Will we ever see all open source drivers some day?

[Anarchist420]

Drivers are modifiable, but we're better off with fully programmable processors (except maybe display logic features like pixel mapping could still be fixed function). I wish nvidia had plans to ditch the traditional hardware pipeline but they've planned more engineering combination; and perhaps fp64 at 1/16 would've been more appropriate for maxwell while the next gen could've been 1/8. At stock clocks, GTX 980 has less theoretical FP64 than GTX780 non-Ti.
Nvidia has made some good products (the TNT2 would've sucked if the G400 Max had had good drivers from the get-go; G80 broke new ground), but maxwell is rather underwhelming. Maybe so many monitors not being so wonderful has something to do with it.

I guess intel is the closest to original vs nv and amd, but they all have done a lot of the same for years, like generations of me too products with no really creating a whole lot of originality. Perhaps patents, trademarks, and copyrights are a root problem. They can be scaled back a lot; if the established corporations fire, then there could still be enough for them or for others to make new products in a new institution.

Would open source drivers being a future norm be too many choices for many people? If so, then how?

 

[Sable]

Posting in an Anarchist420 ramble nonsense thread.

Warning issued for thread crapping. -Shmee

 

[Anarchist420]

Posting in an Anarchist420 ramble nonsense thread.

Why do you have to be so rude and so absolutist?

i'm eventually going to get permabanned and I'll deserve getting permabanned.

 

[BFG10K]

Why don't you just start-up your own graphics company and show the industry how it should be done?

That way you can give away everything for free, not patent any of your IP, expect your engineers to work for nothing, not invest in any R&D, open source all your drivers, etc.

 

[Sable]

Why do you have to be so rude and so absolutist?

I'm English.

 

[cen1]

Intel and AMD already have quite capable open source drivers on linux..

 

[Shmee]

On topic please everyone. No bickering or personal attacks will be allowed...

I do believe that this is a legitimate concern, though BFG also has a point about the need to bring in revenue etc from the company's perspective. Part of the issue is the lack of competition and large barrier to entry in the market I believe, so starting a company to compete with AMD or Nvidia would be very difficult.

I see no problem with modded drivers, sometimes they may give large benefits, if the programmer does it well. What ever happened to the Omega drivers for ATI for instance? User modified drivers could have great potential, and have had them in the past as well. For example, modified Nvidia drivers removing the artificial lack of 4 way SLI with the capable GTX 780.

 

[Anarchist420]

Why don't you just start-up your own graphics company and show the industry how it should be done? That way you can give away everything for free, not patent any of your IP, expect your engineers to work for nothing, not invest in any R&D, open source all your drivers, etc.

I prefer to espouse ideas since I can't get any credit; I am not sure I would be satisfied anyway.
Nvidia would possibly get a little scared if their subsidies (in the form of "contracts"), their patents, copyrights, and trademarks were ended now. Maybe I would too if someone partly busted part of me up or my HK 3490 or hacked my mediafire.

I can't invest because my parents are poor (they have their savings in paper and in part of the home we actually live in) and lazy (or have poor Roman-style work ethic against the Spirit of Capitalism) like me. They trust my older brothers and institutions to handle everything. My dad follows regulations too much when he could cut through the red tape or be a paid contributor to medical journals. He already has more than $1mn in net cash plus some future SS plus medicare, plus whatever else we already have. But then he is too moralistic to invest.

My mom could never really work for market level wages; her mother was a 14th Amendment citizen who got paid for invading Japan; in turn her mother spent 50% of the income she earned as a private non-citizen seamstress to send my grandmother to a boarding home so the other 50% could be kept. But it was Philadelphia PA, the city of commerce and the first capitol of these States in perpetual and involuntary union, but the cash was there since PA was most protected by the GOP especially 1920s and 30s.

Maybe I will never stay satisfied. Maybe my monitor isn't that good and maybe I can't configure game and driver settings to my liking. Maybe the programmers love the challenges they face not using all general purpose hardware. Perhaps fixed function is here to stay. I'd love for all programming to be done on all general purpose hardware.

Still though, nvidia's drivers are not good and there is no desire to make a really good dreamcast replicator (not nv's fault). But double precision compute being faster could help with stuff like full trilinear filtering and RGSS added as options. Nvidia reduced the theoretical double precision performance again although I heard maxwell may have faster integer performance than Kepler. I also heard it doesn't matter; which it may not really if you have good programmers and most end-users dont care.

Programmable rendering is more versatile; even 1:1 pixel mapping doesn't have to be fixed in the GPU's display logic (although probably should be for max compatibility). And the driver model for Windows is outdated; many branches of drivers for the same device (hardware or virtual) should be able to be interchanged by end-users. Windows 8 sucks because it really boxes people in. Maybe I need to be boxed in; i don't know. But Microsoft and Apple need to get their asses making some good stuff but intellectual monopoly legislation being so powerful makes different products less likely. A war against China is probably about happen.