Free and open-source graphics device driver: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 15:10, 1 March 2024

Revision as of 15:11, 1 March 2024

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*R200 supports the [[Radeon R200|R200]] series.

*R300g supports pre-[[unified shader model]] microarchitectures: [[Radeon R300|R300]], [[Radeon R400|R400]] and [[Radeon R500|R500]].

*R600g supports all [[TeraScale (microarchitecture)|TeraScale (VLIW5/4)]]-based GPUs: [[Radeon R600|R600]], [[Radeon R700|R700]], [[Radeon HD 5000 Seriesseries|HD 5000 (Evergreen)]] and [[Radeon HD 6000 Seriesseries|HD 6000 (Northern Islands)]].

*Radeonsi supports all [[Graphics Core Next]]-based GPUs: [[Radeon HD 7000 Seriesseries|HD 7000]], [[Radeon HD 8000 Seriesseries|HD 8000]] and [[AMD Radeon Rx 200 Seriesseries|Rx 200]] (Southern Islands, Sea Islands and Volcanic Islands).

An up-to-date feature matrix is available,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://xorg.freedesktop.org/wiki/RadeonFeature|title=Radeon Feature|access-date=15 November 2017}}</ref> and there is support for [[Video Coding Engine]]<ref name="VCE">{{cite web |url=http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/mesa-dev/2014-February/053203.html |title=initial VCE support in Linux kernel and in the Mesa driver|date=4 February 2014 }}</ref> and [[Unified Video Decoder]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/dri-devel/2014-February/054159.html |title=drm-next-3.15 Feb 18|date=18 February 2014 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/dri-devel/2014-March/054999.html |title=drm-next-3.15 Mar 04|date=4 March 2014 }}</ref> The free and open-source Radeon graphics device drivers are not reverse-engineered, but are based on documentation released by AMD without the requirement to sign a [[non-disclosure agreement]] (NDA).<ref>{{cite web |url=http://developer.amd.com/resources/documentation-articles/developer-guides-manuals/ |title=AMD Developer Guides |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130716090237/http://developer.amd.com/resources/documentation-articles/developer-guides-manuals/ |archive-date=2013-07-16 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.x.org/docs/AMD/ |title=Documentation provided by AMD}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.botchco.com/agd5f/?p=58 |title=AMD 3D Documentation list |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131007021913/http://www.botchco.com/agd5f/?p=58 |archive-date=2013-10-07 }}</ref> Documentation began to be gradually released in 2007.<ref>{{cite web |url = https://lwn.net/Articles/248227/ | title = AMD to open up graphics specs |publisher=[[LWN.net]] |date=2007-09-05 |access-date=2014-07-15}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=NjA0Ng |title=AMD: GPU Specifications Without NDAs! |date=2007-09-10 |access-date=2014-07-15}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://airlied.livejournal.com/50613.html |title=AMD hand me specs on a CD |author=David Airlie |date=2007-09-13 |access-date=2014-07-15 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121022064328/http://airlied.livejournal.com/50613.html |archive-date=2012-10-22 }}</ref>

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[[Nvidia]]'s proprietary driver, [[Nvidia GeForce driver]] for [[GeForce]], is available for [[Windows]] [[x86]]/[[x86-64]], [[Linux]] x86/x86-64/[[ARM architecture|ARM]], [[Mac OS X Leopard|OS X 10.5]] and later, [[Solaris (operating system)|Solaris]] x86/x86-64 and [[FreeBSD]] x86/x86-64. A current version can be downloaded from the Internet, and some Linux distributions contain it in their repositories. The 4 October 2013 [[Software release life cycle|beta]] Nvidia GeForce driver 331.13 supports the [[EGL (API)|EGL]] interface, enabling support for [[Wayland (display server protocol)|Wayland]] in conjunction with this driver.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.nvidia.com/object/linux-display-amd64-331.13-driver.html |title=Support for EGL on 32-bit platforms |date=2013-10-04 |access-date=2014-07-15}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.archlinux.org/packages/multilib/x86_64/lib32-nvidia-utils/files/ |title=lib32-nvidia-utils 340.24-1 File List |date=2014-07-15}}</ref>

Nvidia's free and open-source driver is named nv.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://xorg.freedesktop.org/wiki/nv|title=X.org nv driver page|date=2013-05-20}}</ref> It is limited (supporting only 2D acceleration), and [[Matthew Garrett]], [[Dirk Hohndel]] and others have called its source code confusing.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://cvsweb.xfree86.org/cvsweb/xc/programs/Xserver/hw/xfree86/vga256/drivers/nv/Attic/README.RIVATNT.diff?r1=1.1.2.2&r2=1.1.2.3&hideattic=0&only_with_tag=xf-3_3_3 |title=Patch by Dirk Hohndel |date=1998-11-18 |access-date=2014-07-15 |quote=... opposed to such obfuscated code. We do not regard this as free software according to our standards |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140201173132/http://cvsweb.xfree86.org/cvsweb/xc/programs/Xserver/hw/xfree86/vga256/drivers/nv/Attic/README.RIVATNT.diff?r1=1.1.2.2&r2=1.1.2.3&hideattic=0&only_with_tag=xf-3_3_3 |archive-date=2014-02-01 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://phd.mupuf.org/files/xdc2011_slides.pdf |title=Nouveau – The community & past, current and future developments |date=2011-09-13 |access-date=2014-07-15}}</ref><ref name=killing-kittens>{{cite conference |author=David M. Airlie |date=2006-07-19 |title=Open Source Graphic Drivers&mdash;They Don't Kill Kittens |book-title=Proceedings of the Linux Symposium Volume One |___location=[[Ottawa]], Ontario, Canada |url=http://www.linuxsymposium.org/2006/linuxsymposium_procv1.pdf |access-date=2007-01-28 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070208084233/http://www.linuxsymposium.org/2006/linuxsymposium_procv1.pdf |archive-date=2007-02-08 }}</ref> Nvidia decided to deprecate nv, not adding support for [[GeForce 400 Seriesseries|Fermi]] or later GPUs and [[DisplayPort]], in March 2010.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=nvidia_kills_nv&num=1 |title=Nvidia deprecates "NV" |publisher=[[Phoronix]] |date=2010-03-26}}</ref>

In December 2009, Nvidia announced they would not support free graphics initiatives.<ref name="NvidiaNouveau">{{cite web |url=https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=NzgwNQ |title=Nvidia's Response To Recent Nouveau Work |publisher=[[Phoronix]] |date=2009-12-14}}</ref> On 23 September 2013 The company announced that they would release some documentation of their GPUs.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/nouveau/2013-September/014480.html |title=Nvidia offers to release public documentation on certain aspects of their GPUs |date=2013-09-23 |access-date=2013-09-24}}</ref>