On Sun, 26 Oct 2003, Fredrik Tolf wrote: >I have become aware that the XF86 driver for the Radeon doesn't have >support for TV output. This is rather disturbing for me, since I >really, really, really want that. Use the GATOS drivers: http://gatos.sf.net >So anyway, what I really want to know is, does anyone know where to >get documentation on Radeon programming, so that I can add this >functionality? In general, you dont. The longer answer is that you need to apply to become a member of ATI developer relations first, and be granted member status. Unless you're working for a company shipping a commercial product or doing official video driver work or similar, or are a game developer or similar, you probably wont be accepted into developer relations as you're not likely to be classified as a developer. If you do get accepted as a developer, you have some access to ATI developer documentation, however you wont get access to video chipset register level programming documentation likely unless you can demonstrate an important need for such documentation which nobody in the OSS community who already has the documentation hasn't already been working on. As stated above, the GATOS project's ATI video drivers support TV out, as does the atitvout program, there may be others. In short, there is enough public information about enabling TVout on ATI video hardware, that IMHO you would be very unlikely to acquire documentation from ATI on this as the information is already public via these projects. >I tried mailing ATI, but it has been a couple of weeks and they >haven't responded (isn't that actually pretty bad?) I don't think it's bad at all. I have no idea how many incoming emails or phone calls ATI might get from random unknown developers wanting to have their technical specifications, but if I had to guess, I'd say it's rather high. If they had to pay someone to answer the telephone or respond to every one of the incoming emails in detail, and then follow up on the likely useless flamewar thread that would ensue with the handful of people upset they were being refused access to the documentation it would probably cost them at least one person or more's annual salary just for the purpose of saying "sorry, but no.". In such cases, it's IMHO easier to just ignore people completely than it is to argue with them, about something you know your answer firmly already about. >so I was hoping that the original developers of the Radeon >driver would share with me where they got the docs. >From ATI by becoming a member of the XFree86 project (back when membership was required in XFree86 to be a developer), and then after that, becoming a member of ATI developer relations. However someone wanting the docs for something that already exists or is already being worked on is likely to be refused access. In the case of TVout, it already exists - you just didn't do your homework hard enough. >Also, I've heard of this Gatos project, but last time I checked, >they only supported TV DACs that were not part of the core >Radeon chip (which is, unfortunately, not my case). Now that I'm >sending this mail anyway, does anyone know their progress? Or, >does anyone know any other projects similar to Gatos? "Last time you checked" seems to suggest you don't check the GATOS project very often. GATOS supports pretty much every piece of hardware to which any documentation has ever been provided for, as well as much reverse engineering. If ATI would consider giving anyone any documentation that hasn't been released already, they'd most likely give it to developers who already have NDA agreements in place, such as the GATOS developers, or DRI developers. I think the general concensus out there is that there are enough developers who already have any documentation there is to have, that any features that are unsupported yet, can be supported by existing developers who have the docs. If nobody has docs for something in particular, the only people likely to get them are people already under NDA. Of course, this is just my opinion based on my own observations. I have no idea what the official criterion is which decides who will officially get NDA access to the documentation of ATI's video hardware. I've got the doc under NDA for up to R200 chipsets, and if there were newer docs available, I'd probably be able to request them myself. I don't see any newer docs being available, so I think it's a waste of time for people not already under NDA to bother asking. Best thing to do is join the GATOS project, or some other project already doing this, than to try to startup your own new project. I wouldn't bother waiting for a response from ATI though. Quite frankly if I were ATI and getting hundreds of requests which I wasn't going to say yes to, at some point I'd just start ignoring them as incoming spam, or sending out autoresponders "Thanks for emailing us, we can't respond individually to people due to the volume of email we receive, please visit our website at http://blah to see what is available." But that's just me... :o) -- Mike A. Harris _______________________________________________ XFree86 mailing list XFree86@xxxxxxxxxxx http://XFree86.Org/mailman/listinfo/xfree86
