AMD Intentionally Added Artificial Limitations To Their HDMI Adapters

[wraggster]

NVIDIA was caught removing features from their Linux driver (http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/13/10/05/0021237/nvidia-removed-linux-driver-feature-for-feature-parity-with-windows) and days later Linux developers have caught and confirmedAMD imposing artificial limitations on their graphics cards in the DVI-to-HDMI adapters (http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTQ4MDE) that their driver will support. Over years AMD has quietly been adding an extra EEPROM chip to their DVI-to-HDMI adapters that are bundled with Radeon HD graphics cards. Only when these identified adapters are detected via checks in their Windows and Linux Catalyst driver is HDMI audio enabled. If using a third-party DVI-to-HDMI adapter, HDMI audio support is disabled by the Catalyst driver. Open-source Linux developers have found this to be a self-imposed limitation and that the open-source AMD Linux driver will work fine with any DVI-to-HDMI adapter (http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/dri-devel/2013-October/046676.html).

http://linux.slashdot.org/story/13/10/08/1329218/amd-intentionally-added-artificial-limitations-to-their-hdmi-adapters