From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Thu May 6 09:10:38 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 4D16B16A4CE for ; Thu, 6 May 2004 09:10:38 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mailhub.sweetdreamsracing.biz (mailhub.sweetdreamsracing.biz [66.92.171.106]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id AC20B43D45 for ; Thu, 6 May 2004 09:10:37 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from culverk@sweetdreamsracing.biz) Received: by mailhub.sweetdreamsracing.biz (Postfix, from userid 80) id 95D1E26C; Thu, 6 May 2004 12:19:22 -0400 (EDT) Received: from 141.156.69.109 ([141.156.69.109]) by www.sweetdreamsracing.biz (Horde) with HTTP for ; Thu, 6 May 2004 12:19:22 -0400 Message-ID: <20040506121922.1x74kc080osgsocw@www.sweetdreamsracing.biz> Date: Thu, 6 May 2004 12:19:22 -0400 From: Kenneth Culver To: Jason Andresen 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> <409A5F5F.1050202@mitre.org> In-Reply-To: <409A5F5F.1050202@mitre.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1"; format="flowed" Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit User-Agent: Internet Messaging Program (IMP) 4.0-cvs 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 16:10:38 -0000 Quoting Jason Andresen : > 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. > http://www.freebsd.org/releases/5.3R/todo.html According to the above page, TLS isn't implemented: GCC 3.4 is needed to support TLS on all our our Tier-1 platforms. It also is likely to be better maintained by the FSF during the lifespan on 5.x than GCC 3.3 is. There are a few other entries there relating to TLS as well. Ken