Re: linux 3d applications keep crashing

On Mar 14, 2009, at 2:47 PM, Michal Varga wrote:

> 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.

	Please realize that the blob drivers don't run in many cases,  
especially with 9-series cards on CURRENT, because they use GIANT  
locking methods, are compiled against a 5.x kernel / userland, and  
come with hacked copies of Xorg libraries (which break when we migrate  
to a non-ABI compatible version of Xorg).
	Using another alternative like nv or nouveau is the only available  
option, because Linux and Solaris are second-tier support platforms  
for nVidia, and FreeBSD is even lower in the support arena it seems...
	As Robert said, while things won't change tomorrow, there's a high  
probability that due to people finally getting fed up with not having  
stable 3D driver support with their cards that developers are working  
hard to close that gap.
	So instead of lurking and complaining, why not contribute to the cause?
My 2 cents,
-Garrett