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Comment by graycoder | Hacker News Reader

You seem to be mixing up different concepts.

The BIOS runs outside of the OS and helps all the parts of your computer speak to each other.

This is why the process is a bit more involved than just running an update from your OS's update manager.

The "binary blob" that's referred to when talking about GPU's is the huge piece of software that you have to download and install in order to make you graphics card able to use all of its features. Some graphics cards won't even use a display's full resolution without the correct driver.

This is different to the CPU in that there is no big downloaded driver sitting between you and it.

If you really want to understand where everything sits, you should check out a book or search for information on Computer Architecture.

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> You seem to be mixing up different concepts.

This is oversimplifying but my understand is that graphics programs like games send data and instructions as a job into a queue managed by operating system to the CPU which then has to then quickly decide what to do with it. GPU's function as a sort of co-processor in that the CPU will offload a portion or all of the instructions/data of jobs where GPU processing is indicated in the job instructions. This is why all GPU processing involves CPU overhead. Also GPU's are somewhat bottle-necked by this whole process.

It's my impression that current trends like Mantle, DX12 and Vulkan are trying to reduce the amount of stuff the CPU has to do to process jobs intended for the GPU. But they can never really eliminate the role of the CPU even in something like an ARM chip is embedded on the GPU board that handles most of the processing that the CPU would have done.

tl;dr - CPU is what makes the computer happen but the GPU is like a dedicated graphics co-processor.

Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

I took the post to which I originally replied to be more concerned about the proprietary nature of the driver, rather than the size. The BIOS is a type of simplistic set of drivers, even a basic operating system, in essence. My point was that the comparison to CPUs with regards to not needing proprietary drivers was not apt, as there are certainly several layers of proprietary code in between you and your CPU, for most systems.

There is actually a binary blob for processors that the BIOS is responsible for loading. The biggest difference is that you aren't responsible for downloading it as it is usually included with your motherboard (as the grandparent says). You can find CPU binary blobs in the open source Core Boot BIOS much like you can find the GPU binary blobs in the Linux kernel.

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