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Significant part of functionality of moder GPU is in software that abstracts away differences between different models and generations, from this point of view
by dfox 12y ago
Significant part of functionality of moder GPU is in software that abstracts away differences between different models and generations, from this point of view it does not make much sense to document actual interface between software and hardware. Other thing is that complexity of this software abstraction layer is comparable to the GPU itself and manufacturers do not expect that somebody would want to implement all that from scratch (this is similar to e.g. FPGAs, where even when you know bitstream format, you still have to write something non-trivial that generates the bitstream).
- abecedarius 12y agoYou could make the same arguments against documenting the machine code of a CPU.
- dfox 12y agoFor CPU, there is no another processor that can run all the abstraction software so it has to be done in hardware or in software in a way that is transparent to user (microcode, Transmeta-style JIT...).
- abecedarius 12y agoThat's an implementation detail: the manufacturer supplies the system software, and by this argument you're not supposed to care where it runs.
- sklogic 12y agoI would have been delighted to know the FPGA bitstream formats, place&route is certainly hard, but not at all impossible. And some of the GPU vendors are publishing their datasheets specifically in a hope that an alternative open source driver stack will appear.