On Tue, 2006-05-16 at 12:28 +1000, Hugh Fisher wrote: > Dieter wrote: > > > Would it be possible to split things up to allow an upgradable board? > > A basic 2D board with a socket. Want fancy 3D stuff? Plug in the > > extra chip. 2-3 years later plug in a new improved chip. > > A lot of people such as Ray Heasman seem to have this idea > that "3D" = full OpenGL with hardware transform, lighting, > programmable shaders ...
I was under the impression that the recent discussions about a shader were done with the intent of including one on the chip, at which point I considered how many gates we were talking about and my head exploded. I tried to check on the wiki, but it was down. That was part of the reason I was upset about 3D support. If we're trying to get things into a limited number of gates, even texture mapping is a waste, when just being able to scale a bitmap down would probably be sufficient. On the whole, I still see the idea of a mixed signal ASIC in a recent process as being a pipe dream without some significant funding that won't be coming from any of us. I'm also really disappointed that there won't be a cheaper dev card to play with. The current OGD design might be nice from a developer convenience perspective, but it sucks from the "affordable to an FPGA hobbiest that wants to dabble" perspective. Given how much time I would have to spend on playing, I can't justify buying an OGD. I'd happily settle for a cut down card that can crash my PCI bus if I screw up. Second hand PCs are free for most geeks. I'd program it over a USB port, from another machine, and be happy. I have realised that my impression of what OGP is, is wrong. It's not an open source effort to make something that lots of people can develop on and play with. It's a company that has an open source policy and also happens to have a mailing list. Traversal doesn't need everyone to have one of their dev cards, even if the card is cut down, because it's not the goal. Making something that will encourage lots of hobbiest developers to do weird things is not the goal. Don't get me wrong; I'd love to see open hardware out there. I hope Traversal succeeds. I'll buy their stuff out of loyalty if it isn't too expensive. I just think don't people like me constitute a market that can be counted on, so there will have to be a reason for the average Joe to buy it. Judging from the questions that Timothy hasn't answered, I suspect OGP will get their mixed signal design done for them in some kind of backroom arrangement using someone else's seat licenses, and then all he has to do is find money to tape out. I really wish him luck, but it's not a project that I can contribute meaningfully to. > This was discussed extensively at the start of the design > process. The OGD/OGC are *not* intended to fully implement > a complete 3D rendering pipeline. It's hard to tell what is intended. Nothing is ever the last word, and people are forever chiming in with new stuff. If you've missed one email, you could have missed a change in direction. > What it is meant to do is 1. support 3D/OpenGL frame buffer > ops, in particular alpha blending, stencilling, and depth > testing; and 2. basic "stretch an image over a triangle/quad" > hardware texture mapping, not all the bump maps, normal maps, > and other stuff being done in hardware for the latest games. > > This is more than required for classic X Windows or GDI, but > it is the minimum expected for Windows Avalon or the new X11 > implementations like Novell Xgl and Red Hat AIGLX. > > Note that the names given to these new X11 implementations > include the letters GL, meaning OpenGL. The X Windows authors > have already decided what hardware requirements they want > from the next generation of video cards. They want OpenGL! I think their choice is a pragmatic one, rather than one driven by any real set of ideal requirements. If they could get the chip of their dreams made for every X session out there, they would opt for a subset and superset of OpenGL. ie. They would opt for something else. Current generation 3D cards are both overkill and a very inefficient way to get to the desired result, but they will do a fine job once the piper is paid. For I while I was hoping OGP could break that, but I was unrealistic in my expectations. > X Windows is already being rewritten for 3D graphics cards, > so designing and providing a 2D only interface for the OGD/ > OGC won't make adoption any faster and might even slow the > process down. Yeah, but it would get a low gate-count all-digital non-custom ASIC into the hands of embedded developers, which would require little NRE and at least bring in some money. On the other hand Asiliant are dead as a doornail, so I guess that market might be too small. Keep well, Ray _______________________________________________ Open-graphics mailing list [email protected] http://lists.duskglow.com/mailman/listinfo/open-graphics List service provided by Duskglow Consulting, LLC (www.duskglow.com)
