Hi there...

I wonder how much MorphOS Team would need for Nvidia graphic cards support? Maybe a bounty on this issue can be started?

ATI Radeon card support is really nice, but there are so many Nvidia GeForce cards that could be used. Also! PowerBook 12" and PowerMacs with Nvidia cards would work.

Any interest? Hope so! :)

Best Regards,
Michal :)

Afaik NVIDIA is very restrictive about informations of their drivers and internas - that's the reason for no support in MOS......

But how can AROS work on Nvidia cards then? Do they use a linux development driver? Where does Linux get therr Nvidia drivers from?

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Long development time better spent elsewhere.
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You could also use currently unsupported Radeon cards. And Intel gfx cards. And what about all those ancient PCI graphics cards? There are TONS of unsupported ones!

Seriously though, there HAS to be some limit where the support ends. Pick a supported gfx card. Original Apple one, or reflash "normal" one.
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And that's the ONLY valid point for nvidia support this far.

Instead of picking compatible gfx card, you need to make sure you pick a complete computer system, that has one built-in.

Only really affects people getting old mac laptops for free (as when buying one, you can make sure to buy a supported one)


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There are 2 "sets" of nvidia drivers for linux.
1)The "proper", working one directly from nVidia. It's X86-only and closed source. Also, support for older models gets dropped at some point, and old drivers might not work with newer kernels anymore.

2)The reverse-engineered "open source" one. Some time ago it finally reached "somewhat usable" state. Since then, often installed as default (as it's open source), and it definitely is enough to launch your package manager of choice to download better working official drivers.

Nvidia did release an open source driver called Nouveau.
Linux by default uses it now.
I run Linux and really hate it.
I have to blacklist the SOB to install the genuine driver so my windows games will run in Linux.

However, Nouveau would be perfect for MOS.
It is an open source driver given to the linux community to silence the nonstop moaning about nvidia being closed source. Anyone want to look into compiling it for us?

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Nouveau is a community driven project, not by NVidia.
And simply recompiling the drivers for MorphOs won't work
at all. There are many dependencies to the Linux Kernel and XServer.

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Nice. I hope something can be done regarding this. Nvidia got many great 3D graphic cards. Would be nice.

> Nouveau is a community driven project, not by NVidia.
> And simply recompiling the drivers for MorphOs won't work
> at all. There are many dependencies to the Linux Kernel and XServer.

Nouveau is available for AROS, so maybe not that far from MOS:

http://www.amiga.org/forums/archive/index.php/t-57926.html
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Aros/Developer/Docs/HIDD/Nouveau

Yes, my PC had a NVidia card and it works with AROS, with 3D too as well.

But why do we need even more gfx cards? Radeon based laptops are plentiful and the AGP X800 is a pretty fast card. Is there some real world gain for putting in work on this?

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There are many PowerMac G4s, PowerMac G5s and also even PowerBook 12" that got Nvidia gfx cards. They could be more useful this way.

I love my iBook G4 though with MorphOS on it. But this is for the choices that people with lowendmacs that got a Nvidia card would not need to buy another one with a ATI Radeon card etc.

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Thanks for the info on AROS using it.
Looked like it might die there for a second.
Lets get their code and go with it.

Bounty to port AROS nouveau?

I would prefer to "waste" resources on getting MorphOS on other architecture than another gfx card, while there is a plenty options available and we don't even have software to use 100% possibilities than current supported cards give us.

[ Edited by pampers 20.01.2015 - 14:56 ]

@Pampers

+1

I'd rather have the existing Radeon cards better utilized. There is only so much one can do with a subset of OpenGL 1.x.

Has anybody even bothered to check what level of compatibility Nouveau offers for the GPUs that were discussed in the initial post (Powerbook, PowerMac)?

Well this is not easy, this is what the Nouveau site says:

>Nouveau aims to support all NVIDIA cards, but no effort is made to document which cards (and BIOSes) actually work, as this is deemed infeasible.<


>Nouveau is composed of a Linux kernel KMS driver (nouveau), Gallium3D drivers in Mesa, and the Xorg DDX (xf86-video-nouveau).<


So they can really tell us what cards work or not..

X

[ Edited by XzIt 20.01.2015 - 18:03 ]

Well, more supported hardware would indeed be _nice_, but the question is if it's work effort best spent or not. Someone has to write it instead of writing something else. That's my point.

I'd rather that MorphOS Team concentrate on making MorphOS better as an operating system rather than adding hardware support for things that are already pretty equal to already supported hardware.

I'm wondering which benefit NVIDIA support would have for the user. I don't think that Powermacs with NVIDIA are wider spreaded than those ATI ones.

I think Radeons are good enough for us. better invest in more powerful cards to run bigger displays and modern connectors for https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?topic_id=11041&forum=3

I'd settle for more memory support for G5.
Having only 1GB really hurts bad when trying to fool around with the bochs emulator.
Not that I wouldn’t like to see at least one nvidia driver that could settle the issue.

> Has anybody even bothered to check what level of compatibility Nouveau offers for
> the GPUs that were discussed in the initial post (Powerbook, PowerMac)?

http://nouveau.freedesktop.org/wiki/FeatureMatrix/

PowerBook has up to NV30 series, PowerMac up to NV40 series.

I think this is important, because if we want more users I feel a bit odd telling people having Nvidia PowerPC macs that they need ATI Radeon version. You cant also change the Nvidia with ATI card just like that in PowerBook etc.

It would be easier if Nvidia support was added. If only 2D part worked would be enough.


[ Edited by MorphDelf 21.01.2015 - 00:14 ]

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That is certainly debatable.

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Couldn't agree more. Put all resources into a future proof effort.

ok, seems we have about 50/50 on this issue.

Two questions:

1) Do we have a developer who is available and capable?

2) How much money would he need in bounty?