AMD Releases 900+ Pages Of GPU Specs

[Lazybones]

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=NjA1Mw

Right now there is the RV630 Register Reference Guide and M56 Register Reference Guide. The RV630 Reference Guide is 434 pages long while the M56 Guide is 460 pages. Expect more documentation (and 3D specifications) to arrive shortly. The new open-source R500/600 driver will be released early next week.

Looks like like there will be a whole new camp of ATI/AMD fans.

[Tom]

I was so happy to hear this and yet a little disappointed, I just got a new GF8800GTS

[Adams]

I wouldn't worry, the specs means that they will probably be revised a few hundred times before they will start producing a processor worth purchasing. 

Heh, I think it might be like the Duron fiasco at first.

[Tom]

The chips have all to a certain degree been reverse engineered. Now its all about polishing the support. The devs that are already writing drivers have some knowledge of how things work. Take a look at the AVIVO drivers, the specs had all of the registers properly named, whereas the AVIVO drivers had a bunch under the caption of "UNKNOWN".

It'll only get better from here.