

Nvidia's 3D Tegra driver now open sourced - codesuela
http://www.linuxandlife.com/2013/04/nvidias-3d-tegra-driver-now-open-sourced.html

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espes
Except this is totally unmaintainable as "open source" since there isn't any
documentation or even any sort of register listing: [https://github.com/grate-
driver/grate/blob/master/src/libhos...](https://github.com/grate-
driver/grate/blob/master/src/libhost1x/host1x-gr3d.c#L81)

Actually, the way it's written it seems that folks at Avionics Designs did not
have access to any documentation and it's pretty much a reverse-engineered
effort anyway.

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codesuela
I am no expert in this field but I distinctly remember back when I had a Tegra
2 (LG Optimus 2X) phone that the major obstacle of porting ICS to it was that
there was no documentation and no open source code. With this barrier gone I
hope Nvidia will be able to pick up some steam again looking as to how they
pissed most of the cellphone manufacturers according to this article
[http://semiaccurate.com/2013/02/18/nvidias-telegraphs-
tegras...](http://semiaccurate.com/2013/02/18/nvidias-telegraphs-tegras-woes-
at-ces/) (again, don't know how true this is as I am no expert)

This could also be an interesting development for the Ouya game console, maybe
game devs will be able to get more performance out of the Tegra 3 chip with
it's sourcecode out in the open.

~~~
blinkingled
Yeah, got a Moto Atrix 4G lying around running Gingerbread when it could
perfectly run ICS/JB. Not only that I have had the most instability with
Nvidia Android devices. Nvidia really needs to learn a lesson and up their
mobile game.

Edit: From another HN thread - Nvidia seems to be almost at the bottom as far
as mobile GPU market share is concerned -
<http://stats.unity3d.com/mobile/gpu.html> \- which is definitely a cause for
concern given the volumes they need.

~~~
kelnos
How is that data gathered? Is it from a phone-home feature that apps (games?)
built with Unity3D have? If so, I doubt that's a representative sample.

~~~
blinkingled
Even if you ignore that data - all of the popular Android devices have been
non-Nvidia except for the Nexus 7. (GS3, Note2, various Asian/European devices
etc.) Even for next gen Nexus 7 there are rumors about Google/Asus dumping
Tegra and going with Qualcomm.

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randallu
Is this nVidia's driver? Or some random code that can draw a solid color
triangle on a tegra? Where's the shader compiler backend and the rest of
libGLESv2?

~~~
espes
It looks more like the very beginnings of a reverse-engineered driver effort.

The current shader "backend" (that is, a microcode assembler) is at
<https://github.com/grate-driver/grate/tree/master/src/libcgc>. Shader
compilation would be done by mesa. The rest of libGLESv2 seems unimplemented
for now.

~~~
wladimir
Yes, grate is similar to my effort for Vivante GPUs
<https://github.com/laanwj/etna_viv> . I'm not sure how they confused this
with official NVidia drivers, as it's built by a third party. NVidia open
sourcing drivers would be huge news indeed.

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Pengwin
Now how about an open source driver for the GeForce line?

~~~
stormbrew
No doubt. I don't even understand the business reasoning behind closed source
drivers at this point, especially with AMD on the rocks.

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Nursie
Awesome and amazing, and at last!

FOSS linux drivers (or even just driver specs) on Tegra 3 open up those
devices to run so much more stuff, and allow communities to start working on
full, open linux stacks for Tegra/ARM devices. Yay!

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wmf
From what I've read it sounds like there's Nvida's official closed-source
driver and a separate third-party open-source driver that's been approved by
Nvidia in some way (I guess that means they won't sue over it).

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neurotech1
nVidia chips are intended for high-end tablets but fall short. They are
essentially trying to compete with "good enough" GPU/CPUs that cost less than
$10 wholesale, but a Tegra 3 is about $20 wholesale.

~~~
exDM69
Where are these price figures from? I'm not quite sure they're right.

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ISL
Cool! Thank you, NVIDIA!

