Re: HARDWARE: Open-Source-Friendly Graphics Cards -- Viable?

[Timothy Miller <miller@techsource.com>]

Helge Hafting wrote:
> On Mon, Oct 25, 2004 at 01:08:00PM -0400, Timothy Miller wrote:
> 
>>
>>Lars Roland wrote:
>>
>>
>>>For my own part I can tell you, that a dual head dvi card is high on
>>>my wish list (if it can run 1200*1600 on each head), if you can make
>>>one with Linux support, then I would be happy to pay 200-300$ for it,
>>>even if it did not have the best 3D support (just enough power for
>>>future xorg/enlightenment effect and I am happy).
>>>
>>>
>>
>>I expect that we will offer a multi-head model.
> 
> 
> Great!
> 
> Will this be a card with two pci id's, and two
> fully independent graphichs accelerators?

Maybe.  Or maybe two independent graphics contexts in the same chip, or 
any number of other solutions.

This isn't a serious technical hurdle.  If nothing else, we can stick a 
bridge between two chips and the bus.

> 
> That is necessary for two-user setups.  A single-user
> setup with xinerama use a single xserver process that
> can deal with hardware dependencies.  A two-user
> setup use two xserver processes that doesn��'t cooperate
> at all.  One basically doesn�'t know that the other exists,
> so it cannot know what register the other process messes
> with and so on.  A dual processor machine might even
> mean that both servers runs simultaneosuly - so
> there cannot be dependencies.  Also, an xserver likes
> to reserve a pci ID for itself, so life gets much
> easier if the card has two pci ids - i.e. two
> graphichs cards on a single circuit board.
> 
> Of course I am willing to pay twice the single-card
> price for such a card that has two of every chip
> (except for the shared bus interface circuits).

The economics are much more complex than that, although I don't really 
understand them well.  What you're asking for is a niche product and is 
subject to niche pricing.  It will sell for what the market will bear.

Products like this may have to have a higher profit margin, in order to 
make up for slimmer margins on more commodity products.  But don't quote 
me because I'm officially clueless on this topic.  :)

> I hope such a design won't be too much extra work,
> basically you design the single-card accelerator FPGA
> and other supporting chips
> and stuff two of everything on the same PCB.
> 
> Note that this  "double" card improves performance for
> the more common case of one user with two screens too. :-)

Quite true.  :)