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Open-Source Graphics Processor

kickstarter.com

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Re: Open-Source Graphics Processor

#51

Post by pjc50 »

agumonkey wrote: post #28
fosap wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>- seems to be based on 2000-era technology Could you elaborate?

I guess he meant that until the latest goal, it's a fixed rendering pipeline gpu. ps: instead of parallel compute units for vertex/pixel shader. ps2: I'd like to see an open hardware RISC movement for GPU. I wish for a 'simple' parallel array of visual oriented floating point primitives, very small and regular, but very open so that people can write compilers and drivers with ease. As opposed to very potent but obscu…

If you want a large set of general purpose RISC cores, check out Tilera and Netronome.

The Raspberry Pi GPU is actually very powerful, but not in ways that help you with CSS/DOM; I don't think there's much work been done to accelerate layout in 3D accelerators other than at the very basic level of glyph rendering and image uncompression.

Re: Open-Source Graphics Processor

#52

Post by DigitalJack »

zokier wrote: post #39

I think they are approaching the marketing from a wrong direction. Instead of targeting PC/opensource enthusiasts, they should be targeting the growing "maker" segment. Have a FPGA board as a backer reward, and demo it using a microcontroller. That way all the limitations spawning from a 15 year old GPU core do not matter that much when there aren't really many competitors.

I'm confused, what do you mean "demo it using a microcontroller?"

Re: Open-Source Graphics Processor

#53

Post by robomartin »

I don't understand the criticism. I've done a lot of work in real time image processing with FPGA's. This work, as I like to put it, takes "cubic hours". It is complex, expensive, requires real expertise and non-trivial development time. To have someone with twenty years in the field launch a project that will result in open sourcing the relevant technologies is nothing less than fantastic. Yes, it takes as long as the project originator requires, even longer.

This isn't web development. Sorry.

I really don't get the criticism about the lack of a board as part of the KS rewards. If you are doing FPGA development at this level, the cost of fabricating a board is a rounding error when compared to R&D costs.

Re: Open-Source Graphics Processor

#54

Post by agumonkey »

pjc50 wrote: post #51
agumonkey wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess he meant that until the latest goal, it's a fixed rendering pipeline gpu. ps: instead of parallel compute units for vertex/pixel shader. ps2: I'd like to see an open hardware RISC movement for GPU. I wish for a 'simple' parallel array of visual oriented floating point primitives, very small and regular, but very open so that people can write compilers and drivers with ease. As opposed to very potent but obscu…

If you want a large set of general purpose RISC cores, check out Tilera and Netronome. The Raspberry Pi GPU is actually very powerful, but not in ways that help you with CSS/DOM; I don't think there's much work been done to accelerate layout in 3D accelerators other than at the very basic level of glyph rendering and image uncompression.

Actually the rpi case is fueling my desire. I know that the VideoCore part of the SoC is very potent but it's encapsulated beneath too many layers (especially considering the goal of the rpi, I would love to have simple access to all the gpu).

Re: Open-Source Graphics Processor

#55

Post by rjsw »

VLM wrote: post #46
gutnor wrote: post #16

OK I'm missing this completely. What problem is this solving ? I can't believe they have never seen a smartphone recently, so they know what cheapo hardware is capable of pushing nowadays. Yet this exists. So what is it that is exiting here but fly high over my head ?

Acquire any number of FPGA dev boards with a video output. They're not expensive. Then go to opencores.org and browse freely available cores for seemingly everything ... except 3d graphics cores. Theres quite a few implementations of crude VGA framebuffer out, this is a stereotypical Uni-level FPGA class lab exercise (its not terribly hard). There are some opencore projects trying to accelerate graphics but not as mu…

There is a project [1] on opencores.org that probably should be in the "Video Controller" category, I haven't tried using it yet though.

[1] http://opencores.org/project,orsoc_graphics_accelerator

Re: Open-Source Graphics Processor

#57

Post by cwt137 »

fosap wrote: post #26
pjc50 wrote: post #24

As someone with a chip design background: - prices seem reasonable for doing this as a commercial project - badly written intro that assumes far too much - seems to be based on 2000-era technology - not actually delivering hardware, so very limited practical use - the community that demands open hardware on principle is a lot smaller than they think, so this probably won't get funded But we're not used to kickstartin…

>- seems to be based on 2000-era technology Could you elaborate?

If you look at the demo video at the end, you can see that they are using WordPerfect on Win 98 or Win 2k. I thought this was some kind of joke. But apparently not. So, I believe it when fosap says 2000-era technology.

Re: Open-Source Graphics Processor

#58

Post by zackmorris »

As someone who has done a fair amount of OpenGL programming, I can honestly say that it's becoming a convoluted spec. It's no longer elegant or something that should be aspired to IMHO, YMMV. The principles are generally sound, just not the implementation or API.

I would rather see an FPGA being used as a general purpose DSP with the ability to run shader code in software, perhaps inside a runtime written with Go or Erlang. I've thought about doing a kickstarter to emulate, say, a 256 core processor with an FPGA. The main problem is that the last time I wrote VHDL was in 1999 and I've become too accustomed to writing mainstream code which mostly involves putting out fires.

I think a highly parallel multiprocessor like this to make a break with the past and explore more scalable approaches like ray tracing would be good for the world. And by ray tracing I mean "not rasterization". I realize that RT has its faults and that there are many other approaches that do things like soft lighting/shadows and depth of field but they are difficult to explore now because processors are still effectively single threaded.

Re: Open-Source Graphics Processor

#59

Post by wolfgke »

jere wrote: post #32
zokier wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because they are demoing it with a benchmark suite from 1999/2000 (you see WinBench 99 and WinBench 2000 in some segments). Presumably because the hardware can't handle more modern stuff. Heck, it seems to be struggling with demos they are showing.

Thank you. That's the answer I was looking for. I had figured they had written their own demo software to show off the capabilities, but a benchmark makes a lot more sense. Though now that I know they're using benchmarks from last century (and struggling), I'm even more confused about why this is exciting.

> Though now that I know they're using benchmarks from last century (and struggling), I'm even more confused about why this is exciting.

It's exciting because it's open hardware.

Re: Open-Source Graphics Processor

#60

Post by ChuckMcM »

pjc50 wrote: post #24

As someone with a chip design background: - prices seem reasonable for doing this as a commercial project - badly written intro that assumes far too much - seems to be based on 2000-era technology - not actually delivering hardware, so very limited practical use - the community that demands open hardware on principle is a lot smaller than they think, so this probably won't get funded But we're not used to kickstartin…

Agreed, this is both too little and too much in the same Kickstarter.

So there is a pretty nice FPGA + Dual ARM9 chip, the Zyng7020 which is used in the Parallela and the Zedboard[1]. This has a pretty decent amount of FPGA fabric, and it could use an open source frame buffer to go along with the core. One of the hugely annoying things about Xilinx parts is that their design flow is insanely over complex.

That said, the comments here and elsewhere point out another interesting dichotomy. There are people who want a fully open Tegra4, and there are people who just want a frame buffer they can program. The latter is an undergraduate FPGA project, the former is a multi-million dollar team effort.

When the two groups talk about what needs to be done there are heated arguments of 'too much' or 'too little'.

These folks seem to have a design already "done" (in the sense that they have used it for some customers), I'm wondering if a more effective path might be to team up with Xilinx or Altera to put together some IP that that can be part of their design suites for free that would enable non-corporations to implement a decent frame buffer. That would just be a port of what they've got and perhaps some design notes around it. Get Digilent to build a demo board and poof, your good to go.

[1] www.zedboard.org

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