video card for amd64

[Coleman Kane]

On 10/19/06, Mike Meyer <mwm at mired.org> wrote:
>
> 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.


Those cards, from my understanding came from the R300 project at
http://r300.sourceforge.net/. I do not know where a large amount of their
information sources came from. Eric Anholt [anholt@] has been a major
contributor for FreeBSD to the X.org/Mesa/DRI projects. I would recommend
speaking with him regarding these cards, future support, and what needs to
be done to get there.

I have a Gateway 7422gx with a Mobile Athlon64 and a Radeon 9550 running
FreeBSD/amd64 7.0-CURRENT. It works nicely... Check out
http://www.cokane.org/dokuwiki/freebsd/amd64_compatibility for some of my
personal experience (though it is a bit outdated).

--
Coleman Kane