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[itxaka]

This one is for the unbelievers out there.


and for Valve, there is no reason not to port Steam now. OpenGL + DirectX native calls = Win

Direct3D 10/11 Is Now Natively Implemented On Linux!

Published on September 21, 2010
Written by Michael Larabel


It's a pity Luca Barbieri or any Mesa / Gallium3D developers are not at Oktoberfest as they are deserving of more than a few Maß of Augustiner. In fact, today a new Gallium3D state tracker was pushed into Mesa and it's perhaps the most interesting state tracker for this open-source graphics driver architecture yet. It's a state tracker that exposes Microsoft's DirectX 10/11 API on Linux! And it's already working and can be hooked into Wine!



Luca Barbieri made a rather significant commit today that adds a state tracker dubbed "d3d1x", which implements the Direct3D 10/11 COM API in Gallium3D. Luca says this is just the initial version, but it's already working and can run a few DirectX 10/11 texturing demos on Linux at the moment. This is not a matter of simply translating the Direct3D calls and converting them to OpenGL like how Wine currently handles it, but is natively implemented within Gallium3D and TGSI to speak directly to the underlying graphics driver and hardware. Thanks to Gallium3D's architecture, this Direct3D support essentially becomes "free" to all Linux drivers with little to no work required.

As said in the commit, "The primary goal is to realize Gallium's promise of multiple API support, and provide an API that can be easily implemented with just a very thin wrapper over Gallium, instead of the enormous amount of complex code needed for OpenGL. The secondary goal is to run Windows Direct3D 10/11 games on Linux using Wine."

In regards to Wine taking advantage of this state tracker, no DLLs have been published yet for Wine to hook into this state tracker, but Luca says that should be quite easy to accomplish.

If things could not get any better, "Fglrx and nvidia drivers can also be supported by writing a Gallium driver that talks to them using OpenGL, which is a relatively easy task. Thanks to the great design of Direct3D 10/11 and closeness to Gallium, this approach should not result in detectable overhead, and is the most maintainable way to do it, providing a path to switch to the open Gallium drivers once they are on par with the proprietary ones."

This is incredible news especially as Wine only has limited DirectX 10.0 support and lacks no form of DirectX 11.0 at the moment.

As another goal of this state tracker, "The third goal is to provide a superior alternative to OpenGL for graphics programming on non-Windows systems, particularly Linux and other free and open systems. Thanks to a very clean and well-though design done from scratch, the Direct3D 10/11 APIs are vastly better than OpenGL and can be supported with orders of magnitude less code and development time, as you can see by comparing the lines of code of this commit and those in the existing Mesa OpenGL implementation."

For those thinking that Direct3D 10/11 on Linux will be sub-par, "Finally, a mature Direct3D 10/11 implementation is intrinsically going to be faster and more reliable than an OpenGL implementation, thanks to the dramatically smaller API and the segregation of all nontrivial work to object creation that the application must perform ahead of time."

VMware previously was working on a Direct3D state tracker and it was not going to be open-source and primarily targeted for Gallium3D on Windows, but this is different and is open-source thanks to its development by a community members. This VMware / Tungsten state tracker also targeted Direct3D 9.0.



Prost to Gallium3D and the open-source Mesa developers for making this milestone possible! Hopefully soon we can finally see an OpenGL 3.x/4.0 state tracker too. Implementing Direct3D 10/11 on Linux required around 26,000 lines of code to be added to Mesa. I have to wonder though what the Microsoft executive that was buying me beers has to say about Direct3D on Linux.

 

[Flying_Phoenix]

Sounds great!

And holy shit! 6 pages?

I guess this thread can finally be considered as a "big" official thread.

 

[Nolimit_SS]

Woooo yes, great news! Let's hope it gets done nicely and then I can forget about windows (for everything beside this main pc at least heh)

 

[Melhisedek]

How soon can we see games ported/written for Linux using this new "devilry" ? Rough estimate ofc

 

[Vanillalite]

IDK... call me cynical but I think MS will cock block this somehow....

 

[Vanillalite]

Meerkat has hit RC status people! October is here tomorrow, and we are under the 15 day mark already! Consider me pumped for this one!

OMG Ubuntu Article on the RC!

 

[panda21]

how do you update on ubuntu?

on debian is just set it to testing and then you dont need to worry about releases, but I've seen a lot of talk about whether you upgrade by reinstalling or various ways using apt on mint or ubuntu without any clear indication of what the right way is.

 

[itxaka]

how do you update on ubuntu?

on debian is just set it to testing and then you dont need to worry about releases, but I've seen a lot of talk about whether you upgrade by reinstalling or various ways using apt on mint or ubuntu without any clear indication of what the right way is.

sudo updade-manager -d

 

[Nolimit_SS]

I'm gonna do clean reinstall, format and all

 

[Suitcase Test]

sudo updade-manager -d

Yeah, I usually do this around beta time. I'm now still on the beta but gonna upgrade to the RC tomorrow. It's been really stable so far, almost zero problems. New theme is a lot better (wasn't a big fan of the previous releases' theme).

I'm gonna do clean reinstall, format and all

Why, did you screw things up?

How soon can we see games ported/written for Linux using this new "devilry" ? Rough estimate ofc

I'm gonna guess loooong. I read somewhere on the mailing list that this is just the beginning of the work that needs to be done. Add this:

IDK... call me cynical but I think MS will cock block this somehow....

...to that, and I wouldn't hold my breath. It's good news though.

 

[Vanillalite]

I'm gonna do clean reinstall, format and all

I wanna do that to only because I was fucking around installing a bunch of KDE shit before it was officially out and blah blah blah....

I just want a reinstall. Plus I'm gonna change up my partition size with regards to Win 7 and Linux.

 

[itxaka]

I'm gonna do clean reinstall, format and all

I don't even think I'm gonna update this time.

Elementary theme + square icons (can't remember the name) + docky = freaking awesome

Also, everytime I have done a distro upgrade, something have fucked up. Bad thing is, I never discover it until a couple of months pass and I have to resintall it from 0 and I discover that a clean install leaves everything much better!

They still need to clean up the upgrade process a lot, or change the release to 10 months apart. 6 months is too close for my taste, new applications yes, get the checking process faster and release better things every 10 months.

If not, I feel like we ended up with half of the promises and having to rely on ppa's for everything that was promised (only with the latests releases 9-10 series, 5-8 were awesome especially 8.04)

 

[Vanillalite]

I'd hate waiting that long purely because I feel like we get left behind kernel wise.

 

[itxaka]

I'd hate waiting that long purely because I feel like we get left behind kernel wise.

Just compile your own kernel from fresh sources, I do!

 

[Suitcase Test]

square icons (can't remember the name)

Faenza? (GNOME look)

 

[itxaka]

Faenza? (GNOME look)

Yes! Freaking awesome if you use a dock, makes it look so uniform and streamlined!

 

[Suitcase Test]

If not, I feel like we ended up with half of the promises and having to rely on ppa's for everything that was promised

Agreed! For me, new releases are usually fine, but I wish they updated apps quicker. ppa's are nice and all, but it isn't ideal. I have the feeling that Fedora is much better with this (though, not sure what their policies are tbh).

 

[Vanillalite]

Agreed! For me, new releases are usually fine, but I wish they updated apps quicker. ppa's are nice and all, but it isn't ideal. I have the feeling that Fedora is much better with this (though, not sure what their policies are tbh).

Now THIS I don't disagree with. I wish the new software center was on an itunes like basis and not on a new full distro release basis.

 

[FunkyPajamas]

Yes! Freaking awesome if you use a dock, makes it look so uniform and streamlined!

How does it work? I downloaded, followed the instructions (ran install as sudo) and I don't see any changes. Running Do+Docky, Ubuntu 10.04.

 

[itxaka]

How does it work? I downloaded, followed the instructions (ran install as sudo) and I don't see any changes. Running Do+Docky, Ubuntu 10.04.

I believe I just drag and dropped the tar.gz into the them manager to install them. Maybe you'll need to log out/in to make them appear on the theme manager?

 

[Nolimit_SS]

Why, did you screw things up?

Always
+ gotta always have the latest thing heh

I wanna do that to only because I was fucking around installing a bunch of KDE shit before it was officially out and blah blah blah....

I just want a reinstall. Plus I'm gonna change up my partition size with regards to Win 7 and Linux.

I was thinking about installing win7 but last time I tried booting took like 10-15 minutes, some strange problem. But with news about dx10/11 on linux I decided not to.

 

[Vanillalite]

Always
+ gotta always have the latest thing heh

I was thinking about installing win7 but last time I tried booting took like 10-15 minutes, some strange problem. But with news about dx10/11 on linux I decided not to.

Weird. Did you already have some variant of Linux installed? IDK why this would be the case, but I was always instructed install Windows first then install Linux next.

 

[Nolimit_SS]

It wasn't dual boot related. I had win7 64 beta and it worked great, installed same win7 64 I got for desktop and it wouldn't boot for 15-20 min etc. I took it to service and they installed 32bit version and it worked fine but screw that, I removed it and continued using ubuntu.
I researched it for a while and couldn't fix it, looked around again few days ago but why bother if I'm happy with linux

 

[Dimmuxx]

Just keep your home folder on a separate partition and it's fast and easy to install a new version since all your settings will remain. You will have to reinstall all extra packages though.

 

[FunkyPajamas]

I believe I just drag and dropped the tar.gz into the them manager to install them. Maybe you'll need to log out/in to make them appear on the theme manager?

Thanks, I was installing manually and for some reason it didn't work. Loaded the theme through the theme manager and worked perfectly. Thank you.

 

[markot]

How come I get better battery life in Windows then ubuntu >.<?

Is it just cause windows gives you more options for battery savings?

 

[Vanillalite]

How come I get better battery life in Windows then ubuntu >.<?

Is it just cause windows gives you more options for battery savings?

I mean are all of your settings equal such as screen brightness, screen saver, sleep mode timer etc... ?

 

[Vanillalite]

BTW I'm in the process as we speak of creating the official OT for 10.10!

EDIT: Here it is! Click Me! Sorry if it sucks as it's my first go round at an |OT| ever on the GAF.

 

[itxaka]

How come I get better battery life in Windows then ubuntu >.<?

Is it just cause windows gives you more options for battery savings?

You should look for any extra packages for your laptop as some of them are not as optimized as in windows.

For example, for eepc laptops there is a kernel module and a manager like the eee program for windows nd that makes my eeepc battery last longer on linux than in windows!

Check on the ubuntu wiki for your laptop in order to get tips regarding it. laptop + linux, even when it's a lot better now, it's still kind of fucked up thanks to some of the manufacturers.

 

[markot]

Yeah I use all the same settings.

TY, will try it out with the 10.10 ubuntu on my laptop, gonna try it again.

Ummmmmm... Would using Wubi be worse for battery? How much better are full installs generally? Do they just give you grub on boot?

Also, anyway to adjust settings on an Intel hd graphics card/integrated thingy? I could do it on my ATI desktop but there are no options at all for my intel one... things like gamma, saturation... etc....

 

[itxaka]

Yeah I use all the same settings.

TY, will try it out with the 10.10 ubuntu on my laptop, gonna try it again.

Ummmmmm... Would using Wubi be worse for battery? How much better are full installs generally? Do they just give you grub on boot?

Also, anyway to adjust settings on an Intel hd graphics card/integrated thingy? I could do it on my ATI desktop but there are no options at all for my intel one... things like gamma, saturation... etc....

It shouldn't be worse for the battery. The only thing it increases is hdd access but I don't think that can make a lot of energy spent.

Regarding the Itel HD card, there is nothing you would need to adjust that can't be done as standar on linux IIRC. What do you want to change exactly? Color? Resolution?

 

[Cronos]

BTW I'm in the process as we speak of creating the official OT for 10.10!

EDIT: Here it is! Click Me! Sorry if it sucks as it's my first go round at an |OT| ever on the GAF.

Nicely done man, looks good! Will post in that one later. Meanwhile, desktop-recording now also works without tweaking on 10.10. Look over here.

 

[BGBW]

After putting off the Linux side of life for absolute ages (I finished a whole Comp Sci degree during that time) I decided to finally get my hands dirty. I installed Mint a while back as it was suggested to me but yesterday after really fiddling around with it the NVidia drivers decided to conk it. Something about the X-server which despite reconfiguring it a billion times it refused to work. The problem with Mint is that by making it too user friendly it is a pain to do anything slightly technical.

Now I've decided to wipe Mint and replace in with Ubuntu. Hopefully this time it won't fail after changing the appearance settings.

 

[Mecha_Infantry]

HI guys, I have found a random laptop at work, but it's not great at all! Here are the specs:

Display diagonal size 8.9 in
Maximum resolution 1024x600 pixels

PC Card 1 x Type II
Flash card SD/MMC
Hard drive size 30 GB
Rotation speed 4200 rpm
RAM installed 256 MB
RAM capacity 0.375 GB
RAM type SDRAM
Processor model Pentium III Processor-M
Clock speed 0.8 GHz oh gawd
Graphics processor SiS 630ST
Graphics RAM 64 MB

And I am trying to figure out the best and lightest Linux distrib that I can install. I will only be using it for practising admin work from the command line, so it could really all just be a big arse terminal with a GUI as second option for booting into

Cheers

 

[Sanjuro]

I have a question. Installed yesterday, no problems. I'm at the library now at school and needed to borrow an ethernet cable. My wireless card is disabled and the option to turn it on is greyed out. Any advice on how to enable? I believe it worked from my home but I was on ethernet. I believe my card is an Intel 5100.

 

[Vanillalite]

HI guys, I have found a random laptop at work, but it's not great at all! Here are the specs:



And I am trying to figure out the best and lightest Linux distrib that I can install. I will only be using it for practising admin work from the command line, so it could really all just be a big arse terminal with a GUI as second option for booting into

Cheers

Puppy Linux
Damn Small Linux

 

[Vanillalite]

I have a question. Installed yesterday, no problems. I'm at the library now at school and needed to borrow an ethernet cable. My wireless card is disabled and the option to turn it on is greyed out. Any advice on how to enable? I believe it worked from my home but I was on ethernet. I believe my card is an Intel 5100.

I'd make sure it works at all from home 1st. It could be that your drivers just aren't installed. Some friends have had stuff work out of the box. Others have had to go to the repository and search for stuff. I know my vent friend just installed the broadcom drivers he found in the package manager and boom his dell laptop started to work with his home wifi.

 

[Sanjuro]

I'd make sure it works at all from home 1st. It could be that your drivers just aren't installed. Some friends have had stuff work out of the box. Others have had to go to the repository and search for stuff. I know my vent friend just installed the broadcom drivers he found in the package manager and boom his dell laptop started to work with his home wifi.

I've done some commands in the terminal. It seems to know what type of device it is by name and everything.

I did "sudo lshw -C network" and it said it was DISABLED. The network button on my laptop is set to bluetooth in Ubuntu.

 

[b0b]

Original Posted by Mecha_Infantry

HI guys, I have found a random laptop at work, but it's not great at all! Here are the specs:


And I am trying to figure out the best and lightest Linux distrib that I can install. I will only be using it for practising admin work from the command line, so it could really all just be a big arse terminal with a GUI as second option for booting into

Cheers

ArchLinux (www.archlinux.org)

It's small and fast rolling release distro.

I'm using it with the "awesome" window manager. It's great. Give it a try!


The SiS 630ST graphics chips are shit btw. The linux drivers are horrible afaik...

 

[itxaka]

I've done some commands in the terminal. It seems to know what type of device it is by name and everything.

I did "sudo lshw -C network" and it said it was DISABLED. The network button on my laptop is set to bluetooth in Ubuntu.

edit the boot line at grub and try adding to it "acpi_osi=Linux" to it. When on grub press e (I think) and add it to the end of the line, it's case sensitive. Then press control-x to boot with the modified line.

Did you updated the bios recently? Some laptops bios acpi change and don't report it correctly and just assume you are using windows so the acpi table si incorrect.

Or, check on the bios if it's disabled. One of my laptops doesn't work if I disable the wifi on windows and try to enable it on linux because it seems that it gets disabled there.

Which laptop model it is?

 

[Sanjuro]

edit the boot line at grub and try adding to it "acpi_osi=Linux" to it. When on grub press e (I think) and add it to the end of the line, it's case sensitive. Then press control-x to boot with the modified line.

Did you updated the bios recently? Some laptops bios acpi change and don't report it correctly and just assume you are using windows so the acpi table si incorrect.

Or, check on the bios if it's disabled. One of my laptops doesn't work if I disable the wifi on windows and try to enable it on linux because it seems that it gets disabled there.

Which laptop model it is?

Dell Studio 1555

I ended up getting it on mysteriously, but upon reboot it was back to being disabled. It either was a terminal command or random "Fn+X" combination. It's pretty annoying though, I don't believe it was doing this off the bat.

 

[Vanillalite]

Much like I expected to happen the Ubuntu One crew overhauled their pricing service. IMO it's long over due as Dropbox had to be kicking their ass hardcore.

Now it's semi enticing though as they went more modular. You can get 20 gigs for 2.99 a month or 29.99 a year. This way you get more choice, and you get more space still if you're down with the $10 a month thing. Plus that's 60 gigs for $9 verses 50 gigs for $10 on dropbox.

There still is the little issue of the fact that dropbox works on everything though.

OMG Ubuntu Article

 

[zoku88]

Ubuntu One does have music streaming, though. Which is useful, I guess. (The music store is somewhat decent, but the prices seem to be like a buck cheaper than Amazon.)

Anyway, question: Windows 7 has this nice feature where you can use a sound mixer to control every applications' sound from a single place. Is there anything in Linux that does anything similar?

 

[Vanillalite]

I have the gnome alsa mixer installed, but that just allows me to adjust the sound on all of my input/ouputs per jack. Not sure if there is anything that'll let you do it per software program. I'll admit I really love that feature in Win 7.

 

[itxaka]

Ubuntu One does have music streaming, though. Which is useful, I guess. (The music store is somewhat decent, but the prices seem to be like a buck cheaper than Amazon.)

Anyway, question: Windows 7 has this nice feature where you can use a sound mixer to control every applications' sound from a single place. Is there anything in Linux that does anything similar?

I know pulseaudio does that, but i also know that ubuntu didnt contacted the developer and shipped a fucked up versión of it that it was almost useless.

No idea about the latest news regarding it, it could be working now.

 

[zoku88]

I know pulseaudio does that, but i also know that ubuntu didnt contacted the developer and shipped a fucked up versión of it that it was almost useless.

No idea about the latest news regarding it, it could be working now.

I think I found where to do what I wanted. I just didn't realize it before -_-;;

 

[Sanjuro]

Couple things, I'm on 10.10 now.

1. Looking for a way to increase the scroll wheel speed for the entire OS.

2. Is there a snap feature similar to Windows 7?

 

[Cronos]

Couple things, I'm on 10.10 now.

1. Looking for a way to increase the scroll wheel speed for the entire OS.

2. Is there a snap feature similar to Windows 7?

1 It's fast enough for me, but you could try 'pointing devices' it's in the software centre.

2. There sorta is, but it requires some work. There's a big thread about that in the Ubuntu forums. You can read it here.

 

[panda21]

wheres the official 10.10 at?? i thought it was release today

if i do that upgrade command now do i get the 'final' 10.10 or the RC?

 

[Suitcase Test]

wheres the official 10.10 at?? i thought it was release today

if i do that upgrade command now do i get the 'final' 10.10 or the RC?

It's been released a few hours ago. If it goes according to plan, you should not have to use any command at all: as soon as you check the Update Manager, it'll tell you there's a new release out. The update-manager -d command is only used when new versions aren't released yet.

If it doesn't show up, chances are that the mirrors haven't been updated yet.