Tools

Tools that help the driver writing process:

• EnvyTools - hardware register database, documentation and collection of RE tools (nvapeek, nvapoke, nvbios, envydis, etc.)

• MmioTrace - traces memory mapped I/O access within kernel. Used to record how a driver module uses MMIO reads and writes.

• Valgrind-mmt - modification of Valgrind which intercepts all traffic to the driver

• Nouveau-PM

• REnouveau (CVS) - dumps the modifications in the command fifo and user-mapped registers when a process emits rendering commands.

Obsolete:

• RulesNG - hardware register database (obsoleted by envytools).

• Nouveau CVS repo - other tools and scripts (e.g. crashdump and createdump).

Debugging tools

• OProfile is a useful statistical profiler, for a system wide performance overview.

Documentation/Available source code

Documentation about how nvidia hardware works

• EnvyTools - hardware register database, documentation and collection of RE tools (nvapeek, nvapoke, nvbios, envydis, etc.)

• NvHardwareDocs all documented nv registers, hardware protocols, articles, and miscellaneous hardware info about nv vid cards

Introduction and API docs

• IntroductoryCourse - selected links and documents as a course material

• DRI, DDX, DRM, GLX... how it works together

• How to write a Mesa driver

• The DRI documentation page

• A locking mechanism for the DRI

• Graphics Stack Overview

• A simple git guide

• GalliumHowto

• How to build and install a full graphics stack from git without overwriting your distribution provided X.

• KernelModeSetting

• The State of Linux Graphics (2005)

• Sharpening the Intel Driver Focus (2009)

• The Linux Graphics Stack (2012)

• i915 GEM crashcourse (driver-specific GPU buffers) (2012)

Presentations

• Marcheu's talk about Xorg Myths (FOSDEM 2007)

• Marcheu's talk about Nouveau (FOSDEM 2007)

• The FOSDEM 2006 presentation

• David Airlied's LCA 2007 talk

Video Hardware docs

• X.Org How Video Cards Work

• Alex Deucher's "Understanding GPUs from the ground up" blog post

Other nVidia drivers

• pscnv, a redesigned fork of nouveau for NV50+ cards, driven by PathScale.

• The DirectFB nVidia driver New address of DirectFB git repo

• The BeOS/Haiku nVidia driver (svn header; svn driver)

• Utah-GLX

• The xfree 3.3.3 nvidia driver just after obfuscation

Misc

• Graphics stack diagram

• Mesa diagram

• Another HOWTO compile mesa

• mostly outdated ToDo

• Games - how games use graphics

• List of all CodeNames for NVIDIA cards

• openChrome Project - open source device drivers for VIA S3 (has updated XvMC with MPEG-4 acceleration support)

• intellinuxgraphics.org open source Linux Graphics Device Drivers from Intel (with XvMC for MPEG-2 acceleration support)

• R300 DRI (Direct Rendering Infrastructure) - open source device drivers development for AMD/ATI R300 chipset

• NouveauDemo a test suite

• DumpingVideoBios

• NouveauTerms

• BlobTrace

• DDC

• Dithering

• HwIntroduction

• PowerManagementDumps

• HangDiagnosis

• MultiMonitorDesktop

• REnouveauDumps