suggested xorg-compatible video HW for FreeBSD/amd64 ?

Adam K Kirchhoff akirchhoff135014 at comcast.net
Tue Nov 29 18:37:00 UTC 2011


On 11/29/11 13:19, Adam K Kirchhoff wrote:
> On 11/29/11 13:04, Jung-uk Kim wrote:
>>
>> I believe major hurdle is porting TTM but the future of this API is
>> not so bright.  In fact, X.org ATI driver uses GEM API now and it is
>> internally mapped to TTM calls by Linux DRM (aka "GEM-ified TTM
>> manager").  Unfortunately, as always, I don't see clear plans from
>> Linux/X.org developers.  I can only guess few possibilities.
>>
>> 1. Linux/X.org folks drop GEM-ified TTM and use native GEM calls.
>> 2. Linux/X.org folks drop GEM-ified TTM and use native TTM calls.
>> 3. Linux/X.org folks re-invent new wheels (again).
>> 4. No change.
>>
>> My guess is #1 is most likely scenario in the near future.  Even if
>> Linux/X.org folks don't do it, we may be able to implement it without
>> TTM because X.org ATI driver uses GEM API already and we do not have
>> AMD/ATI Catalyst driver for FreeBSD anyway.  So, I guess we have two
>> choices ATM:
>>
>> 1. Fully porting TTM, GEM-ified TTM, and KMS.
>> 2. Replacing GEM-ified TTM with GEM and porting KMS.
>>
>> BTW, I am not volunteering. ;-)
>>
>> Jung-uk Kim
>> _______________________
>
> Every conversation I've had with the radeon driver developers on the 
> matter, even quite recently, has led me to believe that TTM will not 
> be going away.  GEM is only appropriate for IGP GPUs.  Unless that 
> changes within GEM, I do believe TTM will be used internally on the 
> radeon DRM indefinitely.
>
> If I had to guess, I'd say that anyone on the FreeBSD side deciding to 
> get rid of TTM and use GEM only GEM for radeons would eventually come 
> to the same conclusion as the developers who have been working with 
> radeon hardware for years :-)
>


Correction.  GEM seems to be focused on Intel IGP GPUs.  According to 
one of the radeon developers on #radeon on freenode, even radeon IGP 
GPUs need something like TTM.

Honestly, I'm wondering how you came to the conclusion that future of 
TTM is not so bright... ? :-)





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