Why is 3D acceleration with nouveau so much discouraged?

Soumyadeep · 2010-07-13 14:41:14

From nouveau wiki:

Any 3-D functionality that might exist is still unsupported. Do not ask for instructions to try it.

From archwiki:

If you want to try 3D acceleration or you have problems with it, you are on your own, unless you are looking to contribute patches.

Ok I get that nvidia has a very good proprietary driver for linux, while others like ati dont, so an open-source 3d accel driver for ati is very much important. But shouldnt nvidia cards also have a opensourced driver so that distros can include them in the default install without violating several legal issues? Other than the warnings that I quoted, even bug reporting for the nouveau gallium3d drivers is prohibited. In Fedora 13 just a single 2mb package(something like mesa-dri-experimental) enables gallium3d, and I have had no issues with that, but in arch a lot of packages(some are huge) have to downloaded/compiled to get gallium3d to work. Also no howtos/wiki page to install gallium3d for nvidia.

Without people actually using and testing them how do we get them to be perfect(or even near perfect)?

karol · 2010-07-13 14:50:11

> Without people actually using and testing them how do we get them to be perfect(or even near perfect)?
Maybe the devs think it's too early as _most_ things won't work. They know they don't work, so more bug reports won't help. In a later stage they should seek the users' input as usual.

Misfit138 · 2010-07-13 14:56:46

Why is 3D acceleration with nouveau so much discouraged?

If you want to use a development version of a given package, then be open minded to how functional it is. Complaining that a piece of software is not completely functional, when it is self-described as alpha software, seems rather strange.

ngoonee · 2010-07-13 15:42:04

I think he's more asking about why using it is discouraged rather than why its not functional.

@soumyadeep, Its pretty clearly stated on the nouveau site, they don't encourage using it or submitting bug reports because a couple of thousand "this doesn't work for me" doesn't help, they know what works and what doesn't. Its analogous to opening a bugzilla for firefox 5, it doesn't work (doesn't exist, but nevermind that) so what good would bug reports do?

tavianator · 2010-07-13 15:42:35

Soumyadeep wrote:

Without people actually using and testing them how do we get them to be perfect(or even near perfect)?

This question would only make sense if the devs thought that their code works. They don't, although it's getting better.

In fact, I'm glad they discourage use, because my latest experience (2 weeks ago) with nouveau 3D is that running 2 glxgears windows at the same time hangs the entire kernel and nothing but a hard reset will fix it (no magic SysRq, ssh, etc.). If people started using nouveau 3D, they'd probably be annoyed at losing everything they're working on every few hours.

Apparently though, stability and functionality vary a lot between chipsets, so you may as well try it if you want. But if it doesn't work, don't bother telling the devs -- they already know.

Soumyadeep · 2010-07-13 16:12:06

@all above: My experience with gallium3d was very good, it ran all compiz effects flawlessly so I assumed it to be in a quiet usable state. But it seems its giving probs to a huge no. of users.

ngoonee wrote:

I think he's more asking about why using it is discouraged rather than why its not functional.
@soumyadeep, Its pretty clearly stated on the nouveau site, they don't encourage using it or submitting bug reports because a couple of thousand "this doesn't work for me" doesn't help, they know what works and what doesn't. Its analogous to opening a bugzilla for firefox 5, it doesn't work (doesn't exist, but nevermind that) so what good would bug reports do?

I understand now, thanks.

ngoonee · 2010-07-13 22:44:35

Soumyadeep wrote:

@all above: My experience with gallium3d was very good, it ran all compiz effects flawlessly so I assumed it to be in a quiet usable state. But it seems its giving probs to a huge no. of users.

Lucky you. Compiz kept croaking on my with gallium3d the few times I've tried it.

ablepharus · 2010-07-13 23:38:10

In my experience even the basics of nouveau don't work properly, so don't talk about 3d

flamelab · 2010-07-14 05:47:55

I have used Nouveau 3D recently, it was like my GTS250 turned into a 7400GT.

karol · 2010-07-14 05:54:56

> I have used Nouveau 3D recently, it was like my GTS250 turned into a 7400GT.
My FX 5500 turned into Powerpoint.

ngoonee · 2010-07-14 06:07:13

Yeah, my experience was more karol than flamelab, if you know what I mean.

Of course all of us would wish that nouveau could achieve even 50-70% of the binary's 3D performance (that's the stage at which I'd use it full-time and not just to test and find bugs). Till then, I'm thankful that for all their closed-sourceness, nvidia is really very good at providing functional and feature-complete drivers (no, KMS and xrandr1.3 are not 'features').

Arch Linux

#1 2010-07-13 14:41:14

Why is 3D acceleration with nouveau so much discouraged?

#2 2010-07-13 14:50:11

Re: Why is 3D acceleration with nouveau so much discouraged?

#3 2010-07-13 14:56:46

Re: Why is 3D acceleration with nouveau so much discouraged?

#4 2010-07-13 15:42:04

Re: Why is 3D acceleration with nouveau so much discouraged?

#5 2010-07-13 15:42:35

Re: Why is 3D acceleration with nouveau so much discouraged?

#6 2010-07-13 16:12:06

Re: Why is 3D acceleration with nouveau so much discouraged?

#7 2010-07-13 22:44:35

Re: Why is 3D acceleration with nouveau so much discouraged?

#8 2010-07-13 23:38:10

Re: Why is 3D acceleration with nouveau so much discouraged?

#9 2010-07-14 05:47:55

Re: Why is 3D acceleration with nouveau so much discouraged?

#10 2010-07-14 05:54:56

Re: Why is 3D acceleration with nouveau so much discouraged?

#11 2010-07-14 06:07:13

Re: Why is 3D acceleration with nouveau so much discouraged?

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