Knobbled Drivers?
Posts: 42
This is more on resolution - it applies to all drivers, not just NVIDIA.
After critically observing video bandwidth limiting resolution across many installations, compared to the same hardware running Windows, I now question whether the drivers available for Linux are delivering all they might.
I am new to MEPIS. My trail covers RedHat, Mandrake/Mandriva, Debian, Slack, Vector, 2xGentoo, 3xSuSE, and a 15 minute dalliance with Ubuntu. I am mor distro tart than expert!
Surprised I was at the MEPIS apparent maximum resolution being 1024x768. I got over it by using KATE to edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf, as I guess others have done similar after reading older postings here.
I now have come to question the delivered video bandwidth. This is not about "resolution" as in how many pixels are delivered, it is about how swiftly the video signal can transit from black to white and (maybe) back again to deliver an edge, or the finest line it can do at full contrast. When I look at the Windows screen (dual-boot), there is no question that the fonts and icons , antialiased or otherwise, are crisper and finer, with less bleed, and more defined.
True - I am using the KDE screen, and I plan to try some other desktops, but I have to say that any Linux screen I have tried so far has this feature.
Looking close at black borders on white backgrounds, such as seen when typing into this forum, it seems as if the pixels perporting to be black are not all the way there, and the pixels either side, are not properly white. It is almost as if the DAC in the video card is being deliberately driven to filter the transition, or maybe the last bit is being zeroed.
I would not wish to unfairly malign even Linux-unfriendly purveyors of proprietary drivers, and I want to eliminate any possible fumbles on my part. In my experience, there is all sorts of pain in getting this most basic thing - the graphics card and driver, in and working. NVIDIA seems to look better than ATI, even using graphics cards well up to the best in modern 3D gaming. Why then, when I switch to Windows, do I see a clear inprovement?
Resolution testcards, placed fairly to straddle identical measures across the screen may be the way to compare, and I am looking for some, but before I start shopping for new hardware, or start fooling with a spectrum analyser, I thought to ask here if any think my perception is misplaced. Is this something anyone else has noticed?
+ my regards to the new-found MEPIS community
Quote:This leaves reverse
Posts: 42
This leaves reverse engineering as the only way to generate Linux video drivers.
Games programmers are always at the leading edge of exploiting the newest chipset commands. Is there enough information leak to allow some of us to at least take a peek at what making such a driver involves?
Darn that I don't have the skill myself. The best I ever did was to figure out how a printer driver worked, then hex-hacked an existing one into life. A video driver is another game altogether!
Surely the installed base of Linux, very minority as it is, is still large enough, and industry important enough, not to be permanently prone to what looks like a illegal business sharp practice so reprehensible that makers of fine video cards (like NVIDIA and ATI) would not wish to be tainted so. Companies like Novell and RedHat, IBM and others use this stuff!
In the case of modems, Conexant (for example) I found to be obdurately hostile, and I would never use one of their products with the situation as it is. Video cards are another matter. Its not a thing amenable to a decent work-around, like say a "winmodem". This is too important! If it is true that the video drivers available to non-windows users are deliberately knobbled, then...
a) How can we show that it is so, and not some "accident".
b) If clearly deliberate - might it violate any laws?
c) Would exposure engender sufficient negative publicity to affect the situation?
d) Is there chipset hardware engineering information available to enable a solution? Is this notion even feasible?
e) Is work contributed at x.org directly relavant?
I do hope you are wrong about this...
Re: Knobbled Drivers?
Posts: 519
http://kerneltrap.org/node/4622
Welcome to the world of power politics and a convicted monopolist who has been given a license to violate the Sherman-Clayton Anti-trust Act by a "settlement" which was toothless, thanks to "campaign constributions" to congressment and senators. THat's right, we have the best congressmen and senators that money can buy.
Microsoft has taken advantage of the tight profit marings in video cards just the way the took advantage of PC OEM tight profits.... if they support Linux, Microsoft will "cut off their air supply".
This leaves reverse engineering as the only way to generate Linux video drivers. NOW you know why Microsoft is pushing the expansion of "IP" laws to prohibit green room reverse engineering.
NVIDIA and ATI "COULD" release binary drivers for Linux that could work as good as their drivers for the Windows OS, but if they did that the next Windows service pack would have "problems" with that video card and Microsoft's "solution" would be to change to a "more compativle" video card.... i.e., one that doesn't cooperate with Linux.