Messages in this thread | | | Date | Tue, 26 Oct 2004 17:38:54 -0400 | From | Timothy Miller <> | Subject | Re: HARDWARE: Open-Source-Friendly Graphics Cards -- Viable? |
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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. :)
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