Open Source Graphics Card

zaleschiemilgabriel · Post by **zaleschiemilgabriel** » Thu May 22, 2008 2:58 am

Finally, there is something for operating systems developers who want to have graphics card drivers without using the BIOS. OGD1 is a graphics board designed by the open source community named Open Graphics Project.
Here's more info, on the subject:
http://wiki.duskglow.com/tiki-index.php?page=OGD1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Graphics_Project
They take pre-orders on the product. I wonder if they will deliver the product worldwide once it's finished.

AJ · Post by AJ » Thu May 22, 2008 3:01 am

Aren't they a bit late?

zaleschiemilgabriel · Post by **zaleschiemilgabriel** » Thu May 22, 2008 3:13 am

AMD/ATI only have specifications/code for X.org. I wouldn't consider that open-source. Anyway, I noticed the OGD1 pre-order was for the development kit and it costs $1500. That's way out of my budget. If ATI/AMD provide a good enough specification, I'm game. Does anyone have a link to this alleged specification or is it not out yet?

JamesM · Post by **JamesM** » Thu May 22, 2008 4:10 am

AMD/ATI only have specifications/code for X.org. I wouldn't consider that open-source.

Uh... the source is open. So how exactly is it not open source?

zaleschiemilgabriel · Post by **zaleschiemilgabriel** » Thu May 22, 2008 4:12 am

It's bloated.

pcmattman · Post by **pcmattman** » Thu May 22, 2008 5:04 am

Bloated != Closed source. Get a life.

Combuster · Post by **Combuster** » Thu May 22, 2008 5:20 am

Mr Z. has returned. There goes my peaceful life

As for the facts:

OGD existed well before AMD released their specs. They just never got ground since the black sheep in the GPU market already have opened up docs (Voodoo, Intel, Via). After AMD, the primary goal of this project has been eliminated.
Given the time they are around and the fact they haven't reached any noteworthy status, I wouldn't even want to bother.

As for the AMD docs, they are publicly available from the X.org website, and there have been many posts about them here.

Edit: Their homepage also got NSFW content

.

Brynet-Inc · Post by **Brynet-Inc** » Thu May 22, 2008 7:09 am

zaleschiemilgabriel wrote:Does anyone have a link to this alleged specification or is it not out yet?

These links have been posted here, "AND EVERYWHERE ELSE ON THE INTERNET" about 50 billion (and 2..) times..

http://ati.amd.com/developer/open_gpu_d ... ation.html
http://www.x.org/docs/AMD/

They're hardly "Xorg centric"..

Anyway, The purpose of the Open Graphics Project is to produce a graphics card that not only has open software specifications, but hardware as well..

chase · Post by **chase** » Thu May 22, 2008 11:26 pm

$1500.00 - Ouch.

Keiyentai · Post by **Keiyentai** » Sat May 24, 2008 9:48 am

The idea and concept are cool but the price for the performance is a little...high. $1500 for a card that performs at the rate of a Radeon 7000? Little much I think.

Brynet-Inc · Post by **Brynet-Inc** » Sat May 24, 2008 9:53 am

Keiyentai wrote:The idea and concept are cool but the price for the performance is a little...high. $1500 for a card that performs at the rate of a Radeon 7000? Little much I think.

I think the cost comes in as a result of FPGA's vs ASIC, the design of the card allows users to actually "modify" and tweak the card to their hearts desire..

It's a card for developers after all... I'm sure they could cut manufacturing costs, but the end result probably wouldn't be very fun to tinker with..

Keiyentai · Post by **Keiyentai** » Sat May 24, 2008 8:12 pm

I know the card is ment for developers just the price still seems a little steep. Although would be cool to make a dedicated F@H or Render card.