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Open Graphics Project


spinynorman
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Kerneltrap.org has an interview with Timothy Miller of Tech Source Inc, who initiated this project to produce an Open Source Friendly Graphics Card.

 

The Open Graphics Project is a collaboration between the Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) Community and Tech Source Inc. to develop new 3D graphics products that are compatible with Free Software, both philosophically and practically. The project is currently designing an "open source friendly graphics card" which will offer quality 3D and 2D acceleration with an impressive feature set at an affordable price, aiming for availability as early as June of 2005. Though the project was only started in October of 2004, it has already released the card's specifications, a design document, and a software model for early testing and driver development. In this interview, Timothy provides a wealth of information about the project and its current status, highlights contributions needed from the free and open source community, and fully describes the specific capabilities of the card.

Would you pay around 200 dollars for such a card? :unsure:

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Would you pay around 200 dollars for such a card?  :unsure:

If performance is comparable (or even a bit worse) than current, comparable, commercial offerings: yes

 

Hmmm... I see Open Hardware is becoming more popular... what's happening with the 'Open Bios' projects?

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You can sign a petition here, to express your interest, and price preferences. (No commitment to buy, just establishing the community's desire. :) )

 

And I wouldn't pay $200. But $100 would be acceptable, to me.

Edited by Padma
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well to think this is actually being talked about is a wonderful thing !

can they please make it a card that is at least up to today's specs, and not yesterday's !

the fact that this is happening at all, bodes well for the future of linux, and the power of its community.

it is a begining, and i can't wait for the day i will be able to ask, "oh and one other request, please make it non microsoft compatible !"

and start giving them a taste of their own medicine !!!!!

( well, when we have some real native top notch games to play on our top notch card)

 

:banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana::banana:

 

lets see $200 = roughly £100 (quick guess)

 

i spent £35 = $70 on my nvidia fx5200 so i guess i wouldn't go for it unless it was a very hot card with tv tuner built in, with all the inputs and outputs (like ati's all in wonder) now that i would certainly pay $200 for maybe even $350!

 

but its early days, i'm just grateful that they are even trying, good luck to them and i hope it is successful.

 

reb

Edited by reb2
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I can't afford to spend that much on a graphics card! I only spent $50 on the one I have! :-P

 

and neither can i urza lol

but if its something i really want (and will find useful) i will put my self out to save up for it.

even if its not exactly the latest and greatest at that point in time (it takes me a long time to save up ;0) )

my ati all in wonder (32mb ragepro 128) took me two years to save up for!

but i got it and its worked very well and i have been very happy with it.

its just a shame that ati's linux support is not as good as their card :screwy:

and have now changed over to nvidia fx5200 in my main machine.

regards

reb

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I will buy 2: one for my pc, one for the pc of my wife. And, maybe, just to support this, one for my _headless_ server.

 

 

You see, the point is, if this becomes a success, hardware manufacturers see that it's good to make friends with the community.

 

If it doesn't work out, proprietary will be the way to go. Hopefully we can avoid that.

 

Think back at Loki, if you were around at the time - even today, people take Loki as an example to 'prove' that there's no bread in Linux gaming, porting games, etcetc.

For those who don't know,: Loki was working on porting popular games to Linux, and after some time, they went out of business. That was around 2001 (or even 2000), when there were about 1% of all desktop pc users on Linux. Today, it's closer to 5%, but still the argument stands.

 

Let's not let this happen here.

 

About the performance, this card/design will have 2 pipelines at 200MHz, NVidia and ATI's (sub-)top offerings have 8 pipes and run at 400MHz and up.

Do the math, this card will not be capable of competing with todays high end cards, but it should compare ok or even favourably with GF2mx cards (see these specs: http://www.maximum3d.com/reviews/abitgf2mx.htm).

 

On the other hand, I for one long for rock solid drivers for my graphics cards, and still want to be able to do some sort of 3d (so 'nv' doesn't cut it) - the community will surely make that happen.

 

Oh yeah, and it was mentioned that you should be able to play Doom III on this card.. (vga res and other 'uncool' settings for sure, but still...)

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