Volker Armin Hemmann <volker.armin.hemmann@tu-clausthal.de> a écrit:

> ATI? Which 3d drivers are as bad as nvidia from 'obfuscation' point
> of view and a lot worse if you compare the horror stories?

The point is that *this* is changing with ATI.

--
Nicolas Sebrecht

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On Wed, 18 Jun 2008 22:04:40 +0200
Enrico Weigelt <weigelt@metux.de> wrote:
> I've made the big mistake of bying an notebook w/ geforce go 6100.

There is your problem. A notebook card. Even the nVidia site admits
that the notebook cards are weird. The drivers support the chipset, but
there are no guarantees about the rest of the card, which may cause the
drivers to fail.

I would say that I have a geforce Go 5200, and it works cleanly and
stably with the nVidia drivers, though almost all the hotkey related
features fail. If it didn't work, would I blame nVidia? No, I would
blame Dell, it's Dell laptop after all.

So before you go flaming nVidia for a mobile card, check it is
not actually a problem with the notebook, as notebooks frequently get
customised cards.

Cheers,

Rob.
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-----Original Message-----
From: Enrico Weigelt [mailto:weigelt@metux.de]
Sent: Wednesday, June 18, 2008 1:05 PM
To: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org
Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Ati or Nvida


>Hi,
>
>
>I've made the big mistake of bying an notebook w/ geforce go 6100.
>
>The proprietary drivers *never* worked for me - the binary kernel
>modules crashed the whole kernel (complete lockup) after a several
>seconds (doesnt even need X to come up for that).
>

Somehow you later statements make me distrust your opening one...

> I've analyzed their module a bit and seen really bad things.

Really...You've "analyzed" a closed source module. Care to share
the details of how you performed this "analysis" ?

>Looks it's a hand-written bunch of assembler code with massive
>code obfuscation,
>

Uhhhh...perfectly good C/C++ code that's been even moderately
Optimized by any reasonably sane compiler will look like that
when it's disassembled...now how was it you did this "analysis"
on a *closed source* module again...?

>IMHO, if someone spends so much work into machine code obfuscation,
>he *really* has something to hide.
>

It's closed source driver, neither you nor anybody else who hasn't
seen the source code has any basis whatsoever to justify such an
"opinion" without making themselves look like a total dimwit.

> Not just some "intellectual
> property" (which is outdated alfter a few months).

Uhhh...if the intellectual property is so "outdated", why is it so
difficult to duplicate? So far no one advocating open source, can
manage to duplicate even the functionality of the 3D driver, much
less the performance?


> Of course, opensource 3D support is (almost) not existing,
> (2D works very fine), and NVidia repeatedly states that they
> will NOT do the slightest attempt to improve the situation.
>

Why should they, their providing for Linux, the same thing they
provide for Windows, i.e. a binary driver that drives their GPU
and performs quite well in the experience of a lot of users. From
their point of view the situation doesn't need improving

>So I strongly suggest, NOT to buy NV cards.
>

You've never written graphics drivers have you?

>(BTW: a few month ago, I managed to stop a customer from buying
>several hundreds of NV cards - yes, consulting jobs sometimes
>make really fun this way ;-P)

Maybe that was the correct decision, maybe not, depends on the
circumstances. Regardless, your clients are not well served by your
uninformed bias.

--
Regards,
Bob Young



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On Thursday 19 June 2008, Nicolas Sebrecht wrote:
> Volker Armin Hemmann <volker.armin.hemmann@tu-clausthal.de> a écrit:
> > ATI? Which 3d drivers are as bad as nvidia from 'obfuscation' point
> > of view and a lot worse if you compare the horror stories?
>
> The point is that *this* is changing with ATI.

really? it is? and how long do you want to wait? Two years? Three?
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Thu, 19 Jun 2008 07:06:10 +0200
Volker Armin Hemmann <volker.armin.hemmann@tu-clausthal.de> wrote:

> On Thursday 19 June 2008, Nicolas Sebrecht wrote:
> > Volker Armin Hemmann <volker.armin.hemmann@tu-clausthal.de> a écrit:
> > > ATI? Which 3d drivers are as bad as nvidia from 'obfuscation'
> > > point of view and a lot worse if you compare the horror stories?
> >
> > The point is that *this* is changing with ATI.
>
> really? it is? and how long do you want to wait? Two years? Three?

Not as long as with Nvidia

Enrico Weigelt wrote:
> I've made the big mistake of bying an notebook w/ geforce go 6100.

I have one. Compaq Presario 3415LA (Sempron 3500+, GeForce 6150, Gentoo
64bit.)


> So I strongly suggest, NOT to buy NV cards.

Too late buddy. All my current boxes (6) run on NVidia cards, and are the most
stable boxes I ever had.


> (BTW: a few month ago, I managed to stop a customer from buying
> several hundreds of NV cards - yes, consulting jobs sometimes
> make really fun this way ;-P)

Poor customer :-)

Perhaps you were running cheap PSUs or bad memory banks and that's why your
box crashed so often.


Regards,
Norberto
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On Thu, 19 Jun 2008 00:13:33 +0200
Nicolas Sebrecht <nicolas.s-dev@laposte.net> wrote:

>
> Volker Armin Hemmann <volker.armin.hemmann@tu-clausthal.de> a écrit:
>
> > ATI? Which 3d drivers are as bad as nvidia from 'obfuscation' point
> > of view and a lot worse if you compare the horror stories?
>
> The point is that *this* is changing with ATI.
>
Just my late 2€:
Amd can't release the technology because it doesn't own it all.I'm not
to good with licence issue but I know that not all ATI techs are theirs
and they were bought from others under the agreement that they don;t
reveal it. For some new models things might be different but they
aren't allowed for older ones to just release the specs. Also I had
experiences with both ati and nvidia:nvidia just increases in
performance from driver version to driver version, while ati's just
might work, sometimes you need to get the drivers from official site to
work, other times work from portage, sometimes you need to search on
f.g.o for a solution, one is never sure with ati(I never was)
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On Monday 23 June 2008, ionut cucu wrote:
> On Thu, 19 Jun 2008 00:13:33 +0200
>
> Nicolas Sebrecht <nicolas.s-dev@laposte.net> wrote:
> > Volker Armin Hemmann <volker.armin.hemmann@tu-clausthal.de> a écrit:
> > > ATI? Which 3d drivers are as bad as nvidia from 'obfuscation' point
> > > of view and a lot worse if you compare the horror stories?
> >
> > The point is that *this* is changing with ATI.
>
> Just my late 2€:
> Amd can't release the technology because it doesn't own it all.I'm not
> to good with licence issue but I know that not all ATI techs are theirs
> and they were bought from others under the agreement that they don;t
> reveal it. For some new models things might be different but they
> aren't allowed for older ones to just release the specs.

sorry to rain into your parade but they just did that. Release specs. All of
them.




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I'm not sure if this was linked to this thread before, but here is an
aritcle that gives points to AMD:
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=amd_evolution&num=1

As far as I understand AMD has given up good, "out-of-the-box" support
for the latest teraFLOP gpu.
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On Mon, 23 Jun 2008 13:40:38 +0200
Volker Armin Hemmann <volker.armin.hemmann@tu-clausthal.de> wrote:

> On Monday 23 June 2008, ionut cucu wrote:
> > On Thu, 19 Jun 2008 00:13:33 +0200
> >
> > Nicolas Sebrecht <nicolas.s-dev@laposte.net> wrote:
> > > Volker Armin Hemmann <volker.armin.hemmann@tu-clausthal.de> a
> > > écrit:
> > > > ATI? Which 3d drivers are as bad as nvidia from 'obfuscation'
> > > > point of view and a lot worse if you compare the horror stories?
> > >
> > > The point is that *this* is changing with ATI.
> >
> > Just my late 2€:
> > Amd can't release the technology because it doesn't own it all.I'm
> > not to good with licence issue but I know that not all ATI techs
> > are theirs and they were bought from others under the agreement
> > that they don;t reveal it. For some new models things might be
> > different but they aren't allowed for older ones to just release
> > the specs.
>
> sorry to rain into your parade but they just did that. Release specs.
> All of them.
>
>
>
>
he...talk about being outdated...silly me
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