On Tue, 2004-02-03 at 17:37, Marc Aurele La France wrote:
> PCI-Xpress is programmatically identical to PCI, so I don't forsee any
> problems in that regard.

Yes, its identical to PCI in terms of the interface presented to the OS
so configuration probably won't be an issue, but there is code in
hw/xfree86/os-support/bus that attempts to walk the bus topology with
explicit knowledge of current PCI bridges. I don't believe this code
will execute correctly, but I assume it can be easily defeated, yes?

But thats probably less of an issue than the fact PCIE systems demand
new PCIE cards and that means driver support. If we are fortunate the
new PCIE cards might be pragmatically compatible with with current cards
and XFree86 will only need to recognize the new cards, but I really
doubt that will be the case. ATI, nvidia, 3DLabs have all announced
support for PCIE and pledged it will bring dramatic performance
increases. Some of that will be due to the faster bus, but I've got to
believe these new cards will feature architectural changes as well
demanding new driver support.

Bottom line, I've been asked if XFree86 will be able to support PCIE
systems due to arrive in a few months or if these systems are going to
be dead in the water for open source for anything other than a server.

So I'm digging for what people know or believe the issues are.

John


_______________________________________________
Devel mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://XFree86.Org/mailman/listinfo/devel

Reply via email to