Re: linux 3d applications keep crashing

On Sat, Mar 14, 2009 at 6:45 PM, Roman Divacky <rdivacky_at_freebsd.org> wrote:
>> > there's an ongoing work on nouveau, so stay tuned :)
>> >
>> Yes, that will take many years to complete, or at least, produce a
>> rotating cube or maybe, maybe run glxgears in around 2012.
>
> I am currently running accelerated glgears on freebsd using nouveau.
> thnx for your enthusiasm :)
>
While I've been a little sarcastic, yes, there is some preliminary 3D
support in nouveau. Still, then you can say that there are fairly good
Direct3D accelerated drivers for S3 Virge out there (really, there
are).

Let's look only on the nouveau front page:
Current Status
2D-support is in fairly good shape with EXA acceleration, Xv and
Randr12 (think of dual-head, rotations, etc.). Randr12 should work for
all cards up to, and including, Geforce 9000 series, although some
issues with Geforce 8/9 laptops may still exist, for such issues bug
reports should be submitted. Randr12 is now the default. Any 3D
functionality that might exist is still unsupported, do not ask for
instructions to try it. Also, VT switching while X is running is
considered lucky.

(yes it's sittinge there for a long time and stuff moved forward a bit
in meantime, but, well..)

Feature matrix?
http://nouveau.freedesktop.org/wiki/FeatureMatrix
"4 - While some support for 3D exists, it is far from mature. And even
if it was mature, the particular feature you need, be it oddball
texture compression formats and whatnot, may not be there. Yet.
Patches welcome."

Roman, while I appreciate everyone's work on nouveau, be it you,
Robert or anyone else, you seriously don't believe to be running Doom
3 or Quake 7.65 on it for yet next few years.. Don't you think? You
make it sound like nouveau is "just around the corner" and, I don't
know, judging from the immediately following "wow wow wow" reaction, I
don't think that's very nice to some of the 'regular' folks around
(not trying to make a point with the poster, just thinking generally).

Just look at the sad state of oss ATI accelerated drivers (and to
avoid being autoattacked by some trigger-happy ATI fanboy, I run both
nvidia and ati setups, thank you) and those are out for quite some
time, with tons of specs released by AMD/ATI every other month..
Result? (Almost) perfectly running glxgears. Ever tried to run a game
with it? Heck, even GL accelerated Duke Nukem 3D for a start? The
outcome is so horrible that you want to poke your eyes out with a
screwdriver just to get rid of that image (if only one could call that
an image - "a message from a black hole" would be probably more
appropriate).

So don't get me wrong, I'm all in support for nouveau as everyone
else, but I still just have that funny feeling when you make it sound
like "hey guys, screw the official drivers, they already don't matter
at all, nouveau is coming". Yes, nouveau is coming (sort of), it will
fill some part of the "market", similiarly as 'nv' does now, but
official drivers are not going anywhere, not for years to come and
definitely not if you want to go for some gaming (Tuxracer is not a
game, seriously), or want to get some other rather serious OpenGL
stuff done (and by that I don't mean compiz whooshy windows, though
that would -still- be a good start).

Anyway - while this reply IS a little bit offtopic (and long, and
flamebait, etc.), I just wanted to point out a few things before
people start running around waving and screaming "omg did you hear
that? they have oss opengl nvidia drivers running in real 3D!
jesuschrist I'm going to ... !"

And, you know. Like that.

Disclaimer: I'm not a nouveau developer, just a long time lurker, here
and there. Nothing I said is a fact or anything remotely close to
that.

m.