Dieter Nützel wrote:
Thank you for doing this work. We really need to get the open-source ATI driver on par with the propretary driver (both feature-wise and performance-wise).
But sadly we will NEVER match it.
NO SmoothVision, HyperZ docu ever....
Do you really need the datasheet to get these to work? Some time ago I disassembled ATI's fglrx kernel module and their DRI module.
The asm output looks quite readable: you can see symbol names and accesses to PCI registers (base ptr + offset).
I'm not familiar with 3D hardware, but my rough guess is that you could easily guess what the registers if you know what the GL extensions are supposed to do and see what values are written in registers.
IANAL, but reverse engineering is perfectly legal here in Europe and probably even in the USA if your goal is achieving compatibility.
Even though I just have a Radeon 9200, I'm very excited about the ongoning R300 effort and with there was a similar project for NVidia cards too.
Above applies here, too. - Sorry.
The situation seems to be much worse in the future. Bad IP (TRIPS, etc.) madness due to USA-"law".
This is certaily bad, but not as bad as being unable to develop the driver at all. You may implement patented algorithms and restrict its use in some countries.
I can freely use the S3TC extension here because it's not (yet) patentable. Any US developer could write it and even compile it, as long as he doesn't sell it in his country.
-- // Bernardo Innocenti - Develer S.r.l., R&D dept. \X/ http://www.develer.com/
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