atom feed9 messages in org.freebsd.freebsd-amd64amd64 platform newbie -- what video c...
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Isaac MushinskyMar 5, 2008 4:10 am 
Yuri PankovMar 5, 2008 4:25 am 
Isaac MushinskyMar 5, 2008 4:47 am 
Yuri PankovMar 5, 2008 4:58 am 
Isaac MushinskyMar 5, 2008 5:32 am 
Roland SmithMar 5, 2008 6:11 am 
Peter JeremyMar 5, 2008 7:46 am 
Isaac MushinskyMar 5, 2008 9:18 am 
DieterMar 5, 2008 4:27 pm 
Subject:amd64 platform newbie -- what video card for x11?
From:Roland Smith (rsm@xs4all.nl)
Date:Mar 5, 2008 6:11:51 am
List:org.freebsd.freebsd-amd64

On Wed, Mar 05, 2008 at 12:32:16AM -0500, Isaac Mushinsky wrote:

You seem to be patient indeed, is there any indication that nvidia will ever release an amd64 driver?

IIRC, NVidia has requested some changes to the FreeBSD kernel. I'm not sure if or when those will be implemented. Maybe ask the hackers@ list.

IMHO this is the wrong way to go about things. Binary only drivers can be a PITA. The FreeBSD team cannot debug or support them. Only the vendors can. And for them, FreeBSD-amd64 must be the niche of a niche market. If kernel internal interfaces change, you'll have to wait until a new driver is released by the vendor.

I suspect that most binary drivers are recompiled windows drivers with a FreeBSD wrapper. Given the average quality of windows driver, the question is do you want something like that in your kernel?

Google shows years of empty rallying and petitions. Very much like the adobe/flash9 situation. It seems that ATI cards have better support now.

Since ATI was acquired by AMD, they seem to have begun releasing more documentation. For more information check the Xorg/freedesktop websites and mailing lists.

It seems that ATI and Intel are now the best wrt releasing documentation so that free/open source drivers can be written.

Roland