Hi,
A while ago there was talk of AMD shifting the GPU onto the same chip as the CPU and/or putting it at the end of it's own hyper-transport link. In this case you end up with another type of processor, with all the video specific stuff (display memory, video mode setup, refresh rate control, monitor capabilities detection, etc) elsewhere.
All the reports I've seen so far say "AMD to open up the GPU". This may not be the same as "AMD to open up their entire video cards", in that it may not include anything outside the GPU itself. This means you'd probably need to use VESA/VBE to change video modes, etc which isn't something I consider the best solution ("thunking", no V86 in long mode and hassles supporting multiple video cards).
SpooK wrote:
At any rate, such information will be devoured by OSDev.org and we'll have neater looking hobby OSes in no time... just get ready for more non-RTFM-compliant types
I wouldn't necessarily be that optimistic either. A modern video card driver includes a compiler to convert some sort of generic "shader language" into GPU specific code, which is one of the reasons a decent video driver can be larger than a decent (monolithic) kernel like Linux. Even if AMD provide extremely good documentation for everything (including the GPU and all the additional stuff), it might still take several years for an experienced video driver programmer to create a "full function" video driver.
Hopefully the GPUs used don't change much between different versions and the same compiler can be re-used for each video driver. Also, hopefully someone creates a suitable open source compiler for this (e.g. something that complies with OpenGL's "GLSL" language and is licenced under a BSD style licence).
That said, Intel's onboard graphics has been open for a while now. Has anyone (outside of the "multi-million dollar Linux co-operative") managed to use this information?
Cheers,
Brendan