[arch-general] some notes on the radeon gallium driver

[C Anthony Risinger]

On Wed, Oct 6, 2010 at 2:06 PM, Sven-Hendrik Haase <sh at lutzhaase.com> wrote:
>  On 06.10.2010 19:39, C Anthony Risinger wrote:
>> On Wed, Oct 6, 2010 at 9:41 AM, Tom <uebershark at googlemail.com> wrote:
>>>> I'm seconding this. r300g is working exceptionally well compared to
>>>> r300 and it is very stable even with lots of 3D stuff and wine games.
>>>> I'd definitely want this to be the default in Arch. Perhaps we should
>>>> file a bug report. In fact, I will file one if we  can get a few more
>>>> opinions on this.
>>>>
>>>> I think it would be a very beneficial idea for Arch users.
>>>>
>>>> -- Sven-Hendrik
>>> Well is there any reason this should NOT be made default once Arch
>>> updates to Mesa 7.9 if it IS the default in new mesa??
>>> Why would/should arch differ?
>> i wouldn't think so.
>>
>>> Sidenote: been running r300g for ages, no worries...
>> that's great news, along with other positive feedback.  this whole
>> message is rather devoid of new content, but it's really wonderful to
>> see Gallium reaching fruition; it's been a long wait and it seems to
>> really be living up to it's promises.
>>
>> haven't tried the Gallium driver for my 4850 (if one is ready-ish?),
>> but this thread is very encouraging.  especially interesting is the
>> recent port of the Direct3D API to a native state tracker (i think
>> that's the right terms)... Linux gaming may just force it's way into
>> existence, vs. the perpetual wait for vendor support :-)
>>
>> C Anthony
>>
> Careful, r600g (for your mighty fine 4850) does not currently do what
> you think. In fact, upstream currently and openly discourages its usage
> for anything but shy testing. It might eat your babies if used for
> production.

luckily he's almost a toddler and can probably fight it off :-)

well that sucks; i'll just keep waiting i suppose, thanks.

> Double careful with the hopes for D3D used in Linux gaming. It is
> effectively useless for Wine since their current implementation
> integrates better with the other needs of a Windows game (Windows API !=
> Direct3D). Even if a perfect, full-blown D3D 13 implementation went into
> Mesa, you couldn't run a single Windows game because of that. D3D on
> Linux is primarily meant for close-to-metal 3D virtualization (which in
> return would enable you gaming, though, but in a VM). Wine isn't going
> to switch to Mesa's implementation anytime soon.

i dont want to stray too off-topic; i know there is much more to a
game than D3D, but in the brief research i did, it seemed much closer
than you've hinted.  the guy even threw up a patch for wine to use the
tracker shortly after IIRC.  all in all, wine was still required of
course; i didn't see any indication of a VM/etc. but i see how it
could be used for that as well.

will have to look into it further i suppose; i just know several
people who do not bother with Linux for this exact reason, so it
appeared a solid move.

C Anthony