4 ms·

AMD and FreeBSD Begin Collaborating over OS Improvements

74 points by BSDobelix 2y ago

avhception 2y ago
Ah, FreeBSD always felt a little more smooth in subtle ways on Intel hardware. Hopefully that will change now.
cpach 2y ago
This seems like good news. Does anyone know more about AMD’s incentives for participating in this collaboration? What’s in it for them? (Given that a large majority of their customers run either Linux or Windows.)
- JonChesterfield 2y ago
  The PS4 ran a modified freebsd on amd hardware. I'd guess games console related in some way.
  - layer8 2y ago
    Game consoles with more than 256 cores??
    - anotherhue 2y ago
      Cloud gaming perhaps
- pjmlp 2y ago
  Maybe making Microsoft happy as well? FreeBSD is collaborating with Microsoft on Azure support.
- BSDobelix 2y ago
  It's always good to have a second Unix'y option. Also good for customers like Netflix and companies that can't or won't use the GPL like Sony.
- jbjbjbjb 2y ago
  I’d guess Sony using FreeBSD and AMD in PlayStation would be a big part of it. That partnership is worth billions
  - jbjbjbjb 2y ago
    > AMD sold Sony some $3.776 billion worth of chips for PlayStation 5 game consoles in 2022, which accounted for 16% of the company's revenue for the year https://www.tomshardware.com/news/sony-becomes-largest-customer-of-amd https://www.tomshardware.com/news/sony-becomes-largest-custo...
- zokier 2y ago
  Notably Netflix video platform is both AMD and FreeBSD. I wouldn't be surprised if there were other similar big enough customers that throwing some spare change in FreeBSDs direction is worthwhile > Serving Netflix Video Traffic at 800Gb/s and Beyond [pdf] (nabstreamingsummit.com) > 590 points by ksec on Aug 19, 2022 | hide | past | favorite | 394 comments https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32519881 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32519881 While consoles are sizeable chunk for AMD, I don't think stuff like >256 core support or bhyve is exactly relevant for gaming.
  - BSDobelix 2y ago
    >bhyve is exactly relevant for gaming Virtualization is absolutely relevant for game consoles, I think the Xbox runs 3 VM's inside (for DRM reasons). And I think Playstation does too: https://www.reddit.com/r/ps5homebrew/comments/oy60ht/do_ps5_games_run_through_a_hypervisor_or_virtual/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ps5homebrew/comments/oy60ht/do_ps5_...
    - nullindividual 2y ago
      Xbox uses Hyper-V on Windows. bhyve support is meaningless.
      - rys 2y ago
        What about the PlayStation OS, which is reportedly based on FreeBSD?
        nullindividual 2y ago
        I don’t know what the PS OS uses under the hood.
        BSDobelix 2y ago
        At least you wrote something...
      - deleted 2y ago
qwertox 2y ago
> This work will allow FreeBSD to fully support greater than 256 cores with features such as CPU mapping and will also include bhyve integration. This is the improvement the article talks about. So it's unrelated to the current AI/GPU hype.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

74 points by BSDobelix 2y ago

Ah, FreeBSD always felt a little more smooth in subtle ways on Intel hardware. Hopefully that will change now.

This seems like good news. Does anyone know more about AMD’s incentives for participating in this collaboration? What’s in it for them? (Given that a large majority of their customers run either Linux or Windows.)

JonChesterfield 2y ago
The PS4 ran a modified freebsd on amd hardware. I'd guess games console related in some way.
- layer8 2y ago
  Game consoles with more than 256 cores??
  - anotherhue 2y ago
    Cloud gaming perhaps
pjmlp 2y ago
Maybe making Microsoft happy as well? FreeBSD is collaborating with Microsoft on Azure support.
BSDobelix 2y ago
It's always good to have a second Unix'y option. Also good for customers like Netflix and companies that can't or won't use the GPL like Sony.
jbjbjbjb 2y ago
I’d guess Sony using FreeBSD and AMD in PlayStation would be a big part of it. That partnership is worth billions
- jbjbjbjb 2y ago
  > AMD sold Sony some $3.776 billion worth of chips for PlayStation 5 game consoles in 2022, which accounted for 16% of the company's revenue for the year https://www.tomshardware.com/news/sony-becomes-largest-customer-of-amd https://www.tomshardware.com/news/sony-becomes-largest-custo...
zokier 2y ago
Notably Netflix video platform is both AMD and FreeBSD. I wouldn't be surprised if there were other similar big enough customers that throwing some spare change in FreeBSDs direction is worthwhile > Serving Netflix Video Traffic at 800Gb/s and Beyond [pdf] (nabstreamingsummit.com) > 590 points by ksec on Aug 19, 2022 | hide | past | favorite | 394 comments https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32519881 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32519881 While consoles are sizeable chunk for AMD, I don't think stuff like >256 core support or bhyve is exactly relevant for gaming.
- BSDobelix 2y ago
  >bhyve is exactly relevant for gaming Virtualization is absolutely relevant for game consoles, I think the Xbox runs 3 VM's inside (for DRM reasons). And I think Playstation does too: https://www.reddit.com/r/ps5homebrew/comments/oy60ht/do_ps5_games_run_through_a_hypervisor_or_virtual/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ps5homebrew/comments/oy60ht/do_ps5_...
  - nullindividual 2y ago
    Xbox uses Hyper-V on Windows. bhyve support is meaningless.
    - rys 2y ago
      What about the PlayStation OS, which is reportedly based on FreeBSD?
      - nullindividual 2y ago
        I don’t know what the PS OS uses under the hood.
        BSDobelix 2y ago
        At least you wrote something...
    - deleted 2y ago

qwertox 2y ago

> This work will allow FreeBSD to fully support greater than 256 cores with features such as CPU mapping and will also include bhyve integration. This is the improvement the article talks about. So it's unrelated to the current AI/GPU hype.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]