GoKawiilIn brief: Developers have recently started removing old devices and peripherals from the list of Linux-supported hardware, because AI is letting script kiddies discover too many bugs to make one-man maintenance tasks practical. However, the very same AI can also prove useful for letting ancient cards "talk" with the kernel even when hardware support is just not there.
A series of new patches is improving support for 3dfx Voodoo3 cards in Linux. Daniel Palmer, the developer behind the code contribution, designed an AI-assisted solution to let the open-source kernel initialize the video cards even on machines with no standard BIOS on the motherboard.
The code would make Linux and Voodoo3 coexist on the Amiga and other non-PC machines, but Palmer is also working on 3D acceleration and Voodoo3 emulation through the QEMU virtualization platform.
The new code is going to be part of the Tdfxfb Voodoo driver in Linux 7.3. The upcoming kernel release will include the ability to "see" Voodoo3 cards that still lie in an "unbooted" state, which can occur on systems where the main BIOS is not designed to initialize the video card and start a frame buffer to bring the video signal to the screen.
Palmer's code is essentially forcing Linux to rely on data obtained directly from the video card's BIOS, using these values to bring the card into a state that can show a Linux console on the monitor. The developer discovered the unbooted card issue while working with an Amiga 4000, into which he inserted a Voodoo3 card using a PCI bridge. Linux could detect the card, but there was no video signal to work with.
The current code is specifically targeting Voodoo3 cards, but Palmer is also working to support "newer" Voodoo4 and Voodoo5 cards. The updated Tdfxfb driver was tested on both the coder's Amiga 4000 and a PC based on a modern x86-64 CPU. However, using the new initialization code on a modern x86 system built around UEFI firmware is unlikely to bring improvements over the traditional boot process.
Palmer is also trying to fully support the Voodoo3 cards' entire feature set. The new, rudimentary Linux console can only access a subset of the card's 2D rendering capabilities, while the developer plans to build a new kernel driver that could expose direct access to the chips' 3D rendering features. Early tests show the driver can access a Voodoo3's registers with no need to use 3dfx's Glide proprietary APIs.
3dfx released the Voodoo3 series of 2D/3D video accelerators in 1999, shortly before the company ceased to exist and its assets were acquired by Nvidia. The company holds a special place in the history of PC hardware, and modders are still finding new ways to exploit the trailblazing graphics architecture – with or without a traditional PC.