First open-source graphics card available

[Midwest-Linux]

First open-source graphics card available

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2008/05/23/first-open-source-graphics-card-available/1

Author: Gareth Halfacree
Published: 23rd May 2008

The ODG1 open-source graphics card might be a bare development platform now, but holds promise for the future.

The ODG1 open-source graphics card might be a bare development platform now, but holds promise for the future.
If you're a Linux nut who'll only be happy when your entire computer is fully open-source, you'll be pleased to hear that you can take a step closer to your goal thanks to the Open Graphics Project.

The project, which began touting for expert engineers to help build a graphics card free from any proprietary limitations four years ago, has announced the availability of its OGD1 graphics card according to hacker news site Hack a Day.

The specs of the OGD1 aren't likely to have AMD or nVidia sweating just yet, but it does provide the basics of what you might need in a desktop graphics card: 256MB of DDR400 graphics memory, a pair of programmable FPGA processors to do the donkey work, a pair of DVI dual-link outputs as well as an analogue RGB output and an S-Video link for hooking up to older TVs, and a 330MHz 10-bit DAC – all hooked up to a PCI or PCI-X bus.

It's not quite ready for mainstream usage, however – the group is keen to point out to prospective purchasers that the cards are sold “blank” with no internal logic aside from a basic system of diagnostic checks. If you actually want to use your new open-source graphics card, you'll have to program the FPGAs yourself. In other words, it's a hacker's toy – not a serious contender to a retail card.

[MaxIBoy]

So no standardized drivers, huh?

[zmjjmz]

I think it'd be great if some companies programmed the card and then flashed an entire stock of them to that program.
Then they could sell it with OSS drivers.

[DeadSuperHero]

I think this shows a ton of promise. Stuff like this makes it even easier to get a free BIOS computer put together.

[K.Mandla]

Moved to Community Cafe.

[klange]

I think I'll stick with my Intel cards.

[gameryoshi600]

I think I'll stick with my Intel cards.

Intel and NVidia ftw!

[jrusso2]

What are these guys thinking? Over a thousand dollars for a graphics card that runs in a PCI slot that no one even has?
PCI-X?

[Phenax]

Misleading. It's for hardware hackers who enjoy FPGA programming. This isn't aimed towards gamers and it's not totally aimed toward the same market as Quadro either.

[bufsabre666]

pci-x is very common among server motherboards, they seem to be geared towards people with it departments and servers who can spend extra money just to have a graphics card just work, id be interested if they could make a pcie one that was reasonably spec'd and priced, cause honestly i use both ati and nvidia cards on my differnet computers and both of their binary drivers suck, ati are hard to get working and nvidias are hard to keep working, i give the advantage to ati if you have one monitor cause the stability to me means more than the effort, which really isnt that bad, but if you have multiple monitors of different size, or even no, if you want compositing its nvidia by far

[Superkoop]

If I had $1500 to drop.
And if I knew how to program FPGAs.

Maybe.

[jrusso2]

pci-x is very common among server motherboards, they seem to be geared towards people with it departments and servers who can spend extra money just to have a graphics card just work, id be interested if they could make a pcie one that was reasonably spec'd and priced, cause honestly i use both ati and nvidia cards on my differnet computers and both of their binary drivers suck, ati are hard to get working and nvidias are hard to keep working, i give the advantage to ati if you have one monitor cause the stability to me means more than the effort, which really isnt that bad, but if you have multiple monitors of different size, or even no, if you want compositing its nvidia by far

Why would anyone want a high end graphics card for a server?

They are not used for graphics work. The servers I work on all have integrated graphics which are pretty dull and you can't disable them to add another card even if you wanted to

[bufsabre666]

Why would anyone want a high end graphics card for a server?

They are not used for graphics work. The servers I work on all have integrated graphics which are pretty dull and you can't disable them to add another card even if you wanted to

read the specs of that thing and tell me if its high end, youre only putting that kind of money in it cause if its open and you know how to program it, it will work

256mb ddr1 400mhz, 330mhz ramdac, not exactly high end numbers

[Biochem]

Why would anyone want a high end graphics card for a server?

They are not used for graphics work. The servers I work on all have integrated graphics which are pretty dull and you can't disable them to add another card even if you wanted to

Some CLI software works better on GPU than CPU. It all depends on the kind of math you want. Why do you think people build PS3 Cluster.

[klange]

Some CLI software works better on GPU than CPU. It all depends on the kind of math you want. Why do you think people build PS3 Cluster.

Entirely for the 8-core CPU, not the GPU.

[bufsabre666]

Entirely for the 8-core CPU, not the GPU.

its a cell processor, its pretty much a gpu processor, when you install linux on it it goes pretty slow cause its very uneffective as a straight cpu

[klange]

its a cell processor, its pretty much a gpu processor, when you install linux on it it goes pretty slow cause its very uneffective as a straight cpu

But it's not a GPU. The PS3 has a dedicated GPU. It's a processor being used as a processor for processing.

[uraldinho]

This card is more of a development platform rather than a consumer product.

[Twitch6000]

Intel and Nvidia have not failed me so nah I doubt I will change.I find this neat though.

[bufsabre666]

But it's not a GPU. The PS3 has a dedicated GPU. It's a processor being used as a processor for processing.

thats why i said pretty much a gpu, it sucks as a cpu, it is equated as being a 500mhz p2 when it comes to processing, but it does graphics based math very well which is why, when you play games on the ps3 it works very well, when you run an operating system it sucks

[swoll1980]

I know some people are foss extremist, but $1000 for a card with $50 specs and no drivers. I understand they are trying to raise funds, but thats a little overboard.