[Xorg-driver-geode] Plans for next releases

[Christian Gmeiner]

Hi Martin-Éric,

>> I want to know what the plans for the next releases of the driver are. Currently
>> I am using the geode driver for an embedded system and I am not that happy
>> with the speed of the driver with enabled hardware acceleration. At the moment
>> the driver preforms much better if I disable acceleration.
>
> That is quite possible, given how libpixman constantly changes and the
> driver is, in its current state, having to work its way around it.
> This being said, a few Geode developers recently gathered and started
> looking into ways to improve the speed of the driver. There's already
> a few minor fixes in GIT that haven't been released and more are
> coming.
>

Today I will try out current git version.

>
> The main issue we have right now a lack of developers interested in
> the Geode. In theory, AMD assigned two engineers to maintain the
> driver but, in practice, their assignment was short-lived and they
> have been transfered to the former ATI team right after their
> contributions to 2.11.9. In other cases, access to the hardware
> remains, but the motivation to work on such antiquated hardware is
> gone; developers always want to work on the next cool thing, rather
> than perform boring maintenance on existing code. This leaves us with
> very few people who still have any interaction with Geode hardware
> that have sufficient coding skills to maintain the driver.
>
> Bear in mind that the above only concerns the LX component of the
> driver.   Meanwhile, the GX2 component is barely usable. On this
> point, AMD clearly indicated that supporting anything older than the
> LX is of extremely low priority and, as such, they haven't even
> provided their two engineers with test hardware that features a CS5535
> and GX2. None of us have access to GX2/CS5535 hardware either, so it's
> really up to someoen from the community with sufficient coding skills
> to step up and bring the GX2 component at least up to the LX
> component's health status.
>
>> I am using a Debian based system with X.Org X Server 1.7.7.
>
> I assume that you are using the version of the Geode driver that ships
> with Debian/stable?  If that's the case, you're already missing on a
> few fixes.  I suggest trying to build the driver currently in unstable
> against stable X development packages.
>

I will try this...

>> Where are the current problems in the area of hardware acceleration?
>
> Mostly that it isn't well-integrated with the best coding practices of
> the X.org community, because that's how NSC and AMD, initially coded
> it.
>
>> Is it planned to introduce a KMS driver?
>
> There's been some talks about it. See our wiki page (URL in the
> README) for details.  Again, lack of interested coders remains the
> main obstacle.
>

I am interested to look into the driver and improve the bottlenecks I
currently have. I need
to run Java based visualizations as smooth as possible. I have
experience with driver development
but have never done anything graphic card related.

>
> I hope that the above answers shed some light.  Feel free to ask for
> clarifications as appropriate.
>

Thanks your answer is very helpful and informative.
--
Christian Gmeiner, MSc