behold: Rudolf's corner

Hi,

Just so you know: every now and then I'm fiddling with 3D support improvement. The high-level interface I wrote about two years ago is 'nothing more' than a new 3D command in the engines. This command is called TCL_PRIMITIVE_3D, and I'm testing it on a NV15.

I already noted some time ago that the command NV11_TCL_PRIMITIVE_3D is responding on my NV15: I can set the colorspace for the back colorbuffer. I can also set the Z buffer range on the card and apparantly most other stuff without hanging the engine. The old 3D command keeps rendering nicely as always so that's good I think.

Just one thing is hanging the engine: setting the 2D window position. Well, I'll leave that disabled for now since it's working anyway on this card.

Tonight I find myself at the spot where I need to actually try to render using the new command. Which means I'll now shut-down the old 3D render command and test the new one. The coming time that is..

I have to admit I'm feeling exited about this. Will I actually be able to get this thing going or not? And: will it improve speed for Q2 and the teapot? And after it works on NV15: could NV20/NV30 be made to work?

Interesting stuff. Anyhow: little time to work in, lots to do. (as usual ;-)

Bye!

Rudolf.

Hi there.

No news about 3D yet. Seemed like I had to add support for more cards to the 2D driver first. I synced the driver against nVidia's april 2007 ID list which meant adding 24 more cards (one extra was reported by a user).

Anyway, some 'bad' news I have I guess:

After testing on a G86 laptop, looking at the logfiles, and looking at the X.org nv driver code I decided to block G80 and higher support in the driver's accelerant.
Since the 2D accelerant is becoming crowded anyway with all those cards with little differences in them, it seems to me we need to create a new, seperate accelerant (and maybe kerneldriver too) for G80 and higher cards.

These cards have new CRTC's, DAC's and accelerant engine I think. It won't do the current driver any good (readability for one) to add support for this more extensive modified hardware.

If anyone is up to the task, I guess it's a good starting point to copy the current nvidia driver and start tweaking that copy to only get G80 and higher support. That would mean a big cleanup to that version of the driver I guess... ;-)

Since I have no hardware to work with (and of course little time) I won't start on this myself now.

This means the current 2D driver just needs to have the ID's added for all new, but pre-G80 cards that are left. And of course this driver could still have some functional gain in the future, like more 2D accelerated functions.

The driver now has version number 0.84.

See you later!


Rudolf.

Hi there!

Well, the 3D accelerant Alpha 4.1 is running correctly again over here: just saw the 152fps timedemo2 going well :-)

As it turns out something changed with the compiler (or so) indeed: I had a enumeration list of TVencoders defined inside shared_info: apparantly this list gets (more/less) room assigned to it in shared info with the result that every entry coming after that pointed to 'nothing'. When I released the 3D accelerant compiling both the 2D and 3D driver gave the same result in both: the driver worked. These days however the 2D driver compiles differently, so I had to move this TVencoder list outside shared_info to correct the problem. I only had to do so inside the 2D driver: the 3D driver (originally compiled version) then works correctly again.

Strange. However, I'm glad I nailed it down now. This was irritating me for quite some time. :-)

This means I can have a look at the Linux world now to see XFree's current card ID's (we're much behind I guess) and the 3D nouveau attempts. For 3D I think I'll try to modify a 3d accelerant command to use the high-level interface on the NV15 card here and see what happens.

When I again have some time that is :)

Oh, SVN has the fix of the above described problem now of course.
And: my public Email adress is up again.

Bye!

Rudolf.

Hi,

I was very surprised to learn this week that AMD bought ATI? And on top of that, there's talk of AMD opening up specs (or a opensource driver?) for 3D specs for R500 and up? I didn't expect that!

And Intel is now maintaining it's own opensource 3D driver for Linux?

I knew already, but it's confirmed once again: a lot can happen in a year time! I'm very curious what nVidia is going to do if this ATI thing is going to happen.. (Ok, nothing probably ;-)

Anyway, time will tell, as always.

I'm trying to get my 3D driver going again on my P4-2800 system, but I seem to have a shared_info problem. if I recompile the 2D driver it's no good when 3D runs, while the old compiled 0.80 driver works OK.. What changed in haiku?

As we speak I'm trying to checkout the complete trunk so I can recompile from scratch (or so) to see what happens. If I get it going again I want to give the high-level 3D engine setup a spin (if possible), I want to see what nouveau has come up with in the past one and a half year in this respect.

Mind you, I have just a few hours per week to spend, so nothing might actually happen. Still: I am interested in this.

Oh, I am trying to get my 'public' Email adres up again (the one still listed on my homepage). Might come in handy again.

Until later. :)

Rudolf.

Hi there,

It's been a while since I wrote here. It feels like years have passed..
Thanks everyone for the kind responses you gave me back then, it meant and still means a lot to me.

I'm happy to see Haiku remains being developed towards a first official release, still can't wait to see that day coming. In the meantime I didn't code a single line myself ..

Well, at least I've been able to keep my homepage online, and this will remain so I expect since I could succesfully transfer it from my old provider account to a new one some weeks ago.

Maybe I'll even be able to write a few lines of code for Haiku's drivers in the future. Though I still need to setup my 'old' equipment a bit for that. I guess only time will tell what will come of it.

In the meantime I did not get messages from people wanting to take over driver development, so all hardware remains in my possession for now. I'm curious when we'll see that situation change btw.. :-)

I have to confess that I am looking to the ReactOS site every now and then: maybe you've heard of it: it's a opensource Windows clone running native Windows apps and drivers. It looks like a viable alternate OS to Windows for the future to me. If they don't get 'killed' that is.

Anyhow: I am a Haiku/BeOS fan myself when it comes to coding, and I love the community.

I haven't got more to say at this time, so I'm signing off now. If and when I got some news, you'll no doubt hear of it some way or another. I'm still curious to that higher level 3D engine a bit..

Until next time.

Rudolf.

Oh, my 'public' Email adresses are still off-line and will remain so for the time being. Bye!

Hi all.

The time has come for me to make a statement about my future concerning BeOS/Haiku. I owe you that I think, since I've been a very regular contributor to this community upto now.

I've been on holiday for a few weeks in Spain just now, in a tiny place where 'time stood still' so to speak. The old village where I stayed is situated in the mountains. There's nothing much to do there, except enjoying the overwhelming nature, do long walks, think, talk with the people I travelled with, eat a orange here and there, and drink a beer. Much in contrast to my busy 'normal, daily life' back home. And much in contrast to 'normal' holiday 'resorts' I tended to visit. Being in this village has been an experience I will *never* forget, it's changing my life. It's good. I feel it in my heart. I have to follow this new path unfolding before my eyes. It's my destination. It's real life. I love it, I need it.


About my (future) contributions for BeOS/Haiku.

As you all probably know, I've spent most of my freetime on BeOS related development. This means that other aspects of my life have been 'neglected' a lot. I've always felt it deep down and I knew it had to change someday. Well, that day has come.

So, I'll nolonger work on all those drivers much. Maybe even I'll quit alltogether. I'll keep following Haiku progressing towards a full, useable 'replacement' operating system for BeOS though. I really hope it will succeed. I love those systems. They are intuitive and easy to use. They make using computers a breeze. Unlike using Windows or Linux which scare me away and make me feel frustrated.


Here are my suggestions:
- I'll do one more Matrox driver release pending updated TVout support completion for G100 and G200 cards. There's not much work left todo for that.
- I now nolonger support any of the programs and drivers I wrote, apart from maybe tiny patches like adding cardID's and such which virtually cost no time to do.
- For the nVidia driver I might continue to do a bit more work for now though: I'm talking about testing a bit with 3D support for newer cards so the new Linux open DRI driver has an improved chance on success. The efforts I'll do are minimal though: only a few nessesities and only if I can manage this while putting in small amounts of time.
- We (the BeOS/Haiku community) need (a) new maintainer(s) for all stuff I did, including for the nVidia driver. I won't be responsible any longer for these items. I might be able to guide someone a bit though every once and a while.
- I have a few items here that can be given to new maintainers: a VIA Nimble V5 and several Matrox graphics cards.
- nVidia hardware I'll probably need a bit longer for those 'final' 3D tests. Some cards can be given to a new maintainter in a bit of time though: and some I'll keep because I had to purchase them. Unless these will be payed for.
- a General 3D related thought: For 3D support I suggest 'porting' Linux DRI drivers back to Haiku 'in the end', including the new nVidia DRI driver that's in the process of being developed. My nVidia driver is probably best left alone in the end, since it's based on an very old version of MESA. It's just a proof-of-concept, along with a good testing bed for hardware knowledge development (for the new DRI driver 'for instance').


Conclusion.

So, that's about it! It's been a hell of a fun ride! I've given my *very* best efforts to this community, I hope you see that. I don't regret having done that, though it came at a cost. This was a (technical) chapter I needed in my life. it's done now however.


Before continuing life, hopefully finding inner tranquillity; Before continuing life in a much more complete, sensitive, loving and personal way, I need to do some soul searching. So, I'm taking a time-out. I'll probably not respond to Email much.

Thanks for your awesome support people!!

Kind regards, and the very best to you all.

Rudolf.

As promised, I posted the benchmark results on the nVidia 3D news page for 3D driver Alpha 4.1 combined with 2D driver 0.80. Have a look there for the details. I've placed a link at the left column of this blogger page that will take you there.

About my driver's pages:
I'll try to update them a bit more in the coming time as it's all very much outdated these days. I'll probably take down some stuff and point at Haiku's bugzilla and the Bebits download entries instead, since that's more official anyway and saves me updating efforts at the same time.

That's it for now. Seems I can now work a bit more on the videonode related stuff. See you later !:-)