Jose E. Marchesi wrote: > That is not because of the MIPS architecture. RMS can't play videos > properly because the driver for the graphics card shipped by the Lemote > des not support xv.
Which brings us the dark underbelly of SoCs: the graphics accelerator. In terms of openness for software developers, the cores of ARM, Intel, MIPS, PowerPC, Sparc, etc., are all quite similar. Where the big differences lie are the peripherals. And usually the worst of them are the graphics accelerators, particularly the bits linked to 3D. So when evaluating a SoC, it's not enough to just have a "friendly" core, but also the 3D accelerator must either be open (still not very common) or you must be prepared to just ignore it. Ignoring it means that your performance will suffer compared to designs that either have an unencumbered accelerator (even if technically inferior) or that have chosen to make that pact with the dark side and added a closed sources driver. And what's especially galling is that you'll still pay all the royalties that go into this piece of silicon that's so inaccessible to you. - Werner _______________________________________________ Qi Hardware Discussion List Mail to list (members only): [email protected] Subscribe or Unsubscribe: http://lists.en.qi-hardware.com/mailman/listinfo/discussion
