video card for amd64

[Mike Meyer]

In <200610191025.29016.jhb at freebsd.org>, John Baldwin <jhb at freebsd.org> typed:
> On Wednesday 18 October 2006 10:16, Mike Meyer wrote:
> > Yeah, the newest cards aren't supported. That's the R5XXX cards -
> > which were introduced about a year ago, *not* three years ago. Of
> > course, maybe you're focused on 3d support, which is missing for cards
> > using the R3XX and later chips.
> 3D support is actually quite important for many folks, if you don't need it
> you can just use the "vesa" driver with either ATI or Nvidia.

Actually, it's not quite that simple. The vesa driver - and the open
source nvidia driver - don't work properly with modern high-end
monitors. Nor could I get the nvidia driver to properly support dual
heads on a card that supposedly had it, though that may not be a
driver problem. Being able to use these things is actually quite
important for many folks. For them, the choice is either the
proprietary drivers, or the open source ATI driver (or trying the
also-ran manufacturers...).

I'd be interested in what applications "many folks" use that needs 3d
hardware support so badly they're willing to let it determine the
platform choice.

> > > > Whether releasing closed-source drivers for a handful of open-source
> > > > platforms qualifies as "supporting open source" is another
> > > > question. Clearly they're supporting the platform, but that's not
> > > > necessarily the same thing.
> > > At present the nVidia cards is the only choice for FreeBSD,
> > 
> > Not if you want to use it on something other than i386. That's why the
> > very first question I asked is the important one - what do you want to
> > use it for? For what I want it for, ATI is the only choice.
> > 
> > > no amd64 support but that is FreeBSD's fault not nVidia
> > 
> > Why is that FreeBSD's fault?
> 
> Because our kernel doesn't yet provide all the features the driver needs.

But it does for the i386? That seems really strange...

> I've added some of them, but mroe stuff is needed.  Nvidia sent out an
> e-mail a while back listing the things they need as far as kernel support.
> Given their willingness to do a driver and my interactions with both
> ATI (in the past) and Nvidia, I'd say that Nvidia supports FreeBSD much
> more than ATI at this point.  Note that ATI only opened up their documents
> for the older R2xx cards under an NDA to developers working for a company
> that was under contract to develop a driver, not out of the goodness of their 
> heart.  To my knowledge, Nvidia is not providing a FreeBSD driver due to a 
> commercial contract, but closer to "out of the goodness of their heart."

Where did the docs for the R3xx and R4xx cards come from? They didn't
get 3d support, but they at least got better support than the nvidia
cards.

	<mike
-- 
Mike Meyer <mwm at mired.org>		http://www.mired.org/consulting.html
Independent Network/Unix/Perforce consultant, email for more information.