Graphics drivers from the Play store

[zxcvbad]

So since the Project Treble is here it was expected that one of the newer devices will come with graphics drivers Pre-installed as an app, now Pixel 2 is the first one

It's more interesting what we get out of it? As far as I understand these will be userspace but minor/hot fixes in most cases, nothing substantial like new extension or API version updates

[Helios]

Depends on if the vendors care to play ball.

The only thing project treble does is give vendors an easier time supporting the latest Android. Doesn't mean they will though. Support is still dev time which = money to spend. tbh since most phone users don't care about updates, and many actually find them annoying, I don't see why vendors are going to care either.

Same goes for the userspace components of the GPU driver stack. If vendors play ball, cool. If they don't, nothing changes.

None of this means anything to users until we wait for a couple years to see what vendors do

[Nintonito]

(10-14-2017, 04:38 AM)zxcvbad Wrote: So since the Project Treble is here it was expected that one of the newer devices will come with graphics drivers Pre-installed as an app, now Pixel 2 is the first one

It's more interesting what we get out of it? As far as I understand these will be userspace but minor/hot fixes in most cases, nothing substantial like new extension or API version updates

A key take away from this is that the original Google Pixel does not seem to share this modularized graphics driver. That suggests a lack of effort on google’s part. And considering google is the one pushing for uniform graphic driver updates in the first place, it’s not a good start. It’s very likely that it will not solve the issues.

[zxcvbad]

(10-14-2017, 06:04 AM)Helios Wrote: Depends on if the vendors care to play ball.

To me it looks like Google is trying to push vendors to update drivers, this is important as they work with partners/vendors directly, this would be Google/QC/ARM > basically Google managing com.google.pixel.wahoogfxdrv with a drivers from the branch. As for end users, I wasn't even thinking it has something to do with them, it's a system process like com.qualcomm.qti.ims or Google connectivity services

(10-14-2017, 06:16 AM)Nintonito Wrote: A key take away from this is that the original Google Pixel does not seem to share this modularized graphics driver.  That suggests a lack of effort on google’s part.

Pixel will have it soon, it's not even released yet. I'll be checking  /vendor/app/wahoo_gfxdrv

Update: looks like S8 international variant is also using modular drivers

[Whatnoww]

Chances are these updates will be SoC specific. Now only time will tell if we'll get consistent updates to grafic drivers like Windows.
Presumably now it's also easier to get driver updates instead of having to update OTA all the time. This will encourage updates.

[Guilherme]

At least with graphic drivers updated from Play Store the users can rate it and the devs will know what needs to be done.

[Nintonito]

(10-15-2017, 09:20 AM)Guilherme Wrote: At least with graphic drivers updated from Play Store the users can rate it and the devs will know what needs to be done.

Hahahahahahahahhhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah
....

No.

They barely take feedback straight from the devs of the applications that are hitting issues. I doubt random user feedback will make a difference.

[JonnyH]

I really wonder how they'll get around the carrier testing requirements - imagine the lawsuits if a gpu driver update stopped people calling the emergency services or something.

I suspect this will be opt-in for specific apps, and the "system" version will always remain (or at least updated slowly with the rest of the vendor binaries via OTA) and used for most apps.

[zxcvbad]

(10-15-2017, 11:01 AM)JonnyH Wrote: I really wonder how they'll get around the carrier testing requirements - imagine the lawsuits if a gpu driver update stopped people calling the emergency services or something.

I suspect this will be opt-in for specific apps, and the "system" version will always remain (or at least updated slowly with the rest of the vendor binaries via OTA) and used for most apps.

In theory vendor won't have to do anything about delivering process, instead Google or/and OEMs will pull them from the vendor branch, using this app as some sort of hub (so OEM is managing gfx testing). Even if it'll be minor for specific apps, patches, hot fix or a binaries, vendors have a bunch of newer drivers constantly updating them for their partners, but OEMs being terribly lazy only obtaining one newer revision at the major os release.

[Nintonito]

(10-15-2017, 11:01 AM)JonnyH Wrote: I really wonder how they'll get around the carrier testing requirements - imagine the lawsuits if a gpu driver update stopped people calling the emergency services or something.

I suspect this will be opt-in for specific apps, and the "system" version will always remain (or at least updated slowly with the rest of the vendor binaries via OTA) and used for most apps.

Either that or actual testing of these drivers will happen for once, and the updates won’t be broken. But yes, a fallback does seem quite likely.