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A birthday present from Broadcom

raspberrypi.org

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Re: A birthday present from Broadcom

#11

That's really a surprise. Broadcom is cemented in my mind as one of the hardest companies to get even basic datasheets out of. I know the saying is "don't look a gift horse in the mouth", but could it be that their graphics cores are not competitive in pure technical capabilities, so they've decided to compete on open-ness? I'm not really involved in that area of hardware/software.

Nope (though note, I'm biased for several reasons). In terms of performance per unit area and performance per Watt, VideoCore IV is about as good as you're going to get. There are chips with higher performance GPUs out there, but they get there by brute force: throwing area (and therefore cost) and/or power at the problem.

Re: A birthday present from Broadcom

#13

This is a step in the right direction. Does this mean that the RaspberryPi can run blob-free now or with one less blob? I don't know what else is needed for the SoC to operate.

From the article -

"This isn’t the end of the road for us: there are still significant parts of the multimedia hardware on BCM2835 which are only accessible via the blob."

Re: A birthday present from Broadcom

#14

This is a step in the right direction. Does this mean that the RaspberryPi can run blob-free now or with one less blob? I don't know what else is needed for the SoC to operate.

Not quite yet. We're hoping to be able to provide a minimum-functionality blobless world fairly soon.

Re: A birthday present from Broadcom

#19

This is a step in the right direction. Does this mean that the RaspberryPi can run blob-free now or with one less blob? I don't know what else is needed for the SoC to operate.

Not quite yet. We're hoping to be able to provide a minimum-functionality blobless world fairly soon.

I think this is another example of how Raspberry Pi Foundation's decision not to move forward with a gazillion different boards, but rather to stick with A and B and let the software evolve, was a good one.

I'm very excited to see what the next year brings.

Re: A birthday present from Broadcom

#20
Well, let's see if someone can get Android to use the GPU now.

And yes, I'm not expecting miracles -- even though Broadcom never released their 4.x port, what they demoed on the-teaser-video-that-was-never-followed-up-on seemed "fast enough" for a number of purposes.

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