From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Thu May 6 08:53:07 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A761916A4CE for ; Thu, 6 May 2004 08:53:07 -0700 (PDT) Received: from smtp-bedford.mitre.org (smtp-bedford-x.mitre.org [192.160.51.76]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1E13F43D3F for ; Thu, 6 May 2004 08:53:07 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from jandrese@mitre.org) Received: from smtp-bedford.mitre.org (localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1]) by smtp-bedford.mitre.org (8.11.6/8.11.6) with ESMTP id i46Fr6T29563 for ; Thu, 6 May 2004 11:53:06 -0400 Received: from mailsrv2a (mailsrv2a.mitre.org [129.83.221.56]) by smtp-bedford.mitre.org (8.11.6/8.11.6) with ESMTP id i46Fr6l29549; Thu, 6 May 2004 11:53:06 -0400 Received: from mitre.org (mm112324-2k.mitre.org [128.29.3.25]) by mailsrv2a.mitre.org (iPlanet Messaging Server 5.2 HotFix 1.16 (built May 14 2003)) with ESMTPA id <0HXA00B3KUSG2E@mailsrv2a.mitre.org>; Thu, 06 May 2004 11:53:04 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 06 May 2004 11:53:03 -0400 From: Jason Andresen In-reply-to: <20040506113745.ojg9sgkkc800s8cs@www.sweetdreamsracing.biz> To: Kenneth Culver Message-id: <409A5F5F.1050202@mitre.org> MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT X-Accept-Language: en-us, en User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.6) Gecko/20040113 References: <40982623.2090804@bellsouth.net> <20040505102632.73f67bbe.manlix@demonized.net> <"115944527.20040505 112857"@andric.com> <20040505141924.GF34693@sirius.firepipe.net> <409A566A.803@mitre.org> <20040506113745.ojg9sgkkc800s8cs@www.sweetdreamsracing.biz> cc: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Subject: Re: nVidia FX Support? X-BeenThere: freebsd-current@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussions about the use of FreeBSD-current List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 06 May 2004 15:53:07 -0000 Kenneth Culver wrote: > Quoting Jason Andresen : > >> Will Andrews wrote: >> >>> On Wed, May 05, 2004 at 11:28:57AM +0200, Dimitry Andric wrote: >>> >>>> The problem is that NVidia hasn't updated its binary-only FreeBSD >>>> driver since July 1st, 2003. Any cards released after this date will >>>> not work properly, or at all, with this driver. So please go bug >>>> NVidia. :) >>>> >>>> But, see also this thread: >>>> http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-threads/2003-June/000530.html >>>> >>>> >>>> which might explain why it takes forever for new drivers to arrive. :( >> >> >> Ugh, reading through that thread I got a bad bad feeling that it will be >> ages before we see another NVidia driver. The NVidia engineer is >> unwilling to proceed without his %gs register, and the FreeBSD engineers >> are unwilling to give it to him because the fast thread switching needs >> it for good performance. The NVidia engineers needs the %gs register >> for good performance, and will not release drivers that are 10-50% >> slower than the Windows ones. >> >> It looks like the whole situation is at a standstill at the moment, >> which means we get no new drivers until the whole thing is sorted out. >> It's really distressing to see how frustrated the NVidia engineer was by >> the end of the thread. >> > I'm pretty sure that the FreeBSD people are working on TLS, which will > allow the > nvidia people to be happy. Maybe I'm reading it wrong, but it seems like TLS is what got them in all of this trouble in the first place. It seems that FreeBSD's implementation uses the %gs register, which NVidia also wants to use. -- \ |_ _|__ __|_ \ __| Jason Andresen jandrese@mitre.org |\/ | | | / _| Network and Distributed Systems Engineer _| _|___| _| _|_\___| Office: 703-883-7755