Last I heard (very recently) the NVidia closed source drivers are still the most practical option, because the AMD closed source drivers are fickle and the AMD open source drivers are incomplete. Wrong?
> Intel graphics card don't count if you're doing serious 3D work.
(I started work on the 3D driver team at Intel in July, but everything I say is my own opinion.)
Historically, I think you might be right. Lately (the last few years) I think Intel significantly improved both its hardware and drivers.
The i965 driver is the only free software driver that supports OpenGL 3.1. The team I'm on is responsible for a huge number of improvements to the 3D stack, including rewriting the GLSL compiler which benefits the Radeon and Nouveau drivers as well.
We've had engineers visit Valve in person and make sure that their stuff will work well on our drivers. I'd consider what Valve is doing to be "serious 3D work."
Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge are pretty respectable. Haswell will be even better. You should reconsider your position.
Apple? They can afford it, and have already demonstrated interest in having their own chips. At the current valuation, it'd not cost much more than ATi did when AMD bought them.
I think the people with the most interest in keeping AMD alive would be Intel's big customers who are not resellers. I'm thinking of people like Amazon, Google and Facebook.
Very good point. It's telling. Screw the company, they say, we're going to inflate this thing, take our profits, and go to the next con.
In this new world we're watching unfold, boards no longer do what is in the interest of the company. This guy puts it well:
2)"Companies should not be run in the interest of their owners." Shareholders are the most mobile of corporate stakeholders, often holding ownership for but a fraction of a second (high-frequency trading represents 70% of today's trading). Shareholders prefer corporate strategies that maximize short-term profits and dividends, usually at the cost of long-term investments. (This often also includes added leverage and risk, and reliance on socializing risk via 'too big to fail' status, and relying on 'the Greenspan put.') Chang adds that corporate limited liability, while a boon to capital accumulation and technological progress, when combined with professional managers instead of entrepreneurs owning a large chunk (eg. Ford, Edison, Carnegie) and public shares with smaller voting rights (typically limited to 10%), allows professional managers to maximize their own prestige via sales growth and prestige projects instead of maximizing profits. Another negative long-term outcome driven by shareholders is increased share buybacks (less than 5% of profits until the early 1980s, 90% in 2007, and 280% in 2008) - one economist estimates that had GM not spent $20.4 billion on buybacks between 1986 and 2002 it could have prevented its 2009 bankruptcy. Short-term stockholder perspectives have also brought large-scale layoffs from off-shoring. Governments of other countries encourage longer-term thinking by holding large shares in key enterprises (China Mobile, Renault, Volkswagen), providing greater worker representation (Germany's supervisory boards), and cross-shareholding among friendly companies (Japan's Toyota and its suppliers).
News like this worries me because I've always imagined the world's improvements in mass market technology being driven by competition between major players like Intel and AMD.
In other words, I'm afraid that the loss of competition for Intel will slow the approach of the future.
The other sources of competition that Intel faces might be strong enough to motivate it, but I'm not as familiar with the influences that, say, ARM chips and Apple's own CPU development have had on Intel.
In desktop and servers, for about 5-6 years now Intel has mostly been in competition with itself. If it can't engineer faster parts, it can't get people to upgrade, which means no sales. I wouldn't worry about that too much.
[+] [-] pjmlp|13 years ago|reply
Down goes the only graphics manufacturer offering proper graphics cards with documentation for open source developers.
Intel graphics card don't count if you're doing serious 3D work.
[+] [-] aristidb|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mattst88|13 years ago|reply
(I started work on the 3D driver team at Intel in July, but everything I say is my own opinion.)
Historically, I think you might be right. Lately (the last few years) I think Intel significantly improved both its hardware and drivers.
The i965 driver is the only free software driver that supports OpenGL 3.1. The team I'm on is responsible for a huge number of improvements to the 3D stack, including rewriting the GLSL compiler which benefits the Radeon and Nouveau drivers as well.
We've had engineers visit Valve in person and make sure that their stuff will work well on our drivers. I'd consider what Valve is doing to be "serious 3D work."
Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge are pretty respectable. Haswell will be even better. You should reconsider your position.
[+] [-] joelthelion|13 years ago|reply
For serious 3D, Nvidia proprietary drivers are so far the only good option.
AMD is not very relevant in the linux world.
[+] [-] mtgx|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] revelation|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] archangel_one|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thrownaway2424|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] seivan|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] imglorp|13 years ago|reply
In this new world we're watching unfold, boards no longer do what is in the interest of the company. This guy puts it well:
2)"Companies should not be run in the interest of their owners." Shareholders are the most mobile of corporate stakeholders, often holding ownership for but a fraction of a second (high-frequency trading represents 70% of today's trading). Shareholders prefer corporate strategies that maximize short-term profits and dividends, usually at the cost of long-term investments. (This often also includes added leverage and risk, and reliance on socializing risk via 'too big to fail' status, and relying on 'the Greenspan put.') Chang adds that corporate limited liability, while a boon to capital accumulation and technological progress, when combined with professional managers instead of entrepreneurs owning a large chunk (eg. Ford, Edison, Carnegie) and public shares with smaller voting rights (typically limited to 10%), allows professional managers to maximize their own prestige via sales growth and prestige projects instead of maximizing profits. Another negative long-term outcome driven by shareholders is increased share buybacks (less than 5% of profits until the early 1980s, 90% in 2007, and 280% in 2008) - one economist estimates that had GM not spent $20.4 billion on buybacks between 1986 and 2002 it could have prevented its 2009 bankruptcy. Short-term stockholder perspectives have also brought large-scale layoffs from off-shoring. Governments of other countries encourage longer-term thinking by holding large shares in key enterprises (China Mobile, Renault, Volkswagen), providing greater worker representation (Germany's supervisory boards), and cross-shareholding among friendly companies (Japan's Toyota and its suppliers).
source - http://www.amazon.com/Things-They-Dont-About-Capitalism/dp/1...
[+] [-] sp332|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] anakanemison|13 years ago|reply
In other words, I'm afraid that the loss of competition for Intel will slow the approach of the future.
The other sources of competition that Intel faces might be strong enough to motivate it, but I'm not as familiar with the influences that, say, ARM chips and Apple's own CPU development have had on Intel.
[+] [-] flyinglizard|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] malkia|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] caycep|13 years ago|reply