., not yours.
if nvidia fears for thier IP... (Score:1)
of course the company nvidia licenced from has no reason to care for nvidias problems, it does not hurt them at all and they may even use it to somehow try to get more $$ from nvidia...
Re:I'm buying right now - what should I get? (Score:1)
dont bet on any hardware untill the drivers actually are released. how do we know microsoft wont buy nvidia next week? after compaq bought digital, ill believe almost anything can happen there.
also, the only benchmark that really counts the application your using.
Re:This all just a ploy (Score:1)
At the time nVidia announced Linux drivers, their stock was ~30. It's currently 90. So what's the evidence that 'investors shy away from any company involved with "open-source", a dubious business model at best.'? None whatsoever. And hell, they've recently been tagged as the provider of graphics chips to Microsoft -- maybe you've heard of them? Rumor has it that company has pretty good financials.
More likely, nVidia's reticence regarding open sourcing their drivers is the desire not to give 3DFx any ammo in their patent lawsuit.
Re:I feel betrayed (Score:1)
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Re:What about?FreeBSD (Score:1)
which is why i'm ditching my TNT2 as soon as i can find someone to take it off my hands. I'll just pick up a VooDoo3, since I *know* it's supported right now.
NVIDIA's actions and SGI (Score:1)
Because SGI is banking on both Linux and NVIDIA, you would think that SGI would ask them to play nice.
I have a feeling that maybe things will change in the late 2nd or early 3rd quarter when SGI starts rolling out its new machines with NVIDIA cards.
Until that day, though, I guess we will all wonder where they stand.
No More nVidia for Me (Score:1)
This settles it. My next card will *not* be an nVidia card.
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Re:Why it's Closed Source (Score:1)
As a user who benefits from open source software, I'm disappointed that the full drivers won't be open sourced. As an nVidia stockholder, I'm glad. Only companies whose technology has nothing to offer are willing to open their drivers.
Re:Why it's Closed Source (Score:1)
They lose my recommendation (Score:1)
I'll be recommending someone else's cards next time.
Let me clue you in... (Score:1)
At least, that's the assumption. We don't know. All we know is that NVidia isn't using DRI to write their binary-only driver, which makes us wonder how the heck they're going to write the driver at all, and whether they'll provide source for any of it.
Re:We're all too quick to judge... (Score:2)
By the end of December (from the 3.3.3.1 driver faq AFAIR), soon, six weeks (http://opensource.creative.com/pipermail/emu10k1
They should either release what they have now and save further development for a subsequent release (as long as the first release of these drivers works; I don't mind a 5% loss in frame rate, or not supporting all the latest GeForce 256 extensions, but I do care if the drivers cause the X server to lock up or segfault, or if they terribly underutilize the hardware I paid for, as the 6/02/1999 and 1/06/2000 releases do). Requiring Linux-2.3.99pre2 and XFree84 4.0, for example, would be ok too) or be a bit more vocal about the development of these drivers (or post the current drivers to the developer section of the web site, so some gaming website can leak the drivers).
Re:This all just a ploy (Score:2)
As has been pointed out, what typically goes on with drivers for free operating systems is that the vendors provide specs to driver developers, who write the drivers for them for free. So much for being a drain on resources. If companies really want to compete for Linux market share, they can subsidize this development, but they're under no obligation to do so.
As has been further pointed out, the IP that is revealed is pretty much worthless to their competition, since by the time their competition could actually release a product based on that information, it would be obsolete. If they have such enduring trade secrets that 1) they would still be useful years down the road, and 2) their competition won't come up with them independently, they can pursue hardware patents. They really have nothing to lose by releasing their specs and allow better drivers to be written. They're just being dumb.
Company A has kick-ass hardware geeks and so-so software geeks. They come up with an impressive board and refuse to release specs, so it runs
I'm especially amused at your final suggestion that the Linux hardware market is less "reputable" than the Windows market. Go back to business school, and don't come back until you've learned something. Moron.
I wish you were, but unfortunately you're not. (Score:2)
A closed source video driver. So what? As long as the driver works, I don't care.
So a closed source driver will only work on supported platforms given the environment at the time of release. For example, if they don't support PPC, no PPC user can use their driver. If XFree86 4.1 has to break the modular driver API to fix some problems, you can't use XFree86 4.1.
An Open Source driver can be ported to unsupported systems. An Open Source driver can track bugfixes and API changes.
If it doesn't work, don't buy the damned card, buy another one from a different vendor that does work, or is open source, whatever your priorities are.
It looks like I will have to. On the flip side, if a company is not going to release open source drivers, they shouldn't be marketing their card as supported in Linux. A release of a binary-only driver on Linux generally means they have marginal support of Linux/i386, which is far from proper Linux support.
No manufacturer has an obligation to live up to the ideological dictates of the open source movement. Perhaps they may eventually be disadvantaged in the marketplace if they do not, but I'll let the market place sort that out.
True, but a manufacturer has a legal and ethical obligation to do what they say they are going to do. Otherwise it is fraud and false advertising. NVidia is on the edge here, if they start pretending they have Linux support without releasing Open Source drivers (or releasing binary drivers for every PCI or AGP Linux platform, which would be financial suicide for them to develop), they should be held accoutable.
Corporations should not be allowed to just do whatever they want with no fear of repercussions, either legal or social. So quit your whining.
Much of the problem here may be the the looseness and immaturity of the driver interface for XFree86. NVidia has a constantly shifting target, and I am sure Linux is not their highest priority. Thus the quality of their drivers is going to lag a bit.
One of many arguments for just releasing the source or proper technical specifications. Hardware manufacturers are on very tight margins, they can't afford to do justice to driver development.
Considering how long it took NVidia to get their Windows drivers to properly work with new motherboards, I would think they'd be happy to be relieved of the burden of having another platform to support binary drivers on. Open Source is just less work on the company. Hand a reference driver (a real one this time) to the XFree86 group, licensed under the XConsortium license, and I, for one, would be thrilled to buy their hardware.
Don't like it? Buy another card. Or sign an NDA, get the source code, and create and distribute (maybe even sell) your own binary only driver. (Has anyone ever done this, if not, why not? Aren't MetroX and OSS exampes?)
OSS? MetroLink (makers of MetroX) and XiG do this. Their drivers are expensive. MetroLink doesn't support many cards, and only supports i386 and Alpha. Xig supports more cards (and costs more), but only supports i386. Costs involved in NDA development (even if the NDA iself is free, which is rare) make it prohibitive for most individuals to do this. Your suggestion helps nobody.
Buy another card? Of course, that's what it looks like I will be forced to do because NVidia doesn't live up to its promises.
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Missed the point (Score:2)
I think Frank said the following would be acceptable from NVidia:
- open-source DRI driver (obviously)
- closed DRI driver
- open-source "different" driver subsystem
And I would wager he wouldn't have a problem with:
- open-source "different" driver subsystem with closed driver
What NVidia is doing, however, is:
- closed "different" driver subsystem with closed driver
(as far as we know at this point)
As you point out, this causes problems. NVidia cards won't play nice with other vendor's stuff in, for example, dual-head systems. Furthermore, NVidia users may not be able to take advantage of advances in XFree86 until NVidia gets around to porting their driver subsystem to the new stuff.
If other binary-only drivers are any guide, the driver and subsystem will be a piece of crap. Even if the new subsystem is really a good advancement, all the advantages will be overshadowed by the poor implementation (which we won't be able to improve in any way).
Also, and most importantly, any proprietary driver subsystem partially closes the entire system. If it comes to the place where you have to pay NVidia, sign an NDA, or whatever in order to write video drivers for Linux, then how can we claim that Linux is "open" or "free"? And, as Frank pointed out, if we wanted proprietary stunts like this, we'd just stick with Microsoft, who is a lot bigger and has a lot better proprietary support than Linux.
In the MS world, no one seriously suggests implementing a different/new way of doing graphics outside of GDI, DirectX, or OpenGL; the one company that has (3Dfx) eventually abandoned this plan. The reason is simple: no one wants to worry about whether their game or whatever is compatible with your particular video card's preferred graphics API, so the standards are a big win for consumers. Why should it be any different for Linux?
Not so with the G400... (Score:2)
Nope... (Score:2)
They make a big to-do about releasing 3D drivers for Linux. When the drivers are obtained, people find out that the sources to the same are obfuscated (Meaning that it's nigh impossible to fix the damn thing if there's a bug or make changes to the ABI for the acceleration support.) and it doesn't support DMA pathways, etc. (Meaning it is dog slow compared to 3DfX' drivers or the ATI Rage PRO drivers...) along with being buggy and unstable.
This is followed up by an announcement of a release of technical information about their chips. This was supposed to be a way to better write open sourced drivers for the chips. What we got was this unsupported Glide type library that was source obfuscated, broken, and DMA-less. Not any better than the driver that preceeded it.
Now, we find out they're trying to jam down our throats another pathway that is proprietary and the drivers are completely closed.
Not as nice a company afterall- seems they don't want to support us as much as they say they do.
As for the Creative drivers, I think they're bound by NDA so I don't think they can do much in this regard.
Re:NVIDIA blunder- indeed... (Score:2)
Various thoughts (Score:2)
Yes, it is NVidia's right to release binary-only Linux drivers, or even to not release any drivers at all. It would also be their right to not produce enough video cards to fill market demand, to produce cards with blurry video quality, or to produce only video cards to sell for $800 a pop. They don't do any of those things because it causes them to lose customers, and that's a big reason why they shouldn't keep their driver source code and programming specs a secret either.
NVidia is losing customers this way - and I'm not just talking about the die-hard Linux geeks like myself and regular Slashdot posters. I have a diehard gamer friend who bought a $350 DDR GeForce, had to return it when the hardware died quickly, and is planning to get a G400Max or G800 instead, because the limitation of having to play at "low" (below 1024x768) resolutions to get a high frame rate was outweighed by the limitation of having to deal with Windows every time he wanted to play Quake 3.
NVidia will be losing opening markets, too. Embedded devices and set tops are looking better and better, now that there's a good operating system to use with them. And while the TNT2 may be the chipset of choice for Windows, it just doesn't cut it compared to what Matrox, ATI, and 3Dfx will let you put in a Linux box. Sure, NVidia's next chipset will go in Microsoft's XBox when that comes out in 2 years, running an operating system "derived from Windows 2000". Does anyone believe any Microsoft promises made one year in advance anymore, much less promises made two years in advance regarding Windows 2000??? I've got this bridge I'd like to sell you...
But regarding the XBox, Microsoft didn't pick an NVidia chipset because they wanted to "cut a deal" and get NVidia to screw Linux users. They did it because NVidia has the fastest video cards available for current PC games, and has the fastest chip bar none for future high-polygon 3D games.
Yes, NVidia's heard the "open source is good for hardware manufacturer" line a thousand times already. They'll hear it a thousand times more before they get it, if that's what it takes. Matrox, Adaptec, Creative Labs, ATI, all of them were in the "we can't release our precious register specs" stage for some point, or for years. But we now have open source drivers for all of them for their leading products. NVidia will concede eventually; it's just a question of whether the resulting drivers will be supporting Quake 3 or Quake 5.
The fact that the NVidia modules won't be using DRI is important. It means they won't be benefitting from the kernel DRI support, from future improvements to the infrastructure (and even Windows closed source drivers don't see the speed of improvement that Linux free software does; Linux closed source drivers can only be worse than both), from things like multihead support as the article here mentions...
And most importantly to me, it means that we'll have a binary-only program banging directly on our hardware. That means NVidia owners won't be able to count on 100% Linux stability, that means SMP users will be even less likely to have bug-free drivers, and that means that security-conscious NVidia users will never be able to turn off module loading and direct memory access to prevent intruders from modifying the kernel.
Well, enough rambling. I guess from my perspective it's probably a good thing; if NVidia had good (read: nonobfuscated, using DMA, starting to use hardware T&L) open source GLX drivers for the GeForce (even if they hadn't been moved to DRI yet) I would have blown hundreds of dollars on a DDR card months ago.
I guess NVidia is out of my next upgrade... (Score:2)
Your Working Boy,
Re:Am I the only one that doesn't care? (Score:2)
Let me start with a simple statement: fsck Open Source!
Normally, I wouldn't care a bit about this, I have a G400 at home. But lucky me, at the university I've got a TNT2. One thing I can tell about the NVidia drivers: they are unstable as hell. The 2D driver is ok, but then again, I don't care about the 2D driver. The 3D driver is hell on earth. The only game I've run on this box is bzflag. Besides that, everything is pretty "normal" in house 3D applications. I was kind of waiting for the XFree86 4.0 drivers, which NVidia hinted were going to have source for them (mind you, real source, not the crap they spitted the last time), but it looks like it won't happen.
Why is it that I want to have source? Because if there's a problem with the dammed driver, I want to be able to take a look at it.
Why did NVidia release source? They did it as a publicity stunt (just like the one they have pulled with SGI and the one they pulled with the X-box). Nowadays you get some good press coverage if you put the words open and source close enough. Another reason they released source: "Quit bitching already! Here, have some source..." someone else already pointed that under normal circumstances, once "some" source is released someone will be able to improve on it, so releasing "some" source makes everybody happy... for a while. In this case it has not happened, because improving means "improving blindly", there's no specification to work with.
So there. fsck Open Source! That's what NVidia is saying. What would have happened if most of the people still refered to it as "Free Software" (assuming it was truly free) First of all, it would be pretty bold for a company to say fsck free software because that's easier to interpret as fsck freedom!, so they would just have to go with the alternative: ignore it, or play by the rules. There's no rules you say? It's their hardware, they get to do what they want? Ok, granted. But then stay out of the playground, will you NVidia? That way they won't show up as a possibility on the next batch of boxes we buy here, and I won't have to explain why I don't want cards that are faster on the paper but a PITA once you are actually using them.
What you mean, constantly shifting? The 3.3 series have been out there for quite a while, and the 3.3.6 in particular has been out for more than six months, IIRC. I wouldn't call that constantly shifting...
That's absurd. (Score:2)
Yeah, having Carmack working for free on drivers for your chip must really hurt your bottom line.
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Re:For varying degrees of "works" (Score:2)
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Re:For varying degrees of "works" (Score:2)
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driver reliability (Score:2)
Keep in mind that I haven't even /tried/ using it for 3D under linux. I don't play games under linux, I use my windows partition for that. If Sierra would port Tribes (or that nifty-looking Tribes 2) to Linux, /then/ I'd investigate further..
Lastly, for anyone who uses linux and doesn't have a card that does what you want under linux, write the manufacturer. Video games won't come to linux until the hardware support is there - especially FPS games. We need more drivers than just what MesaGL and Glide support.
Re:AA && DPS (Score:2)
Mostly usenet. For example, Jim Gettys said this. I can't find any sources. I don't think it would be a bad idea if anti-aliasing was available. It's useful ( for example ) for print-previewing.
DPS is also a good answer, though you do lose some remote-capability ( because it's implemented at the server end, you can only send it to an Xserver with DPS AFAIK )
Re:why? (Score:2)
The patents only apply to TrueType IIRC. So they could still do it with Type1. The real problems are technical. X has its own font-handling mechanism, and adding grey-scaling to it would require a rework of that.
BTW, you can add TrueTYpe fonts now, you don't need to wait. Redhat 6.x already supports TrueType out of the box, other distributions can support it via xfstt. Download yourself the Microsoft font pack, and your screen should look just fine.
Also, from what others have said, from an ergonomic perspective Antialiasing is quite bad. Well hinted fonts are preferable.
Re:This all just a ploy (Score:2)
I don't agree with this. The video card market is all about benchmarks, benchmarks, benchmarks. If your card produces better numbers, you are the market leader.
The fact is that most companies can not just simply say "Lets open source our code" without having to take a look at each and every product and make sure that there aren't restrictions on them doing that.
I'd agree that there's potentially problems with this. However, AFAIK, the nVidia drivers are based on the original XFree86 drivers.
If they simply open source it, they shoot themselves in the foot in terms of making that investment back because the competing companies (or local linux hacker) can learn of the methods, produce a similar (perhaps "better") version of the product
I find this hard to swallow. Is it really cheaper to hack at something a competitor wrote for completely different hardware than it is to rewrite it yourself ? It seems this only has merit if the company makes money through licensing its inhouse technology. In any case, they could always use a restrictive license which ties the product to their own hardware. I think a lot of this has to do with the fact that companies are scared of change. ( which is why they were also cautious about releasing hardware specs )
Most of the money making models around open source software center on profits through support and services.
or so the mantra goes. But this is a fallacy. Noone appears to be making real profits from support. The real profits come from selling hardware, which is what nVidia do. A video card is a bundle consisting of drivers and hardware. Bad drivers == bad video card ( or so the benchmarks, which drive sales, would have you believe ). The drivers are not sold seperately, they're part of the package which includes the video card.
Red Hat, VA, Caldera, etc can make money.
Of those three, I'd argue that only VA can make good money because they sell hardware. The others are trying to sell tiny little box sets, which isn't very profitable. The theory that "money comes from support" just isn't flying -- Linux users are usually both cheap ( why choose Linux over Solaris ? Cost. ) and self-sufficient, which makes them a bad support market.
Re:Download MS's Fonts, they DON'T suck! (Score:2)
nVIDIA Update Page (Score:2)
Okay, maybe I oughtn't reply to my own post, but... I've just uploaded the nVIDIA Rant Page [wgz.org], outlining my side of the story. I'll keep it updated and put some stuff in place to gather names and stories from other less-than-satisfied customers. Please spread it around.
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Re:We're all too quick to judge... (Score:2)
I'm a little tired of hearing "We'll have something for you soon" for the better part of a year. "Soon" has come and gone.
It's funny to watch something like the Utah-GLX project make such dramatic improvements in a week or two. Granted, you might pick their best weeks, but a handful of dedicated people doing this for fun or for a hobby are working some serious magic there -- and NVidia isn't. I don't expect kung foo voodoo (pardon the pun), but I do expect that my good faith in their promises will not be abused. Unfortunately...
Personally, I'm willing to give them the rest of March and all of April.
Maybe someone should start an NVidia tracking page? Drop me a line at chromatic@snafu.wgz.org, and I'll set one up, unless someone else already has.
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Why DRI is the right way to go. (Score:2)
Because it is an public, open-source system, generic problems across all graphics cards can be fixed. The common problems probably outweigh the specific problems by a huge margin.
If you doubt this, download the papers from www.precisioninsight.com, and skim them (there are too many too read, but an overview will give you the idea). They have solved problems with robust, elegant solutions, whose existence I would never have dreamed of.
Frank LaMonica is good to point out nVidia's policy at this time -- as nVidia can choose the correct path now with minimal loss-of-face. I have no problem if they want to release closed-source drivers, but if they think that they can release and maintain a closed-source equivalent of DRI and all the parts of XFree86 that are dependent on the DRI, they are almost certainly wrong. Precision Insight has the very best people in the world working on it's own interface, and years of time invested, and they are only just now able to release something that begins to work. Precision Insight can, and has, taken advantage of the goodwill of the rest of the open-source community -- amplifying their efforts many times. nVidia, if they turn their back on the DRI, will not be a factor on Linux.
Perhaps they don't care. Truly, this wouldn't bother me very much at all except that nVidia is wedded to SGI; and will pervert SGI's ability to work with Linux; and that saddens me greatly.
thad
Amen! Support Matrox instead (Score:2)
Too bad, NVidia, you're losing it *just like 3D fx did*. Do the words "those who can't remember the past are doomed to repeat it" mean anything to you?????
Amen (Score:2)
I can (sort of) understand their reasons, but, even simply as a consumer with no interest in any software philosophy over any other, I believe I stand far more to gain from truly open drivers than from a 5 FPS lead over the next best card.
NeoMagic got it, maybe NVidia will as well (Score:2)
NeoMagic came around eventually. Hopefully, NVidia will as well. Explain to them politely, by E-mail, why it matters and don't buy their product until they come out with open source drivers.
Re:what's the deal? (Score:2)
Re:I'm buying right now - what should I get? (Score:2)
NVIDIA blunder. (Score:2)
I think, as well as everyone else, this a HUGH mistake on NVIDIA's part. In the free market, someone is going to make a card is much like NVIDIA's, but not only does it have good drivers in Win32, but also in Linux/FreeBSD* (XFREE86 in general). So all people like me, who run both Win32 systems and Linux/FreeBSD systems are going to buy something else. Word will get around and soon NVIDIA cards will be something to be avoided. Voodoo and Matrox sales in the Linux/FreeBSD area will increase and continue to increase as the use of Linux/FreeBSD increases (Well, DUH!) because their drivers are Open Source and supported in the Kernel.
You might say to yourself, "big deal". Who cares if a handfull of Open Source people who run Linux/FreeBSD don't buy NVIDIA cards. Well, Linux/FreeBSD users tend to be the Alpha Geeks in their areas. I myself can get the company I work for to buy what I recommend. Why? I am a knowledgable Geek that knows his hardware. If NVIDIA does not satisfy me, I will recommend some other video card to the company and a lot of other people. Word gets out and NVIDIA loses a couple more sales. The same happens with other Alpha Geeks at other companies. Soon it starts to add up. Sounds dumb, but it happens. That is what word of mouth is all about.
NOTE: I speak of Linux/FreeBSD in this topic although it is about XFree. Support for the video card in the kernel is big step to getting max speed out of the video card. You can do all you want to XFree, but without support in the kernel it will not be the fastest it can be.
Stick with Matrox, they learned their lessons. (Score:2)
Matrox has learned two valuable lessons for the years.
Regarding #1, Matrox has learned. I am surprise how everyone talks about 3Dfx and nVidia when the G400Max holds its own against all but the latest nVidia GeForce (but scales better on newer processors from what I've seen). And the 2D and 3D image quality is #1 ... I'm sorry, but true (just look at a G400 at 1920x1440 screen and you'll agree too)! And Matrox actually supports ALL of the 32-bit color goodies where nVidia's supposive 32-bit color "superiority" lacks functions that are only in their 16-bit color mode. And Matrox tries hard to get speculation out of the public, and consistently denies any forthcoming product rumors until the chips are sampling and can be seen for what they are.
Regarding #2, the Linux/OSS Matrox developments, from an flexible frame-buffer driver to a well-respected GLX/DRI effort with top-developers is just a testament to the community Matrox has created by finally opening up. While they still require a NDA for something, anything and everything is availble to developers. And I'd say developers would rather see it all and have no help, then have some help with a lot of restrictions.
Just my $0.02 ...
-- Bryan "TheBS" Smith
Re:Last week I voted with my wallet (Score:2)
1) I bought a Linksys Etherfast PCMCIA 10/100 card (bought because of their excellent Linux support and encouragement of Open Source drivers)
2) I bought a Linksys USB 10/100 ethernet adapter (I can always run NetBSD on the i-opener)
3) Logitech mouse (I know, they don't open drivers on their bigger products, but I wanted a quality mouse that wasn't Microsoft)
4) Generic keyboard (three new keys? gonna check the scan codes)
5) PS/2 KB-Mouse splitter
6) Voodoo 3 3000 AGP.
The last item was almost an impulse (returned, open-box, and 20% off that for a total of $86...whee!). I felt good about the purchase, though, because I've had my STB Velocity 128 (nVidia RIVA 128, 4mb) for almost two years and am sick and tired of not being able to play any interesting new games. I can't play Quake III, Quake II is unplayable with the mouse, Parsec can't run without Voodoo, Heavy Gear II is coming, etc. It was a choice between the Matrox and the Voodoo 3, and the Voodoo won on price.
nVidia's support has been pathetic. I had copies of the old drivers, but I couldn't get the Quake III demo running. It seems obvious to me, just as it was a year and a half ago on my Windows game box, that if I want to play games, I need to get the best hardware. Direct X saved my RIVA 128 on the Windows box for a while, but nVidia isn't supporting DRI very quickly or well, so I've had enough.
I had bought the nVidia card because I wanted the best, most complete OpenGL support available in an economy card at the time. Today on my *NIX boxes, the Voodoo 3 will give me more complete support than the RIVA ever did.
I'm disappointed with nVidia and have voted with my dollars for companies that support Linux: Linksys and 3DFX.
Re:How it SHOULD work (Score:2)
If you have a Matrox G200, a G400, and ATi RagePro, Intel 810, RivaTNT or an S3 Virge, Utah GLX will support your card
I guess I'll be buying one of those then. Currently I have a Diamond Stealth III s540 16MB which develops unpleasant rubber banding problems under gimp. Enough to make it unusable in fact. From the UtahGLX mailing lists I note that several people have been trying to get S3 to release specs so that they can work on the Savage4 chipset. No dice so far apparently. I've also noticed several messages on comp.windows.386.x with people complaining about the rubber banding and freezing on Savage4/StealthIII implementations.
Basically it seems that manufacturers want to keep their hardware specs secret, they don't have too much of a problem if it's an older chipset (e.g. ViRGE for S3) but they perceive an advantage in secrecy for newer cards. The result of this is that their cards won't work for "advanced" functions such as GL and have weird glitches in ordinary, but intensive applications such as gimp. Result? A hearty recommendation from me not to buy a recent S3 chipset containing card - specifically the Savage chipsets.
My question would be, what is it that makes Matrox able to grok this and S3 not? Anyway, I'm dumping this thing and going for one of the one's you've mentioned. It might be useful if people went to The Linux Hardware Database [datapower.com] and gave their experiences and ratings of graphics cards. This site provides a nice tabular, user reviewed summary of hardware and it's obvious from the XF86 FAQ that "what card should I buy" is something lots of people want to know.
Re:Support those that support you? (Score:2)
Doesn't sound too friendly or hopeful!
Re:How Unfortunate (Score:2)
Probably not, but the fact of your asking will be priceless for the cause you espouse.
Microsoft gets away with its antics because consumers willing drop, bend, and forego the grease. Let NVidia know you're not going to do that for them.
--
Re:How it SHOULD work (Score:2)
Didn't we have a link a week or so back to JC's
[Forgive me if I remember wrong -- no FUD intended. I'm a happy G200 owner, and that's the conclusion I drew from whatever it was that I read.]
--
Re:This all just a ploy (Score:2)
nVidia is just another player. Since the release of their TNT chipset, they've always played dirty in the PR market.. Leaking specs that can't exist (the TNT2 is what the TNT was meant to be), buying out Tom Palbst.. 3dfx has been fighting back in the hype war as well.
The only two companies that make cards that I can respect are ATI and Matrox. They don't play the hype game, they're among the most Open Source friendly.. What do you know, they're Canadian to boot
I agree with you, nVidia should have taken some free talent in the Open Source arena. Hell, with incomplete specs, the Utah-GLX team has recently added stencil buffering to the G400 driver and the framerates are as good, if not better, then their Win9x counterparts. But nVidia made their bed, they have to sleep in it.
Re:why? (Score:2)
Why do they do this? (Score:2)
So, given that they have (wrong-headedly) decided to develop a binary-only driver, why are they developing one that will not support DRI? Multi-heading is a small issue (not that many people do it) but this seems calculated to piss people off. In a community where reputation is everything, nVidia is laying the tarnish on with a thick brush.
Re:Don't support NVidia (Score:2)
You know what the biggest impediment to reaching an agreeable spec for DTV is? Content producers want hardware layer copy protections, but the manufacturers don't want to put it in. Why? Because it costs too much and is technically useless....
--
Re:I don't understand the problem (Score:2)
-----------
"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
Re:I don't understand the problem (Score:2)
It's like saying "You can write your drivers anyway you like. But if you don't write them the way we like, we're going to boycott you. But, seriously, you can do whatever you like... no pressure."
-----------
"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
And here we are again... (Score:2)
Now we hear again that they won't open up on this. So? Nothing has changed, but more importantly, nothing has improved. In fact, it almost seems as if relations have gotten a little more strained... I'll be thrilled when *my hardware* works under linux with similar or better performance than it does under windows, but until then, there's not much that we can do. I've sent letters to Nvidia, asking nicely for them to open up and work with the community, take advangtage of the ready and willing people that will nearly do your work for you. Scratch their back, and they will scratch yours. Make them happy, and they will buy a GeForce DDR when they get a chance. Granted, most of the sales are through deals with OEMs and not individual purchases by the open-source community, but I'd think that any small effort to improve your market share would be a worthwhile one.
An increasing number of people using Linux and BSD these days are in the young, game playing market. Take advantage of this! Create even a little bit of customer loyalty. It's worked on me with Matrox. I'm leaning towards a G400Max instead of a GeForce. Why? It works with my setup, and it works *well*, the manufacturer has given support, and I give it back. It's as simple as that.
Our path is clear... (Score:2)
Vote with your dollars! Buy a G400Max (Score:2)
I'm sure that there's geeks at NVidia bitching to their superiors after reading this. and as much as the suits typically ignore their employees, I'm sure there's some marketting droid that's correllated the number of complaints they recieve relative to their sales growth for a given time period.
Me, I'm building my next linux box.. And sure enough, here I am shopping for a video card again. I got a TNT last time because of the promise of Linux support - and let me tell you, those drivers are just getting stable now (on the windows side). I think that they should disclaim on the box "For use with Quake III only". Quake accellerators, heh heh.
I look around, and ya know, I'm going to get me one of those Matrox cards. Their 2D is unparallelled, and their drivers are coming along nicely. I might even look and see if I can't help out that project. If matrox has great open source drivers, then more people will buy their cards - and umpteen million linux users can't be wrong. :)
Kudos..
No one cares about the bitching from the Linux cam (Score:2)
What I did: I thanked matrox for helping (Score:2)
Bcc: info@nvidia.com, emailsupport@3dfx.com
Subject: Matrox Millenium G400, NVidia and linux
Hello.. I've been a very happy linux user for the last 3 years. I am also
about to graduate. I appreciate that you've realeased most of the specs
for the Matrox Millenium G400 and worked on open-source drivers.
This was the primary reason I chose your video card to put in my new
system. As long as your company is the one with the foremost support of
linux and its ideals and you continue to make great hardware, I will
always be your customer and reccomend your hardware to my friends and
family.
Today it was announced that NVidia will be releasing binary-only drivers
for linux. I had slightly considered their video chipset as the one for
me, but they were beginning to show their lack of support of the ideals of
linux two months ago when I was to make my choice. With the recent
announcement, many people who had purchased NVidia's hardware specifically
because it appeared to promise support now feel betrayed.
I heartily encourage you to not make the same mistake.. Continue to
release specs and start to release the remaining specs that you've not yet
releasted.
Myself and many other young computer professionals are looking for a
company who fits with our ideals on open-source and linux. We may be a
small market now, but we will become much more critical as enter industry
over the next few years. Our purchases have been and will be dependent
on how well our software and ideals are supported.
Thanks for your great product, and thanks for your support.. Next time I
crack open my case to read off the serial number, I'll register the card
as a happy linux user.
nVidia chipsets and drivers. (Score:2)
Take they NV3 (the Riva 128). I have a Diamond V330 (using the Riva 128) for doing 2D things. Thanks to the closed-source drivers for windows, I'm forced to deal with strange region redrawing issues that have not gone away after updating it to the latest BIOS and driver. Under X, there is not problem because it is driven via an OpenSource X server which has been properly debugged thanks to its opensource nature.
For 3D, I have a Voodoo 2 which works fine in both operating systems (thanks to a nice quality commitment from 3Dfx, whom I will heartily recommend to people, alongside Matrox).
Conclusion:
There is no excuse for not including information on how to operate the product you are selling. If your products are so flawed as to be obviously broken from its interface, it shouldn't even be purchased in the first place. Let things stand and fall on their own merits.
---
No DRI? Some possible reasons (Score:2)
There is two small reasons I can think why they might go to all this effort. First, performance, if you browse through the Utah-GLX list, John Carmack has expressed concerns about the design of DRI and the memory and performance limitatons of it. His feeling is that the Utah-GLX's direct rendering design is more efficient that the DRI and maybe for this reason Nvidia is going their own way.
Secondly it could be a stop gap measure. The release notes for XF86 4.0 say that the API for the DRI is still not finalised yet and may still change. Maybe Nvidia doesn't want to support it until it's final so they are putting out their own high performance drivers in the meantime.
If in the end they do support DRI but with binary only drivers it's not that bad is it? As I understand the design of the DRI, you could use multiple cards together and upgrade kernels etc without having the source to the DRI driver.
Re:Am I the only one that doesn't care? / nope. (Score:2)
However; even if drivers don't have to be open sourced (IMHO offcourse) I can imagine that people are complaining if some drivers don't function the way they should. But that also depends heavily on taste I guess.
Ha-Ha! (Score:2)
I bought a G400 Max when upgrading my system and am glad I did!
Re:Am I the only one that doesn't care? (Score:2)
What i'm saying is that its going to be better for you to support open source drivers, because when something is wrong, some Godly wizard character like John Carmack (or myself!) is going to be able to fix it, and you now have 5 more FPS! It's very apparent what's better, and half-ass from any company is not good enough.
Mike Roberto
- roberto@soul.apk.net
-- AOL IM: MicroBerto
Nvidia connection to Microsoft (Score:2)
But is there a connection between Nvidia's sudden apathy towards the Linux community and their recent sweetheart deal with Microsoft to produce chips for the X-box?
Anyone remember when RealNetworks stopped putting out updates of realplayer for linux? It happened strangely after they licensed their realaudio codecs to Microsoft for windows mediaplayer.
NVIDIA's issue, and ultimately their loss (Score:2)
That being said, it is kind of sad that they would handicap themselves in this way. They deprive the end users of the ability to compile the driver for their platform's available optimization. They will release their drivers after all other upgrades for XFree86 are available. And it is quite likely that their drivers will not work as well as other platforms under {free,net,open}BSD and linux.
Also, I've now seen things like the guy at U Michigan who hacked the ATI Mach64 driver [linuxvoodoo.org] for his Mobility card to get XFree86 working with something other than the VFB driver. Nice work if you can get it from your users.
Not for Nvidia. I hope this is not the demise of their drivers.
Is Frank Biased? (Score:2)
It bothers me to hear people chime in and complain about nVidia not supporting the DRI being anti-open-source. The DRI itself does not require that chip specifications be open-source for the very purpose of allowing IHVs to protect their IP. It seems that problem that Frank LaMonica has with nVidia is that they are not using "his" infrastructure. That may be a reasonable complaint in terms of multimon support and other interoperability issues associated with multiple heterogeneous graphics accelerators -- that issue will certainly need to be addressed. I don't think the answer should necessarily be that every IHV must use the DRI.
What is really disappointing to me is that nobody seems to take notice that nVidia is one of the few companies actually putting heavy resources into STRONG OpenGL drivers. They provide excellent documentation, examples, and whitepapers, for the extensions they support and useful rendering techniques. Other companies have generally let their OpenGL drivers fall by the wayside, instead devoting most of their time to Direct3D drivers. They farm out the OpenGL driver development to external parties or the open-source community because it is cost effective. If they had a genuine commitment to doing the "right thing" then they would have been devoting real resources to OpenGL all along.
Don't let the distinction between whose driver infrastructure is being used confuse the issue of which companies are actively supporting open standards, open-source products, and which ones are just releasing their specs and letting other people do their work.
I'm not knocking the companies that have released their specs! If they don't have the resources to develop OpenGL drivers for their hardware, I'm ecstatic that they're letting somebody do it for them.
Cass Everitt [mailto]
-----
http://www.r3.nu/ [r3.nu]
My question (Score:2)
What does matter to me is that it is fully OpenGL compliant, and that I can get performance at least as good as in Win32 on some of those shiny new OpenGL games like UT, QuakeIII, and Heavy Gear.
And, as has been mentioned before- Carmack has his own reservations with DRI vs. Utah GLX. Having used Utah GLX for my TNT board, it's excellent. The only slow-down was a form of direct hardware access. Maybe nVidia, SGI, and VA Linux (Since they are all apparently working on the nVidia drivers) have a superior design to XFree4's - and will opensource it "when it's done."
Who knows? Maybe we will end up with 3 (or more) alternate direct-rendering systems- which will benefit the OpenSource community in much the same way the KDE vs. GNOME wars have: By providing alternate ways of doing things, and providing the source on how to do it. That way a superior design can get accepted, and a inferior one washed aside. And as long as they are 100% OpenGL compliant, that's just fine by me.
Netscape was closed-source once too... now we have Mozilla. And Netscape didn't profess the love for OSS that nVidia does. I'll take what I can get for now, and worry about improvements later (either from PI, or UtahGLX...)
Re:NVIDIA blunder. (Score:2)
ATI went Open Source because they lost a big design-in at a PC maker (forgot which) who wanted to make sure their boxes could run Linux. At the time, nVidia was making pursuasive Linux noises, and they got the contract.
So the fastest way to enable the Linux market, especially for a company not known for being the performance leader, was to embrace Open Source. It sure sped ATI's ramp.
The big question is whether PC makers will listen to the Open Source message, or nVidia's binary driver message. At the moment, unfortunately I suspect the latter. Though by funding Precision Insight, Matrox, ATI, and 3dfx have the best of both worlds - Open Source and "corporate-tuned" device drivers.
Feeling Cheated..... (Score:2)
Trying to please Microsoft ? (Score:2)
If that's the case then I wonder if it might be more productive to try and persuade Creative labs to release open source drivers for their cards, or would Creative be limited by license agreements with Nvidia ?
Assumes XBox will do well- bad assumption. (Score:3)
BOB.
WinCE.
The Actimates toys.
Each of these is either a qualified or unqualified failure in the marketplace. I'm pretty sure there's lots of others and people can point them out (by the way, please do!).
Any idea as to how brutal the console games marketplace is?
Any idea as to how razor thin the margins on the hardware is?
Do you honestly think that Sony, Sega, and Nintendo are going to sit still while MS tries to muscle into their market?
In reality, NVidia might be set for the next 2 years- but most likely, like many of MS' offerings, it's going to flop or end up like their reference chipset for Direct3D ended up being (vaporware, for those who don't know what happened there...).
Re:This all just a ploy (Score:3)
As the market leader, they don't appear to be in any trouble. So that's a somewhat vacuous claim.
Unfortunately, this is not the case. The sort of maneuvering going on here is indicative of a shift in corporate strategy as NVIDIA discover that providing support for the freeware operating systems is at best a drain on their programming expertise and resources, and at worst a public relations nightmare as investors shy away from any company involved with "open-source", a dubious business model at best.
Sorry to debunk your fantasy, but this is the opposite of the truth. Who are nVidia losing business to ? All their competitors are moving towards , not away from supporting OpenSource software. So if it's a "public relations nightmare", it's one that they share with all of their competitors. If supporting Linux is proving costly, you'd think they'd release the source to their drivers, and recruit some free labor. Why spend money on developing drivers when someone else can do a better job for free ?
Mark my words, you will see less and less from NVIDIA on Linux as they attempt to sneak back into the lucrative and reputable Windows market.
This comment presupposes that nVidia are no longer "in" the "lucrative Windows market". To which I can only say "ha ha ha ha ha ha" ...
Am I the only one that doesn't care? (Score:3)
I am sure that NVidia has been made sufficiently aware of the arguments for and against open sourcing their drivers. They have chosen (for the most part) not to. Quitcherfrigginbitchin and live with it.
Much of the problem here may be the the looseness and immaturity of the driver interface for XFree86. NVidia has a constantly shifting target, and I am sure Linux is not their highest priority. Thus the quality of their drivers is going to lag a bit.
Don't like it? Buy another card. Or sign an NDA, get the source code, and create and distribute (maybe even sell) your own binary only driver. (Has anyone ever done this, if not, why not? Aren't MetroX and OSS exampes?)
-josh
Yet another downside to binary-only (Score:3)
What I often wonder is why hardware manufacturers can't just streamline the damn hardware interface so that the drivers don't tell what's going on inside! I talked with an Nvidia rep a while ago at a career fair, and he dropped hints that that was where they were headed-- and that future chipset drivers would of course have source-- but it seems they're still not taking the need for source-available drivers into their hardware design.
I'd at least hope they eventually release the driver source, once the GeForce/Quatro is old stuff, although the fact that they aren't using the DRI means a lot of work still remains to be done-- and since drivers like these are supposedly not easy to hack on, and their value then will be much less than it is now, it's likely we may never see a properly designed, source-available driver for our Nvidia hardware. Grrrr!
Re:Nvidia Contact Info (Score:3)
Where is this campaign originating from?
Short and sweet eh? I thought I'd written him a pretty civil letter explaining cogently what the problem was. Anyone else had any feedback?
Nvidia Contact Info (Score:3)
* You're an advid Linux User that supports OpenSource.
* That the Linux Effort at Nvidia could be done better if it were a collaberative Open effort involving Computer Professionals around the world.
* Other compeditors offer Open Solutions that you'd be more that happy to purchase.
* Binary Linux drivers do you no good when release of drivers is slow or (on older products) non-existant. Will there be a linux driver that works for your GeForce in 3 years???
* Be Polite
* To the point. Not too much tech. These are PR people.
Public Relations:
Derek Perez
3535 Monroe Street
Santa Clara, CA. 95051
Tel: (408) 615-2630
Fax: (408) 557-1200
E-mail: dperez@nvidia.com
Rich Black
3535 Monroe Street
Santa Clara, CA. 95051
Tel: (408) 615-2772
Fax: (408) 557-1200
E-mail: rblack@nvidia.com
Investor Relations:
Mary Ann Allencourt
3535 Monroe Street
Santa Clara, CA 95051
Tel: (408) 615-2750
Fax: (408) 615-2777
E-mail: mallencourt@nvidia.com
Support those that support you? (Score:3)
And then send a note to NVidia, "Hi, I wanted to buy your card, and although the promise of Linux drivers is tempting, I need to use it now."
You guys have enough to complain about; do you really want the "Linux community" to be characterized by whiners? :-).
How Unfortunate (Score:4)
I bought a TNT2 card for my machine, based on NVidia's actions at the time -- they were doing the Right Thing (my opinion, anyway). Then, the obfuscated code came, and the releases slowed. Finally in January they released a newer driver. Yes, it gave me 32 bit color, but the 3d performance was atrocious, and the Utah-GLX folks couldn't make much headway with the munged code. I waited for XFree86 4.0, though, believing that NVidia would make right, releasing a decent driver that took advantage of nice things like DRI.
Now it's not completely certain that they'll ditch the standard pipeline in XFree86 4.0, but the tone of the article suggests that. I wonder if I can talk them in to buying back my card. Matrox is looking better and better all the time. Sure, maybe NVidia gets better benchmarks, but when the company cannot put out drivers that let me run Q3 and will not put out drivers that the community can improve, well, they've lost the right to have my business.
Anyone with me?
--
The OpenSource as I see it (Score:4)
Last week I voted with my wallet (Score:4)
1: Linux and Open Source support
2: Image quality
3: Decent 3D performance
4: Legacy support (liftime for THIS card)
Some card based on the nVidia TNT2 would have been a STRONG contender, and a great price/performance choice. I might even have tried to spring for a GeForce, especially an SDR after DDR became The Next Great Thing.
But I want Open Source drivers. I want the responsiveness of the community. I want the chance to fix it myself. (If/when my employer clears up the IP issues.) I don't want drivers coming out on/behind the Windows driver schedule.
Precisely because of Open Source, nVidia just lost a sale, and Matrox gained one.
Why it's Closed Source (Score:5)
The AGP DMA technology their cards use is licensed from this other company (forgot their name). They signed an NDA to get this technology. DMA plays a huge roll in a 3D card's driver, ESPECIALLY if its AGP. Its the element that lets it pipe information right from memory to the AGP Card (Ex: buffering textures in system memory, and various other good things). To put it bluntly, what makes these cards so fast is their ability to effectivly use DMA. It gives them about a 400-600% speed boost.
Why did they license the technology out you ask? Why were they so lazy, why didn't they just develope it themselves? Simple: Why spend an extra 3 months developing your own technology when its cheaper to just license it out. You grab your license, encorperate it into your product, and you get your card to market faster, beating out the competition. That = more $$$. It was a perfectly logical choice for them (as far as business goes).
Another reason why is becaue Nvidia wants the linux/Opensource "buzzword". That buzzword in your business stratagy goes a long way. Its powerful enough to raise stock prices.
What should you do? This is what I would do:
Tell Nvidia bluntly in a polite manner that what they're doing goes completely against Open Source and infact DESTROYING the fabric of it. Raise a stink. You might even want to go as far as a boycott. Then take note at "model" companies like Matrox and others, who are opening their specs up.
They will listen, even if you only account for 5% sales. 5% is alot.
You should also see who supplied Nvidia their DMA technology, and talk to them about letting nvidia opensource it. Remember, Nvidia isnt the only "bad guy" here.
Taken from utah-glx.sourceforge.net/faq.html:
Here's where the problem lies: While nVidia "opened" up and came out with the X server and glx mod for
their cards, they havn't "opened" up their specs. We can do stuff to the code they have given us sure, but
the problem is we don't know how to do stuff like do AGP/DMA i/o with the cards. They havn't told us how to
talk to the cards and do this. They have released their "Resource Manager" (this is what a nVidia
programmer termed as in an email to the glx-dev list) which is basicly a layer of software that you can
communicate to the cards and do stuff AGP/DMA i/o (or at least that is what I've gathered. Would I be
wrong in saying it's kind of like Glide for the Voodoo cards, but even more low-level?)
really big but), not only have they released it as preprocessed (ie. they made it nearly impossible to be of
any real use to linux hackers without spending a lot of time reverse engineering it.), but also as a kernel
module that I have yet to hear of a single person being able to compile/run (I've tried too)
Sorry about the gimped out pasting, blame Netscape
Don't support NVidia (Score:5)
Anyway, now I am becoming very interested in the reasons why Matrox has apparently not released all the specs for their cards, either. Fortunately, the 3D portions seem to all be there, but portions relating to DVD playback do not appear to be open (big surprise). Also, my card has the ability to do TV-out, but there are apparently some problems with releasing information about that. Somethig to do with that annoying MacroVision copy protection, I guess, but I don't know why I should be forced to copy protect my desktop....
Anyway, Matrox is still doing a great many Good Things for the Linux/Free Software community, and I am very grateful.
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Ski-U-Mah!
Stop the MPAA [opendvd.org]
That's a bunch of bunk and you know it. (Score:5)
We didn't present any drain on their programming or engineering resources of those companies- we just asked for the register level interfaces from them. They gave them to us and we produced drivers for their cards that work quite well for most things. In some situations, the drivers are faster than the Windows equivalents. In most situations, we're more visually correct than the Windows equivalents- less lighting screwups, etc.
To be sure, we're nowhere near done yet with these chipsets' drivers, but I don't see where it was a PR catastrophe or a drain on anyone's budget. NVidia chose to do a watered down, obfuscated release of source to a broken, buggy driver for their chipset. This is not the same as what the others have done- and it's not good enough by a longshot.
Save the FUD for posting on ZDNet- they want it, we don't.
I feel betrayed (Score:5)
Thanks
Bruce Perens
For varying degrees of "works" (Score:5)
Can you define "works" for us? Does that mean "works today," or "works next year?" How about "Works with any distribution" or "works in a specific environment?
Works for what architecture? Works with which games? Works with which X server?
All it takes is a quick little glance back to the Windows drivers that "work" to see that this is not the road I want to go down. (Hey, here's a new 4.14prerelease-Asubrev2 driver! Works great for shadows, but has some dithering problems! To install, just edit your registry this way, delete these system files, then reboot! Oh, and it only works with UltraGame patchlevel 3!")
No thanks. Binary doesn't "work" for me anymore.
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How it SHOULD work (Score:5)
A mailing list is started and bunches of expert hardware hackers pound on the code, improving it to a very usable state in a matter of months. Sometimes progress is slow, but that's OK because everything is open souce, and if you wanted things to speed up, you could help. In less than a year, and helped along by major OpenGL vendors releasing more information, the low level driver is extremely usable, stable and fast. The project also expands to include other chipsets and manages to incorporate 3DNow, MMX and SIMD capabilities.
Fantasy? No, I'm talking about the Utah GLX [sourceforge.net] project which has more or less followed the pattern I've described above. If you have a Matrox G200, a G400, and ATi RagePro, Intel 810, RivaTNT or an S3 Virge, Utah GLX will support your card as a loadable module under XFree 3.3.x. Matrox support is so good that my G400 can run Quake 3 at between 50 and 60fps on a Celeron 400 machine.
Now I'm not at all clear whether the GLX module as it stands will just plug directly in to XFree 4.0. I suspect not. But if I have to wait a bit for it to be integrated, I'd much rather do that than get a card with binary only drivers that won't support the spirit (and the letter) of the new DRI.
Sometimes all it takes is a bit of patience. It can be irritating to hear GeForce owners boast about their frame rates. But if everyone's willing to contribute to the open source way of doing things, we'll end up with better drivers, better support and also encourage the current development teams that they're doing The Right Thing - which they are.
Nvidia's drivers will have strong points (Score:5)
However, there are only a half dozen coders working part time on utah-glx, and we are split among three active chipset trees. Nvidia has more people than that working full time exclusively for their chips. We are pretty good. So are they. We can work from specs. They can go interrogate the designer of the hardware. It's a pretty simple equation - I expect their driver to be better than our drivers.
Nvidia is working to maintain a common source base between their windows drivers and their linux drivers. Bugs tracked down by the order of magnitude more windows users will be fixed automatically in the linux version.
DRI does not have all of its problems solved, and there are valid reasons for them to not use it. They might change their mind later.
It should be remembered that some people want to do 3D graphics on linux and don't care about open source principles. Most of the people coming from a technical workstation background just want a vendor to deliver a tool to help them get their work done. I also suspect that most game players will choose a faster driver, even if it is closed source.
The choice isn't between making their driver open source or closed source. They CAN'T open source it because of legal encumbrances on the code. The choice is between doing a closed source driver with their existing code, and doing a completely new driver. Not too many people get excited at the prospect of rewriting perfectly good code.
If you care about getting open source drivers, support Matrox, 3dfx, or ATI. They have released specs to the community, and put out cash for PI to develop and support DRI drivers.
If you just want good 3D, I think nvidia will satisfy you. As for not being done yet, it hasn't been that long since Xfree 4.0 shipped.
John Carmack