Oh, wow. TIL that graphics drivers are the Windows of GPUs.<p>(Windows has had application-specific patch&#x2F;fix code since Windows 3.1. Fascinating reading: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;support.microsoft.com&#x2F;en-us&#x2F;kb&#x2F;82860" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;support.microsoft.com&#x2F;en-us&#x2F;kb&#x2F;82860</a>)<p>So this is one reason why GPU driver code is necessarily closed :( to save face.<p>There are some software-based graphics cores out there, and one or two VHDL&#x2F;FPGA efforts, but the performance&#x2F;watt ratio between those and mainstream GPUs is laughable without a second thought.<p>Here&#x27;s hoping AMD&#x27;s vision to try and be more open in the future really works out. Also that Vulkan is at least mildly sane with open-ness.<p>Because the current state of things reinforces ideas like &quot;the GPU is opaque&quot; - architecturally, graphics processing is not a magic box, and while it would take a long time to fully understand it&#x27;s not <i>technically</i> insurmountable; but the current status quo with drivers makes it so.