[support@ati.com: XFree / Linux Support # 2118096]
Hi XFree86 dev team, how good does ATI support you in comparison to nVidia ? Is it only a manpower problem, that the new ATI cards based on R3xx chips are missing 3D support (I noticed that in the 4.4 release notes) ? Or is it just because you don't get easy hardware or developer informations from them ? A few days ago I had to call ATI hotline (where you have to pay $9.90 for phone support) because of some problems under XP... There I mentioned, that I had the feeling that nVidia seems to support XFree86 team more than ATI, since - drivers of up to date cards have been available in earlier releases than 4.4 and - there are no restrictions concerning 3D mode I told ATI that for me as Windows and Unix user it had nearly been a reason, not to choose the ATI card, even if I think that ATI cards have better quality and design (256Bit RAM access, 8 parallel pixel shaders, ...). ATI seems to be interested and wants to know exactly why I think, that nVidia seems to support XFree86 better. It seems for me, that this question might be a door opener for you just for the case there exist some difficulties. For me personally I'd love to see that you get all the informations you need from ATI, to make drivers of same quality and featureism (2D AND 3D) like the nVidia ones. So please tell me something concerning this issue. For those of you my translation of their mail (see attachement): + Dear Mr Klemm, concerning our phone call we'd like you to answer some questions so we can make our support better for customers in Europe. You mentioned, that you are very satisfied with ATI cards, but nVidia would offer more support for XFree / Linux. Could you please describe that for us in detail ? Do nVidia XFree/Linux driver offer more functionality ? Do the Linux Developer have better access to driver informations ? Does nVidia offer more driver for Linux than ATI does ? Does nVidia offer more support as ATI ? + Best regards Andreas /// -- http://www.64bits.de http://www.apsfilter.org http://people.FreeBSD.org/~andreas ---BeginMessage--- Title: XFree / Linux Support # 2118096 Sehr geehrter Herr Klemm, bezüglich unseres Telefongesprächs am 11.03.2004 möchte ich Sie bitten paar Fragen zu beantworten damit wir unseren Support für unsere Kunden aus Europa verbessern können. Sie haben erwähnt, daß Sie mit ATI Karten sehr zufrieden sind aber Nvidia mehr Support für XFree / Linux bietet . Wir möchten Sie bitten dieses Thema etaws präziser für uns darzustellen. Haben XFree/Linux Treiber von Nvidia mehr Funktionen? Haben die Linux Entwicker besseren Zugang zu Treiberinformationen? Bietet Nvidia Linux Treiber öfter als ATI? Bietet Nvidia mehr Support als ATI? Mit freundlichen Grüßen Farhad Sadough Customer Service Representative ATI Technologies Inc. www.ati.com ---End Message--- pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: [support@ati.com: XFree / Linux Support # 2118096]
Andreas Klemm wrote: Hi XFree86 dev team, how good does ATI support you in comparison to nVidia ? I believe the answer is the same. Is it only a manpower problem, that the new ATI cards based on R3xx chips are missing 3D support (I noticed that in the 4.4 release notes) ? Or is it just because you don't get easy hardware or developer informations from them ? Yes and yes. Very few of the graphics chip manufacturers release any developer information at all, unless you are a proven OEM with a signed non-disclosure agreement. A few days ago I had to call ATI hotline (where you have to pay $9.90 for phone support) because of some problems under XP... There I mentioned, that I had the feeling that nVidia seems to support XFree86 team more than ATI, since - drivers of up to date cards have been available in earlier releases than 4.4 and - there are no restrictions concerning 3D mode I told ATI that for me as Windows and Unix user it had nearly been a reason, not to choose the ATI card, even if I think that ATI cards have better quality and design (256Bit RAM access, 8 parallel pixel shaders, ...). ATI seems to be interested and wants to know exactly why I think, that nVidia seems to support XFree86 better. This statement is way too broad. Your letter shows that one customer service agent seems to be interested. It is NOT accurate to extrapolate that to ATI seems to be interested. It seems for me, that this question might be a door opener for you just for the case there exist some difficulties. Extremely doubtful. I suspect you were seeing polite interest by a single customer service representative with no official backing from the company. He will put an appropriate note in your file and perhaps mention it at a staff meeting. Do not hope for a policy shift. For me personally I'd love to see that you get all the informations you need from ATI, to make drivers of same quality and featureism (2D AND 3D) like the nVidia ones. The procss of getting a full-featured driver for a new chipset is as much about good luck and coincidence as anything else. You have to have someone who (a) is an XFree86 developer, who (b) happens to acquire one of the new boards, and who (c) has the free time to invest in extending a driver to handle the new chip. -- - Tim Roberts, [EMAIL PROTECTED] Providenza Boekelheide, Inc. ___ Devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://XFree86.Org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: [support@ati.com: XFree / Linux Support # 2118096]
--- Andreas Klemm [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi XFree86 dev team, how good does ATI support you in comparison to nVidia ? Is it only a manpower problem, that the new ATI cards based on R3xx chips are missing 3D support (I noticed that in the 4.4 release notes) ? Or is it just because you don't get easy hardware or developer informations from them ? A few days ago I had to call ATI hotline (where you have to pay $9.90 for phone support) because of some problems under XP... There I mentioned, that I had the feeling that nVidia seems to support XFree86 team more than ATI, since - drivers of up to date cards have been available in earlier releases than 4.4 and - there are no restrictions concerning 3D mode I told ATI that for me as Windows and Unix user it had nearly been a reason, not to choose the ATI card, even if I think that ATI cards have better quality and design (256Bit RAM access, 8 parallel pixel shaders, ...). I don't know how the binary drivers compare, but from what I've heard they seem to support similar functionality. I think in general though ATI is more open to xfree86 and open soruce development. they provide databooks to just about all of their hardware and they regularly update the open source driver with new codes drops. nvidia only supports 2d in the opensource nv driver they maintain through mark v. The open source ati drivers support 2d and 3d for all chips from the mach64 to the r200 radeons. r300s only have 2d support. This is reason enough for me to buy ati products over nvidia ones. Alex ATI seems to be interested and wants to know exactly why I think, that nVidia seems to support XFree86 better. It seems for me, that this question might be a door opener for you just for the case there exist some difficulties. For me personally I'd love to see that you get all the informations you need from ATI, to make drivers of same quality and featureism (2D AND 3D) like the nVidia ones. So please tell me something concerning this issue. For those of you my translation of their mail (see attachement): + Dear Mr Klemm, concerning our phone call we'd like you to answer some questions so we can make our support better for customers in Europe. You mentioned, that you are very satisfied with ATI cards, but nVidia would offer more support for XFree / Linux. Could you please describe that for us in detail ? Do nVidia XFree/Linux driver offer more functionality ? Do the Linux Developer have better access to driver informations ? Does nVidia offer more driver for Linux than ATI does ? Does nVidia offer more support as ATI ? + Best regards Andreas /// -- http://www.64bits.de http://www.apsfilter.org http://people.FreeBSD.org/~andreas ATTACHMENT part 1.2 message/rfc822 From: ATI Technical Support (Canada) [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: '[EMAIL PROTECTED]' [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: XFree / Linux Support # 2118096 Date: Fri, 12 Mar 2004 05:58:16 -0500 Sehr geehrter Herr Klemm, bezüglich unseres Telefongesprächs am 11.03.2004 möchte ich Sie bitten paar Fragen zu beantworten damit wir unseren Support für unsere Kunden aus Europa verbessern können. Sie haben erwähnt, daß Sie mit ATI Karten sehr zufrieden sind aber Nvidia mehr Support für XFree / Linux bietet . Wir möchten Sie bitten dieses Thema etaws präziser für uns darzustellen. Haben XFree/Linux Treiber von Nvidia mehr Funktionen? Haben die Linux Entwicker besseren Zugang zu Treiberinformationen? Bietet Nvidia Linux Treiber öfter als ATI? Bietet Nvidia mehr Support als ATI? Mit freundlichen Grüßen Farhad Sadough Customer Service Representative ATI Technologies Inc. www.ati.com ATTACHMENT part 2 application/pgp-signature __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - More reliable, more storage, less spam http://mail.yahoo.com ___ Devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://XFree86.Org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: [support@ati.com: XFree / Linux Support # 2118096]
On Mon, Mar 15, 2004 at 01:06:46PM -0800, Alex Deucher wrote: I think in general though ATI is more open to xfree86 and open soruce development. they provide databooks to just about all of their hardware Does that means that everyone who is willing to pay just for the books can buy them? What about the data book for the r300s? nvidia only supports 2d in the opensource nv driver they maintain through mark v. The open source ati drivers support 2d and 3d for all chips from the mach64 to the r200 radeons. r300s only have 2d support. Will the r300s have 3d support in the future? -- If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas. -- George Bernard Shaw (sent by shaulk @ actcom . net . il) ___ Devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://XFree86.Org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: [support@ati.com: XFree / Linux Support # 2118096]
On Mon, 2004-03-15 at 21:03, Andreas Klemm wrote: how good does ATI support you in comparison to nVidia ? It's like day compared to night IMHO. A few days ago I had to call ATI hotline (where you have to pay $9.90 for phone support) because of some problems under XP... There I mentioned, that I had the feeling that nVidia seems to support XFree86 team more than ATI, since - drivers of up to date cards have been available in earlier releases than 4.4 and - there are no restrictions concerning 3D mode What you seem to have been missing is that those drivers are about the opposite of free (and ATI offers proprietary drivers as well). The 'free' nv driver only offers basic 2D support. ATI seems to be interested and wants to know exactly why I think, that nVidia seems to support XFree86 better. nVidia only 'supports Linux/X' in the very proprietary software sense. They basically don't seem to provide any interesting information about their hardware to anyone outside nVidia, not even corporations like SciTech. If it wasn't for Mark Vojkovich, I'm not sure there'd be any free support for nVidia hardware today. -- Earthling Michel Dnzer | Debian (powerpc), X and DRI developer Libre software enthusiast| http://svcs.affero.net/rm.php?r=daenzer ___ Devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://XFree86.Org/mailman/listinfo/devel
Re: [support@ati.com: XFree / Linux Support # 2118096]
--- Shaul Karl [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Mon, Mar 15, 2004 at 01:06:46PM -0800, Alex Deucher wrote: I think in general though ATI is more open to xfree86 and open soruce development. they provide databooks to just about all of their hardware Does that means that everyone who is willing to pay just for the books can buy them? What about the data book for the r300s? No. you have to register as a developer at their website. it helps to have actually developed some code for their chips before hand. I think they want to limit who they give access to; they only give the books to people that will use them. I've heard they have released some 2d info for r300 but no 3D stuff. If you are an oem or a partner you can probably get any and all of the databooks, but there will be limitations on what you can do with that info. nvidia only supports 2d in the opensource nv driver they maintain through mark v. The open source ati drivers support 2d and 3d for all chips from the mach64 to the r200 radeons. r300s only have 2d support. Will the r300s have 3d support in the future? It depends whether they release 3d databooks to opensource developers or not. It might help if someone (like the weather channel) decides to write a driver for r300 and opensource it. -- If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas. -- George Bernard Shaw (sent by shaulk @ actcom . net . il) __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - More reliable, more storage, less spam http://mail.yahoo.com ___ Devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://XFree86.Org/mailman/listinfo/devel
