Nvidia Video Drivers?

Since QNX has gone opensource has there been any video drivers available for Nvidia?

I’m running a FX5200, and all I’ve seen in the past was Vesatweak:

openqnx.com/downloads/projects/vesatweek/

THANKS

I’ve heard in the past that the problem is Nvidia not releasing specs. Open QNX does not really affect this.

As maschoen said what makes you believe that going “OpenSource” would change the situation?

Because look at Linux and the drivers made available to them through OpenSource.

BSD in some areas has a problem, but maybe with QNX this won’t be the case. :slight_smile:

If there were source available, then a driver could be constructed. I’ve heard that this is not the case, but would be happy to be proven wrong.

They’re not opensource drivers the only OpenSource drivers are for nForce in the Kernel, the video are closed, all I’m saying is that because of the popularity of Linux, Nvidia developed drivers for it, and maybe now as QNX grows the same can happen…

The community needs to pressure Nvidia into this move, and QNX needs to become big, and if QNX grows this can become a possibility.

Maybe Nvidia might look at this as a chance to get on the RTOS bandwangon of support, an area they have never been in.

I think that support will be unlikely. First of all, most peripheral companies fall into either the, “Sure we want to help you write a driver”, or the “Why would we want to support anything but Windows? Go away, don’t come back” camps. I think it is clear where Nvidia falls. If they did a Linux driver, you can imagine how much pressure they must have gotten. But the Linux world is much bigger than the QNX world. It’s also the case that with QNX it’s generally easier to just use what is available. It’s not like people are porting Quake to QNX. Uh, strike that, they’ve done it already. If you want to write them a letter, make a phone call, or whatever, please do. If you get them interested then we will have you to thank, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.

I’m usually a positive guy, but DasFox I’m sorry to say that you’d better forget this at least for the next couple of years… The community is currently minuscules, it first has to grow to millions ).

I hear what you guys are saying, I’m just wondering if in the future as QNX grows a RTOS will mean something to Nvidia, an area they want to have involvement in? It seems like it could present possibly some nice options for Nvidia.

Well as I tried to say earlier, hardware companies are a little strange. I’ve had a lot of experience in this area. As one example, Iomega was incredibly good. The first QNX driver I wrote for their first product, the 10Meg Benoulli box probably didn’t sell more than 50 copies. My most successful product was for the parallel port Zip drive, but I doubt my customers made up %.1 of their sales. Even so, they always provided me with whatever specs I needed, sometime under NDA. They had a whole department dedicated to serving narrow markets like ours.

Then I recall a company that sold a very inexpensive tape drive. These were popular for a while with DOS systems. I found one of the smaller producers and proposed my usual deal. Just give me the information I need, NDA or not, and I will write a driver that will sell your product. They basically told me that not only did they not want to help me out, but that they didn’t want me to do this at all. So go figure?

My sense is Nvidia is just like this. It’s not me, a real little guy that they don’t want to help, but a serious business 20M/year or something like that company, QNX that they don’t want to help. I’m sure it was the same deal, information for sales. I’m sure the internals of their hardware are worth protecting. But the interface? They don’t want anyone else but them to know the interface? While a bit irrational, this is not an uncommon response. I suspect it comes from people who don’t understand the technology, but who run the place making decisions.

And the way I feel about this is, so what? We have support for a number of other accellerated cards. It’s easier to pick one up then to worry about one recalictrant company.

So big user base or not, I don’t think they will release specs. If they saw a big enough market, they might develop their own driver, but I don’t think you will ever see the interest needed.

Even if QNX user bases grows to be 10 times bigger, it would still be insignificant to NVIDIA.

Correct me if I am wrong, but doesn’t 6.3 only have HW accelerated support on the coral P chipsets?

If you mean 3D hardware I think you are right. Although I’ve heard rumour of 3D on ATI chip.

As for 2D hardware, most driver make use of 2D acceleration.

DasFox
The only thing you can pray on is that someone brave enough and smart enough will port nouveau (nouveau.freedesktop.org/wiki/) code to QNX…