Drivers justification

2008-07-16T17:31:22Z

85.179.31.122:

== PowerVR MBX ==

The N8x0 devices contain a 3D graphics processor, which is currently not used. We (the
Maemo.org) community would like to ask Nokia to release a driver for this component so
that we can develop more advanced GUIs, games and <...>.

With desktop computers, 2D and 3D effects are becoming the norm (Vista and e.g. Compiz
for the Linux desktop) and embedded devices such as the iPhone are also using graphics
acceleration (in that case a PowerVR too) to provide very polished, visually pleasing and
interesting interfaces to the their respective "desktops", let alone applications which
can also use the acceleration.

We believe that having access to the graphics acceleration hardware on the N8x0 will
allow developers to create new and compelling interfaces, applications and games, which
will give us a head-start in developing for future Nokia Internet Tablet devices (which
will presumably have 3D acceleration available from the outset).

Therefore, we would like to ask Nokia to make available to us the PowerVR driver and
OpenGL ES implementation. We understand that the driver in question has some issues (e.g.
stability, awkward implementation details - console must be left open, etc.), but it
would be a great help.

Ideally we would like the source code for the driver, support library and OpenGL ES library,
but we understand that this is ImgTech's IP and therefore they will probably be unwilling
to support this; as a second we would like a binary-blob style driver, which can then be
used with different Linux kernels, but we do not know whether this is the form the
current driver takes, or if it would entail extra effort and expense for Nokia (it would
surely be in Texas Instruments' and ImgTech's best interest to do this, to push the use
and acceptance of their technology, but that is a moot point in this discussion). As a
last option, we would simply like access to the existing binary driver, support library
and OpenGL ES library.

== IVA ==

The OMAP2420 contains something called an IVA (imaging and video accelerator), which we
are told (http://focus.ti.com/pdfs/wtbu/TI_omap2420.pdf) is able to do full motion video
encoding/decoding at up to 30fps and also fast JPEG compression/decompression. This
hardware is not used at present, but is apparently able to do quite a lot. The Internet
Tablets are currently limited by the LCD controller bandwidth, but are also limited by
the ARM CPU in the quality and size of the videos they are able to decode.

We would like to know why the IVA is not being used, and if possible to obtain technical
information about it to allow us to program and use it. We understand that it consists of
an ARM9 core plus some coprocessors to speed up a variety of operations including VLC
(variable length coding/decoding) and iMX (programmable parallel operations).

Being able to use this IVA would greatly enhance the abilities of the Internet Tablets as
a multimedia device for both photos/photo manipulation and video watching (currently
videos must be encoded specifically for it, which is fine as they become smaller, but
with cheaper microSD storage available now, the convenience of having the same data files
outweighs the inefficiency of storage).

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Drivers justification