On Sat, 2004-09-25 at 19:50, Pete S. wrote:
> http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=18664
Yep. ATI learned, as nVidia did, that it's better to work with Intel
than against them. Hence why ATI has withheld specs on _all_ newer
architectures -- R300+ (Radeon 9500 on-ward).
Intel considers AGP a trade secret, as well as its new PCI-Express
chipsets -- although PCI-Express _is_ a PCI Standards Group standard
(AGP was not). Microsoft also licenses a lot of patents they have been
granted in contracts (even on OpenGL). When nVidia released its
"unified" drivers as open source for XFree86 3.3.3, Microsoft and Intel
threatened to sue, and that was that.
Since then, nVidia and ATI have taken diverging paths. nVidia has
continued to produce their "unified" GDI/Win32-Cocoa/BSD-X11/UNIX driver
base. ATI developed "clean room" drivers. Now ATI has come around to
nVidia's way of thinking, because it's virtually impossible for them to
support their product lines as well as nVidia.
At least the API is open. That's why I call Intel-nVidia's drivers
"Standardware" -- because they conform to an open standard, GLX (OpenGL
on X11). GLX is much better than DRI IMHO -- especially for people used
to UNIX workstations. DRI is nice for gaming, but it can't keep up with
something that is "out-of-date" in 9 months, let alone more professional
graphics.
Without nVidia, engineering would have stuck with UNIX or, worse yet,
moved to NT. But because we have nVidia, we have have had Linux
proliferation as an engineering desktop over the last 5 years. ATI is
merely joining the party.
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