The first conformant M1 GPU driver • Hacker News Board

Re: The first conformant M1 GPU driver

#621

Post by devit » Wed, Aug 23, 2023, 2:36 PM UTC

saagarjha wrote: post #527

djmips wrote: post #509

The atomic trick was very satisfying, especially extrapolating the swizzle instruction from the PowerVR heritage. I don't know but wouldn't be surprised if the Apple engineers are learning from this or at least they would appreciate the sheer cleverness. It reminds me when back in the day, the Sega Genesis video hardware was reverse engineered at Accolade and our engineers used the public Texas Instruments TMS9918 VD…

I’m sure they appreciate the work but Apple has internal documentation on their chips. It’s not like they make a black box and forget how they designed them when it comes to writing software for them.

The article claims that Apple's compiler doesn't use the instruction, so it seems like the compiler author did indeed forget or never learn about it.

Re: The first conformant M1 GPU driver

#622

Post by bwanab » Wed, Aug 23, 2023, 2:42 PM UTC

HankB99 wrote: post #198

bwanab wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My son bought a Dell XPS for exactly that reason. After 1.5 years, the battery life was at 50%. He called Dell support and they said it was normal. He's now in the market for a MacBook Air M2.

The key to battery life/health on the XPS is to use the BIOS functions to limit charging. My XPS-13 9370 has been plugged in most of its life (about 4 years now) and battery health has dropped from 96% to 93%. I can't speak to the rest of the comparison to the Macs - they're probably better overall - but the battery life is a solved problem if you know to limit charging.

That's clever, but probably too clever for the 99% of people who don't even know what a BIOS is. You've got to wonder why Dell wouldn't do that kind of front end work themselves.

Re: The first conformant M1 GPU driver

#623

Post by dev_tty01 » Wed, Aug 23, 2023, 2:45 PM UTC

saagarjha wrote: post #530

ironlenny wrote: post #529

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some times an outsider's attempt to reverse engineer your product brings new insights.

That is true, but one does not simply implement a fully conformant bit shuffle instruction by accident.

Or sometimes an instruction isn't in the compiler because the hardware has some strange corner case failures so they aren't using it. I would be nervous about depending upon an unused instruction.

Re: The first conformant M1 GPU driver

#624

Post by aleph_minus_one » Wed, Aug 23, 2023, 3:02 PM UTC

gumby wrote: post #211

softfalcon wrote: post #197

I wonder if support for OpenGL, Vulkan, etc will improve now that Apple is partnering with nVidia, Adobe, Autodesk, Microsoft, etc around the OpenUSD rendering/animation/CAD/3D-scene format? Considering the whole schtick of OpenUSD is "one file format that renders consistently everywhere" (paraphrasing), I would be surprised if Apple doesn't use it as a means to cement more 3D software vendors into macOS land. It's r…

> In my experience, Apple doesn't like any standards it doesn't control with an iron fist I would add some nuance to this statement: "Apple likes open standards when it is weak." The iMac and early OS X went big on open standards, and Jobs made a point of pointing this out: USB for the iMac, JPEG, MPG, mp3, Postscript etc for OSX. IP/TCP built in. They even paid the danegeld for .rtf. Then as they clawed their way ba…

> I would add some nuance to this statement: "Apple likes open standards when it is weak."

> [...]

> Then as they clawed their way back from the precipice, they started "adding value" again.

Just four words: embrace, extend, and extinguish

> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguis...

Re: The first conformant M1 GPU driver

#625

Post by paulmd » Wed, Aug 23, 2023, 3:02 PM UTC

rasz wrote: post #510

JohnBooty wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience, Apple doesn't like any standards it doesn't control with an iron fist I mean, on one hand, the Metal/Vulkan/OpenGL situation is unfortunate and I don't understand Apple's motivation there. On the other hand I'm sitting here typing on a Mac with nothing but USB-C ports that is connected to half a dozen peripherals and a big ol' monitor over those standard ports using standard protocols. In general I…

>On the other hand I'm sitting here typing on a Mac with nothing but USB-C ports that is connected to half a dozen peripherals and a big ol' monitor over those standard ports using standard protocols. cool, now try two monitors https://www.kensington.com/en-au/news-index---blogs--press-c...

MST has been a dead letter since day 1 because nobody puts a more expensive monitor controller board in a monitor than it actually needs.

4K60 monitor? cool, it gets DP1.2. So MST means dropping to 1440p or 1080p resolution (splitting DP1.2 across two monitors).

crappy dell office monitor? it gets DP1.1, so MST means dropping to 720p or 540p.

absolutely no company in their right mind is going to haul off and put a DP1.4 in a bottom-shelf monitor or whatever, such that MST actually had extra resolution to play with. So the only places it matters are (a) stocktrader type people who want 8 monitors and don't care about visual quality/running non-native resolution, and (b) office situations and other places where the ability to run a single cable is more important than visual quality.

so de-facto nobody has ever cared about MST, and docks fill this use-case much better. Thunderbolt/USB4 doesn't care about what monitor controller board is behind it. It just cares that you have one DP1.4 stream and the dock can allocate that into as many physical ports as the dock physically allows. Have the bandwidth but need more ports? Cool, just daisychain more docks/adapters.

(and this does work on m1 pro/max btw - this guy for example did eventually find a dock that worked for him.)

https://www.derekseaman.com/2021/11/my-journey-for-dual-disp...

--

the big gotcha with M1 is really that the base M1 is actually a crossover chip between high-performance tablet/ultraportable laptop and so Apple doesn't want to waste the space for multiple PHYs that won't be used. So it gets 1x HDMI PHY (normally used for the internal screen, on tablets/laptops) and 1x DP PHY for an external monitor. The Pro/Max support 2 and 3 external displays respectively.

I do agree this is a major limitation on the "just buy macbook air" approach, although you can use displaylink (video compression+USB+active adapter) or use an ultrawide monitor (it's a fast connection, you just only get 1 of them). In particular the 15" MBA really needed a "Pro" CPU option like the Mac Mini family, because that's actually a very nice ultrabook other than the single display, and I absolutely think the chassis is big enough to handle it for normal "interactive" use-cases (not bulk video processing/etc).

And of course the 13" MBP doesn't get one either but lol fuck that thing anyway, let the touch bar/old-style chassis die already please

Re: The first conformant M1 GPU driver

#626

Post by solardev » Wed, Aug 23, 2023, 3:03 PM UTC

nicce wrote: post #392

solardev wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was more hoping this would open up another pathway (in addition to Crossover 23 and GPTK) for Apple Silicon computers to be able to play modern games. Doesn't sound like that's the case.

I have found GeForce Now perfect for the Apple’s new devices. Since the client is native code, you don’t even notice that game is running in cloud. And And you can play 7 hours in battery the best graphic games out there, with 1000nit display…

Yeah, I've been using this for a while and it's awesome! Sadly some of the big publishers don't opt in their games (Activision Blizzard, Bethesda) and some of the indie devs don't bother either.

But yes, it's wonderful.

Re: The first conformant M1 GPU driver

#627

Post by tristan957 » Wed, Aug 23, 2023, 3:27 PM UTC

TheDong wrote: post #473

ajdude wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love what they're doing, but last time I clicked a link for asahilinux on hacker news I was taken to a pop up that specifically said that readers from Hacker News are not welcomed on their site and couldn't read their content.

[flagged]

> Hacker news users are, on the whole, asshole sexist tech-bros who can't wait to post "but actually" and harass trans women.

Do you have any research to backup your claim?

Re: The first conformant M1 GPU driver

#628

Post by endymi0n » Wed, Aug 23, 2023, 3:59 PM UTC

jeroenhd wrote: post #504

ajdude wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love what they're doing, but last time I clicked a link for asahilinux on hacker news I was taken to a pop up that specifically said that readers from Hacker News are not welcomed on their site and couldn't read their content.

From what I've seen people post here, I can totally get that they don't like HN people. It's sad, because HN is how I found out about these people and their amazing skills, but I would've done the same thing in their place. Many people, especially in the LGBTQ+ community, hate being featured on here. Some have asked the admin not to be linked but the HN doesn't blacklist websites. There's a flood of negativity from t…

Granted, I'm just massively struggling with the idea of excluding a whole radically diverse community (with some of the most civilized and self-moderating discourse on the internet) in the name of inclusiveness. To me, it's as ironic as it gets.

On that end, I can't find any fault on HN's end enabling their 99.99% of their interested readers who didn't do any wrong to be included in the discourse around these ideas, on the free and open web.

Re: The first conformant M1 GPU driver

#629

Post by hot_gril » Wed, Aug 23, 2023, 4:01 PM UTC

nvm0n2 wrote: post #587

londons_explore wrote: post #557

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ActiveX required that the ActiveX code you wanted to run be already installed on your computer. The security mechanism was that users obviously wouldn't install insecure stuff... Turns out nearly every extension had gaping security holes.

Not quite. ActiveX would download and run unsandboxed native code direct from the web, even if it wasn't installed. The security mechanism was a popup dialog that contained the publisher name as verified by a code signing certificate.

This is how I remember it. I was dealing with early 2000s smart home software that used ActiveX. I'd visit a website in IE, press ok, and run their "web app" that had raw access to my serial and ethernet ports. It was bizarre even for back then.

Re: The first conformant M1 GPU driver

#630

Post by camgunz » Wed, Aug 23, 2023, 4:08 PM UTC

memefrog wrote: post #610

camgunz wrote: post #600

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not in charge of what things mean. Here's Wikipedia: > Doxing or doxxing is the act of publicly providing personally identifiable information about an individual or organization, usually via the Internet. This would include publishing PII about Asahi Lina, like her "real" name, as it personally identifies her. It's no wonder the Asahi Linux project doesn't want to talk to people with your attitude. Maybe take…

Publishing someone's real name online isn't doxing when his real name is already publically available online. It just isn't personally identifiable information when it is already public. Is it doxing to say that "rms" means Richard Stallman? Grow up. He is one of many people online that sometimes uses a pseudonym, and pointing out that he contributes to the project as himself and also contributes while creepily prete…

> Publishing someone's real name online isn't doxing when his real name is already publically available online.

You're being deliberately obtuse. It's the connecting (obviously) that's the issue. It's like saying, "publishing someone's address online isn't doxing when their address is already publicly available online." Yeah I only care if you say it's my address.

> I don't "feel strongly" about it at all.

> also contributes while creepily pretending to be a female child on Twitch

> Grow up.

Insults, condescending remarks, yeah I believe you don't feel strongly about this.

I usually try to be cooler on HN than this, but this is super toxic. You've obviously got some kind of beef--regardless of what you say--and I think it would probably behoove you to get to the bottom of it.