Intel Larrabee (GPU)

[Nick Carlson]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the consensus among OS developers is that video card developers (Nvidia & AMD) don't offer enough technical literature to allow hobbyists to write graphics drivers.

I'm wondering if that will change with Intel's release of Larrabee. Do you think Intel will release detailed developers manuals for those chips?

Note: As a side question, what current mainstream video card would be the best target for developing a driver?

Thanks.

[Brynet-Inc]

That view is outdated, if you had read any topics on this forum in the past year or so.. you would know this.

Intel/AMD(ATI) and VIA provide technical specifications now, Nvidia is still currently holding out..

http://www.x.org/docs/AMD/
http://developer.amd.com/documentation/ ... x#open_gpu
http://www.x.org/docs/via/
http://www.x.org/docs/intel/
..etc.

[Nick Carlson]

Thanks for the update.

I did a search for "larrabee" on this forum (and via google), and didn't find a single post.

[Brynet-Inc]

Thanks for the update.

I did a search for "larrabee" on this forum (and via google), and didn't find a single post.

It's not even out yet, documentation is unlikely to exist.. wait a bit.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larrabee_(GPU)

[Brendan]

Hi,

The world has changed since GPUs were only for graphics - now they're being used for physics engines and (some kinds of) general processing. Because of this I think Intel will originally release Larrabee as a GPU (and provide documentation, because Intel always do) but eventually I think Larrabee will be merged with normal CPUs - for example, a single chip with a few modern/complex cores and a group of simple/Larrabee style cores (and maybe a basic graphics controller hanging off the inbuilt memory controller).

Also, Larrabee is "GPU" only, and doesn't include all the stuff for controlling video signal timing, setting video modes, etc. I'd expect a plain boring graphics controller chip (e.g. something like an SVGA card without any 2D/3D acceleration) with a Larrabee "GPU" glued onto it; where there's 2 pieces of documentation (one for the graphics controller chip and another for Larrabee).

I'm mostly guessing though...


Cheers,

Brendan

[blackoil]

Larra-BEE

Intel Insect

[Combuster]

I'm yet to figure why Intel's going for the old PowerVR chip's approach with its tilebased rendering...

[jal]

I'm yet to figure why Intel's going for the old PowerVR chip's approach with its tilebased rendering...

I've recently read a Larrabee article somewhere that explained it a bit. Iirc, it has to do with tile-based rendering being very good distributable among processors, while the traditional method is not. Thus, rendering can easily be scaled up by having more processors. A relatively cheap way of increasing power.


JAL