Imagination Appears To Be Working On An Open-Source PowerVR Driver


Maybe we should get all the members of this board to sign a petition to ask for Imagination to opensource its ARM based PowerVR SoCs too.  It may work, it may not work, but it's OK :D
 
TrashyMG said:
Don't think this applies to ARM based powerVR SoCs... looks MIPS specific and most likely for their newer offerings..
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I doubt there's an awful lot about the driver that would be MIPS specific. There's a good chance that it could still be ported to other archs and SoCs by someone who knows GPU drivers, so long as they can figure out what I/O ports go where.

But yeah, very little chance this would have anything to do with their old Series5 or 5XT GPUs like in use on Pandora and Pyra. Series 6 and onward is a completely different design.
 
Last saturday, with Linux-SWAT, Sebt3, Romain337 and beers :D  , we spoke about this OS driver.

Maybe we could try with petition and see if we got feedback for the Pandora and the Pyra.
 
Ååååå i thought it was bears. It wasnt bears.

AFAIK the older powerVR stuff is based on something they licensed off ATI (which is now AMD) which is the reason they give for not "being able to" open it up.

With AMD graphics now on a new set of drivers, and old PowerVR hardly touching their current market, maybe.

AMD needs good publicity like a person with a van needs candy.
 
I know its a dumb question but if we had these drivers what would that mean to us Pandora users
 
Actually we don't know nothing except that it's good for Open Source, i.e. users.
 
/me gazes out the window as the wild boar soar majestically through the clouds, thier perfectly feathered wings propelling them onward towards the deep blue horizon...
 
LTStone said:
I know its a dumb question but if we had these drivers what would that mean to us Pandora users
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From what I understand, probably nothing. If they do this it'd likely be for their newer chipset, not the older ones in the Pandora and soon Pyra.
 
If it's for MIPS, the CI20 is using a 5-series GPU which is entirely relevant here.
 
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lunixbochs said:
If it's for MIPS, the CI20 is using a 5-series GPU which is entirely relevant here.
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Nothing anywhere says anything about MIPS or CI20. Someone asked a MIPS employee if they were working on open source GPU drivers, he responded yes, that's it.

Strongly doubt IMG is going to go and release/create open source drivers for old hardware that doesn't have much market presence anymore. This same employee has said that one of the reasons they're reluctant to release open drivers and documentation is that they're opening themselves up to patent trolls. I can't see them taking on this risk over old technology. That's assuming anything ever comes of this in the first place.
 
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They could just relicense and release the leaked drivers though, all their enemies should already have them.

I wonder if some patent trolling could be legally performed based on information from leaked drivers. What I mean is if their patent excuse is really valid now...
 
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notaz said:
They could just relicense and release the leaked drivers though, all their enemies should already have them.

I wonder if some patent trolling could be legally performed based on information from leaked drivers. What I mean is if their patent excuse is really valid now...
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You could be overestimating how well known these leaks are. I've not yet heard them talked about by anyone outside of here.

I would expect that leaked source code could at least be inadmissible as evidence in court but I don't really know.
 
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