NVIDIA Publishes 73k Lines Worth Of 3D Header Files For Fermi Through Ampere GPUs

In addition to NVIDIA being busy working on transitioning to an open-source GPU kernel driver, yesterday they made a rare public open-source documentation contribution... NVIDIA quietly published 73k lines worth of header files to document the 3D classes for their Fermi through current-generation Ampere GPUs. Phoronix's Michael Larabel reports: To NVIDIA's Open-GPU-Docs portal they have posted the 73k lines worth of 3D class header files covering RTX 30 "Ampere" GPUs back through the decade-old GeForce 400/500 "Fermi" graphics processors. These header files define the classes used to program the 3D engine of the GPU, the texture header and texture sampler layout are documented, and other 3D-related programming bits. Having all of these header files will be useful to the open-source Nouveau driver developers to save on their reverse-engineering and guessing/uncertainty over certain bits.

NVIDIA's Open GPU Kernel Driver is for only GeForce RTX 20 "Turing" series and newer, so it's great seeing NVIDIA now posting this documentation going back to Fermi which is squarely to help the open-source community / Nouveau. [...] The timing of NVIDIA opening these 3D classes back to Fermi is interesting and potentially tied to SIGGRAPH 2022 happening this week. Those wanting to grab NVIDIA's latest open-source GPU documentation can find it via this GitHub repository.

hurray!

[aRTeeNLCH]

This can only mean one thing! 2023 will finally be the year of desktop Linux!

Re:

[NoWayNoShapeNoForm]

This can only mean one thing! 2023 will finally be the year of desktop Linux!

That comment, 5 bucks, and a Linux distro will get you a small plain coffee almost anywhere.

Re: hurray!

[d4fseeker]

I'm pretty sure the 5bucks will more often than not get you the coffee despite the comment and not due to it

Re:

[drinkypoo]

It's header files, so obviously this is going to be the year the reanimated corpse of SCO sues nVidia.

Re:

[aRTeeNLCH]

After draining so much money (from Microsoft, if stories are to bed believed), that would be a very impressive trick by the lawyers if they manage to reboot that franchise for the next installment...