Blender Developers Find Old Linux Drivers Are Better Maintained Than Windows (phoronix.com) 151
To not a lot of surprise compared to the world of proprietary graphics drivers on Windows where once the support is retired the driver releases stop, old open-source Linux OpenGL drivers are found to be better maintained. From a report: Blender developers working on shipping Blender 2.80 this July as the big update to this open-source 3D modeling software today rolled out the Linux GPU requirements for this next release. The requirements themselves aren't too surprising and cover NVIDIA GPUs released in the last ten years, AMD GCN for best support, and Intel Haswell graphics or newer. In the case of NVIDIA graphics they tend to do a good job maintaining their legacy driver branches. With the AMD Radeon and Intel graphics, Blender developers acknowledge older hardware may work better on Linux.
Shocking... (Score:4, Funny)
"once the support is retired the driver releases stop"
Once the support stops, the support... stops?
Re: Shocking... (Score:5, Insightful)
Even with nVidia you have two choices, proprietary and Nouveau.
If you believe Michael Larabel's test results at phoronix.com, Nouveau development is still lagging years behind the closed source Nvidia drivers. Which is not the fault of the Nouveau devs, it is the lack of support from Nvidia.
The six months to a year are for AMD, who actually provide the relevant documentation for their hardware and (AFAIK) pay some developers to help with the OS drivers.
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Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: Who's using Blender? (Score:1)
Sorry if I don't make six figures and use older gear for my hobby.
Big advantage is I manage to put food on the table without everyone I meet wishing I choked on it.
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Sorry if I don't make six figures and use older gear for my hobby.
Jesus you really need to earn six figures to buy a half-decent, modern $200 graphics card? I can't imagine what all these PC gamer kids that spend $500 on a graphics card for their hobby must earn!
Re: Who's using Blender? (Score:5, Insightful)
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I do. But I also don't buy latest graphics card (still on single GTX 970) - even the high-end games run with some fps drops on 'ultra' settings. I also don't render Blender, though.
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you really need to earn six figures to buy a half-decent, modern $200 graphics card?
It's less the card and more the laptop with a slot for a card.
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Re: Who's using Blender? (Score:5, Interesting)
Sorry if I don't make six figures and use older gear for my hobby.
Jesus you really need to earn six figures to buy a half-decent, modern $200 graphics card?
Yeah, pretty much. Unless you're an incredible dweeb. An adult generally has better "hobbies" that their money would get spent on. It might be reasonable to spend $200 on a video game console that provides entertainment for a group, but a video card on a computer doesn't do that; all it does is speed up rendering. If you just do a bit of blender as a hobby, you don't benefit much from newer hardware. It makes almost no difference.
My wife likes to use blender, but instead of using the computer with the best graphics card that we have, she still just uses one at the desk she prefers to sit at. It seems to me, it makes more sense to spend $200 more on a better chair than to spend it on a better video card, if you use case is blender.
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Really?
It's not my hobby, but it seems pretty reasonable to me.
$500-1000 every few years (for a upper mid range system and the occasional monitor) is well in the realm of affordable hobby.
Plenty of people not making six figures restore cars, or have a boat. Fucking with blender isn't for everybody, nor PC gaming, but they aren't super expensive hobbies.
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If somebody's hobby was smoking, would you think they made 6 figures?
Plenty of people making less than six figures find a way to smoke.
3D modelling is a way healthier and cheaper hobby, and I'd suspect the time is the real burden for most over the money.
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Three kids, outgrowing their clothes every few weeks.
There are ways to make a size last more than a few weeks. One of them is growth tucks, which can be let out as the child grows taller.
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As a hobbyist you are not a professional. Computers are upgraded every three to four years in the business environment. In my shop (for digital film effects), our workstation GPUs are refreshed when new models are released, usually every one or two years.
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Runs great on all my SGI boxes!
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Re:Who's using Blender? (Score:5, Insightful)
But why in the world would you try to do heavy rendering on an old shitty GPU?
Let me try to guess one use case: Modeling on a laptop with intent to render when you return home to your desktop.
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Or even just, I have other hobbies too and if it takes a few minutes to render, I'm reading a book, or even just watching a music video. A hobbyist doesn't actually have to have their nose to the grindstone and tools to match.
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In this context, "older hardware" means anything that was released before this year. In other words, everything Windows 10 has already dubbed obsolete.
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Now how old is still useful? I think anything that is capable of rendering a low-resolution preview in reasonable time may be useful. Say you need 20% of the performance of a current GPU for that. Disregarding SLI and dual chip cards for the moment, to simplify things.
Lets look at the history of AMD first. Current gen is the Vega series, with a performance up to 13.8 TFLOPs (single precision) in the Vega VII.
Going back in time, Wikipedia says that the Radeon HD 5870 from 2009 already offered 2720 GFLOPs or
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Who's using Blender for 3d modelling on "older hardware" ...
Children/teenagers having a taste of 3D modelling to see if its the kind of thing they'd like for their career? People for whom buying new hardware would be waste of money if they decide its not for them and only use it for a short time?
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Re:Who's using Blender on new hardware? (Score:2)
Who's using a new hardware?
Graphics cards that are not getting updates (5 years old?) can still push amazing numbers of polygons. I have not purchased a "new" graphics card in a long time. I pick up cheap used ones.
Blender (Score:3, Insightful)
Yup (Score:5, Interesting)
My best example is a RS232 adapter that I was using to set up some radio control as a demo of dual boot systems. I set up on Linux first. The Distro went out found the driver, installed it and there ya go. Then I went to the Windows side. Nope, didn't work. Went to the Website, no driver available and none would be written.
And then there is the Windows 10 update that killed the driver for a laser printer I have. Still worked on the MacOS and Linux side.
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What a surprise! Linux runs on a broad range of low powered antique computer equipment, almost like it was started as a hobbyist OS and being free is used by even more hobbyists to keep old, interesting (to them) hardware alive. Whereas most Windows drivers are developed for pay, to run on current supported hardware and a supported desktop.
Not to knock linux, but you all are comparing apples to pickles and coming up potato.
Re:Yup (Score:4, Insightful)
What a surprise! Linux runs on a broad range of low powered antique computer equipment, almost like it was started as a hobbyist OS and being free is used by even more hobbyists to keep old, interesting (to them) hardware alive. Whereas most Windows drivers are developed for pay, to run on current supported hardware and a supported desktop.
Not to knock linux, but you all are comparing apples to pickles and coming up potato.
What are you talking about? Have Windows users come to brag about their poor driver support? Oh - the device works on my Macs as well. But I never bought another adapter from them. Well okay. I suppose you win.
Good driver support as a bad thing - who knew?
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No what he is saying is that, in general, Windows is better for new hardware, Linux is better for old hardware. So unless you're a religious zealot about your computer operating system you can see that's a good thing. Of course there are people that will staunchly refuse to acknowledge any deficiencies in the operating system they use for whatever bone-headed reason they emotionally tie themselves to it.
Despite all the caveats I'm sure this will still trigger some Linux or Windows zealots.
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I beg to differ. I bought a GTX 1070 a week after release, great driver support in debian with latest nvidia driver. I bought a Ryzen R7-1700 a month after release. Worked out the box on all but one or two linuxx distros and that was due to a motherboard GPIO issue because gigabyte is retarded.
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I beg to differ. I bought a GTX 1070 a week after release, great driver support in debian with latest nvidia driver.
Way back in the way back I bought a 240 GT when they had just come out, they were on sale and they had 75% of the speed of the 250 for 50% of the power consumption. And lo, the nVidia driver for Linux had no idea what it was, but it worked anyway. However, the settings application misidentified it, and didn't give me all of the configuration options I expected. A new driver came out in a week or two, which claimed to have support for my card. I installed the driver, and it completely shat itself. I rolled b
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Very true, but back in those days linux may have had 10% of the desktop adoption it currently has and companies were just testing the waters. AMD OSS drivers are almost flawless now, I remember there was some issues with no vega support last time I looked at getting one. I'm pretty sure they work now though. Nvidia is kind of a pain in the ass if you want current drivers, as you need to know how to get to tty1 and turn off the WM, AMD is a lot nicer in that respect. My point was more of recently HW support
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Despite all the caveats I'm sure this will still trigger some Linux or Windows zealots.
I'm a VMS zealot you insensitive clod!
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Despite all the caveats I'm sure this will still trigger some Linux or Windows zealots.
I'm a VMS zealot you insensitive clod!
Real men use CP/M
Re: Yup (Score:2)
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Real men use LaTeX, and only once.
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Real men use LaTeX, and only once.
Every time I hear that, for a split second I think it's a porn referral.
Re:Yup (Score:5, Informative)
No what he is saying is that, in general, Windows is better for new hardware, Linux is better for old hardware. So unless you're a religious zealot about your computer operating system you can see that's a good thing. Of course there are people that will staunchly refuse to acknowledge any deficiencies in the operating system they use for whatever bone-headed reason they emotionally tie themselves to it.
Despite all the caveats I'm sure this will still trigger some Linux or Windows zealots.
I haven't had an linux driver issue since around 2009. Install the OS with internet access, set it to update during install, and have it install the propriatary drivers.
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What kind of fucking dick are you? Proprietary drivers?
Unless you downloaded, checked the md5sum on the tar ball and personally inspected the driver code and them custom compiled it with a compiler you personally inspected the code before compiling you are a fucking corporate shill and anti-OS!
Looks like we found the guy with severe anger issues.
Ol Olsoc... I think a "whoosh" is in order... (Score:2)
The AC who wrote "What kind of dick are you?" was clearly being sarcastic. This as evidenced by the wry use of hyperbole vis a vis the ridiculous reference to a compiler inspection. No, safe to say you are not a corporate shill for installing proprietary video drivers in GNU/LINUX. At this point you facepalm.
FYI I was not the AC. I just hated to see you take a poke in the ribs as a slap in the face since you seem to be making sense.
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The AC who wrote "What kind of dick are you?" was clearly being sarcastic. This as evidenced by the wry use of hyperbole vis a vis the ridiculous reference to a compiler inspection. No, safe to say you are not a corporate shill for installing proprietary video drivers in GNU/LINUX. At this point you facepalm.
FYI I was not the AC. I just hated to see you take a poke in the ribs as a slap in the face since you seem to be making sense.
Poe's law in effect?
Yes. Textbook example of Poe's Law. (Score:2)
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What are you talking about? Have Windows users come to brag about their poor driver support? Oh - the device works on my Macs as well. But I never bought another adapter from them. Well okay. I suppose you win.
Good driver support as a bad thing - who knew?
He's pointing out that you're stating the obvious. Not everyone replying with you is somehow "disagreeing" with your or considering your point "a bad thing".
Chillax man. Weed is legal now. Light up a joint and calm yourself.
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Chillax man. Weed is legal now. Light up a joint and calm yourself.
I wish here. Twisted my knee yesterday, and some pain relief might be nice.
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I agree that Linux can be better for stuff that Windows has long since abandoned but there is still a lot of hardware out there that has poor or completely nonexistent Linux support. So its six ways one, half dozen the other. I'd also argue that driver support isn't really Microsoft's or the OS's fault since this is third party hardware we are talking about.
One of the nicest things about my MacOS machines is that the drivers are written by Apple, not tossed off to someone else.
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One of the nicest things about my MacOS machines is that the drivers are written by Apple, not tossed off to someone else.
Where do you get that idea from? That's completely untrue! Apple doesn't write all the drivers for other peoples' hardware, they just approve them, whether that's drivers for nvidia [nvidia.com] or AMD [amd.com] or wacom [wacom.com].
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All the hardware I have on my Windows box at home and at work has Windows drivers and works fine. I have absolutely no idea what you're trying to do. My home PC is 4 years old. I upgraded the graphics card for gaming and 3d modelling/rendering (2070). Driver support is fine. I use Maya not Blender... perhaps there's a lesson there somewhere.
I'm using among other things, Software defined radios that transmit and receive on several frequencies. They are servers with a RF front end. So they connect via Ethernet through a router, or even Wi-Fi, and can be used remotely. To get the audio to the radios they use what would be considered Digial audio cables. So the Radio uses up to 8 different frequency ranges called "bands" and needs an audio driver for each. As well, 4 special modes called IQ channels When an update comes through and renames all of
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Whereas most Windows drivers are developed for pay, to run on current supported hardware and a supported desktop.
Here's the thing about hardware, it tends to speak standardized languages. Even for things like those printers and scanners which don't speak a published standard control language like PCL or PostScript, they tend to use the same interfaces across multiple devices. This permits OSS drivers to support multiple devices or in some cases generations of devices with only minimal changes. In some cases, no changes are in fact necessary. In spite of this, Windows drivers will often refuse to support hardware which
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This depends on device and support though. I have HP LaserJets built in 1998. They have officially supported drivers for Windows 10 x64. Also for RS232, I'm actually actively in the process of writing a patch for one for FreeBSD at the moment. Quite a few of these RS232 chips are bootleg hardware, and this is one of the reasons drivers are not the best in Windows but are fine in the F/OSS community. Official drivers are broken on the bootleg hardware, but in the F/OSS community, users outside of the manufac
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Bootleg PL2303 chips are a scourge on not just the DIY and hardware hacking community, but on computing in general.
I once bought a USB-RS232 adapter at a big box retailer (it was an emergency) and it turned out to be a bootleg PL2303. I've only ever encountered one device with a *genuine* PL2303 in it.
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Bootleg PL2303 chips are a scourge on not just the DIY and hardware hacking community, but on computing in general.
I once bought a USB-RS232 adapter at a big box retailer (it was an emergency) and it turned out to be a bootleg PL2303. I've only ever encountered one device with a *genuine* PL2303 in it.
Most people have switched to ftdi based chipsets for the adapters now - probably because of the bootleg Prolific chipsets.
Re: Yup (Score:2)
Yeah. Though that didn't save everyone either.
(Difference being that the FTDI issues were mostly someone in the supply chain failing to do proper vetting, whereas most devices that use bootleg PL2303s seem to do so intentionally.)
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You can't do any vetting of FTDI products. Even if you buy from Mouser and have the lot number, they won't verify anything.
If Mouser orders a lot from FTDI, and when it shows up at their warehouse they want to call up FTDI and verify that they're genuine, they can't do it; FTDI will not vouch for any product once the truck pulls out of the factory.
So there is no vetting. Maybe that is part of their problem. They're run by idiots who refuse to act at all, on account of the world not being perfect.
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LOL, no.
FTDI accuses everybody of selling counterfeits, even their authorized distributors. They release drivers that brick devices, including lots of the ones from official sources. And just ask them how to check if a device is real; they provide no way to check. Even if you ask them, "OK if I can prove I bought it from Mouser or Digitech is it real?" They will tell you no, there is no way they can stand behind anything or anybody.
It is not possible to buy an FTDI chip that is real "for sure." There is no
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Laserjets (and other highend printers) tend to support PCL and/or Postscript, which are standards supported by a large number of printers including much newer ones. I would never buy a printer without support for postscript, as i know such a printer is going to work with anything and continue doing so.
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Laserjets (and other highend printers) tend to support PCL and/or Postscript, which are standards supported by a large number of printers including much newer ones.
It is my general impression that Linux is about supporting standard interfaces, whereas in the Windows world you download a different binary blob for each model because the vendor says so, even if they all contain the same chip. The Linux way is technically saner, but it means doing more homework, and sometimes missing features.
For example, generic PCL/PS might mean lower quality and larger unprintable margins compared to the model-specific driver. But I've also found it much faster, so I prefer it for m
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It is my general impression that Linux is about supporting standard interfaces, whereas in the Windows world you download a different binary blob for each model because the vendor says so, even if they all contain the same chip.
Both approaches have been used on Linux, although the general tendencies do lie along the lines you're talking about. Back when there were a lot of them around, support for winmodems was a big deal, and AFAIK literally all of those which were supported were handled with binary blobs. nVidia driver support is still best handled with their binary driver, because the Nouveau project doesn't get all of the data that is necessary for top-notch support. And of course, there's the grey area of device firmware, and
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Linux has much better driver support for legacy hardware than Windows. FTFY. And all for the reasons already pointed out. Thanks for adding to the echo chamber.
But when it comes right down to it, Windows support for current hardware is better.
I use a lot of peripherals. The last time I had a driver problem was 2009. If Windows is better, it's by a day or two of driver availability.
And Linux doesn't rename all my audio drivers either. I have about 40 audio drivers, and during a recent update, Windows 10 renamed them all the same, only appended a 2 digit number at the end. How it came to that conclusion, I have no idea.
I hesitate to call bitching up a program, and a couple hours of work to figure out what driver was what "better" driver supp
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during a recent update, Windows 10 renamed them all the same, only appended a 2 digit number at the end. How it came to that conclusion, I have no idea.
Let me explain how this sort of thing happens.
Imagine a developer at Microsoft, sitting at their desk working. Here is their stream of consciousness:
"I can haz kernel update?
I can haz hook for audio driver?
But can I haz same order? Can I haz without race condition?
OK Done! I can haz cheeseburder."
Some WTFs are mysterious. Some are tried and true. Don't think programmers only reinvent the round wheels; the square wheels are just as popular.
I'm just glad Ceiling Cat works at Facebook.
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The Win10 Anniversary update killed my USB hub.
It still works fine on Linux. I'm using it right now. Instead of getting a new hub, I deleted my Windows partition. It seemed like the simplest solution at the time, and in retrospect, it was!
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The Win10 Anniversary update killed my USB hub.
It still works fine on Linux. I'm using it right now. Instead of getting a new hub, I deleted my Windows partition. It seemed like the simplest solution at the time, and in retrospect, it was!
I had it kill the driver for an laser printer that worked perfectly. Printer still works on MacOS and Linux. And did work in W10 until they decided it shouldn't.
perhaps, assuming it was supported at all (Score:3, Insightful)
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Re:perhaps, assuming it was supported at all (Score:4, Insightful)
As the owner of a system with the mobile Optimus configuration (NVidia GPU rendering through an Intel built-in GPU) which has never been fully supported in Linux, I have gone back to Windows after years of dealing with script hacks to get the system sort-of-working.
Normal nVidia graphics have always been a sure bet to get working with Linux, but Optimus was a big miss. If you were an early adopter, then I feel for you. If you bought Optimus graphics late in the game, though, it should have been clear that they were never going to work.
AMD graphics reportedly work great on Linux these days, which is a testament to the OSS driver model. I am fresh out of laptops, though. I have netbooks for doing automotive scanning and the like, and I use a tablet when I'm away from my desktop and need a screen large enough to read on — I'm still using a Nexus 7 for that, which is less powerful than my phone. But it has a pretty nice display. My desktop is old and slow by modern standards (It's an FX-8350 with 2x Zotac GF950 AMP!, 16GB, and a SATA SSD) but it's still screaming fast by mine. Since I generally play old cheap games, I can get a solid 60+ FPS out of most of them with high LODs at my display's native 1920x1200. 8 cores means I can multitask with relative impunity, though more RAM would not go amiss. The only thing that doesn't work flawlessly in both Windows and Linux is the GbE NIC, which is a Killer something-or-other. I would be steamed if it were 10Gb, but since it's only 1 I just bought a dual-port 1Gb card for next-to-nothing.
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The great thing about AMD and Blender is that you can get an APU that adds almost nothing to the price, but gives you all the modern features. For blender you don't need it to be fast, you just need it to support everything.
2.8 is a yet another step towards pro dominance (Score:5, Informative)
Blender 2.8 has wide-sweeping updates and improvements on Blenders featureset, , the UI and professional workflow management (video [youtube.com]). As Blender continues to improve it is making more and more inroads into professional fields as a primary 3D tool in the industry, such as in the production of the feature length Netflix Movie "NextGen [youtube.com]" made entirely in Blender by Tangent Animation, a prime-time 'Blender only' animation studio from Canada.
While tools like Houdini, 3DsMax, Maya, Cinema, Lightwave and the lot are still around, they're not free (Beer & Speech). This is where Blender will probably eventually win. The progress done in the last 2 decades is mind blowing and Blender remains one very very well maintained and managed FOSS project. Also thanks to founder Ton Roosendahl who just this year recieved some serious hollywood accolades [youtube.com] for his work with Blender.
Get Blender and see the most recent Blender Open Movie over at blender.org [blender.org].
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they're not free (Beer & Speech). This is where Blender will probably eventually win.
In the commercial world the cost of buying a software license is a rounding error in production costs. Free doesn't come into it.
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What a hogwash of a statement. Do you know why Blender won't win? Go to Blender's support page. What's missing? Commercial support. That's the difference between a lot of Open Source software and Commercial software. A commercial company doesn't want to hire a dev to fix problems - they want to tell a support rep "Fix this shit now" and it get fixed. That's why Blender - and many (but not all) - FOSS projects don't "win". It's not that they're not good
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Your statement doesn't apply all ... (Score:2)
... that much.
Linux in the 90ies: obscure general purpose operating system that only the most prolific experts can handle.
Blender today: zero fuss cross platform high performant specialist tool that does not cost thousands of dollars/Euros.
See the difference?
garble (Score:1)
did they run the summary through a blender or just the submitter's language center
Also better for old software (Score:4, Interesting)
I've also found that older Windows software often works better in Wine than it does in modern Windows. Wine is still very imperfect, of course, but they've done a better job at avoiding the breakage of old software. So if Wine was made to work with one piece of software once many years ago, it'll probably still work.
This probably doesn't matter unless you're interested in running Windows software from the 90's, though (which I sometimes am).
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Old software works just fine in Windows XP as well which is great to use to compare to Wine. It's the modern software that doesn't work well with Wine.
You're comparing unripe Apples on the tree to finished and bottled Apple cider.
PowerVR on x86 (Score:3)
This is total "Mission Accomplished" horseshit.
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I would highly guess that support for those is built into the kernel.
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I used to have one. A shitty dell with an atom cpu, it was even dual core!!(LOL) and I didn't run across a single issued with any linux distro I tried. Windows on the other hand.. Even Windows XP was a horrible experience. Go look at Linux commits. A lot of it revolves around hardware. So, I'm probably 100% correct while you're trying to blow smoke up my ass.
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The DE is the limiting factor. I tried a release that used Gnome, lets just say LOL. You will want to go lightweight DE and it will be fine.
Definitely (Score:4, Informative)
Throw any hardware at Linux and it just works with no hassles.
Do the same in Windows and you have to try and find specific driver versions that will work with your setup and jump through hoops to install them with stupid bloatware attached like weird control panels and system tray update checkers and splash screens that go along with that crap.
Windows drivers are still king. (Score:3)