Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1750864AbWEWQlg (ORCPT ); Tue, 23 May 2006 12:41:36 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1750893AbWEWQlg (ORCPT ); Tue, 23 May 2006 12:41:36 -0400 Received: from outpipe-village-512-1.bc.nu ([81.2.110.250]:16352 "EHLO lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1750863AbWEWQlf (ORCPT ); Tue, 23 May 2006 12:41:35 -0400 Subject: Re: OpenGL-based framebuffer concepts From: Alan Cox To: Kyle Moffett Cc: Jeff Garzik , Manu Abraham , linux cbon , Helge Hafting , Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org In-Reply-To: References: <20060519224056.37429.qmail@web26611.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> <44700ACC.8070207@gmail.com> <1148379089.25255.9.camel@localhost.localdomain> <4472E3D8.9030403@garzik.org> <83B4C39B-1A5E-4734-A5FF-10C3179B535B@mac.com> <1148395433.25255.66.camel@localhost.localdomain> Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Date: Tue, 23 May 2006 17:53:46 +0100 Message-Id: <1148403226.25255.89.camel@localhost.localdomain> Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Evolution 2.2.3 (2.2.3-4.fc4) Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1169 Lines: 28 On Maw, 2006-05-23 at 11:41 -0400, Kyle Moffett wrote: > So a modern GPU is essentially a proprietary CPU with an obscure > instruction set and lots of specialized texel hardware? Given the > total lack of documentation from either ATI or NVidia about such > cards I'd guess it's impossible for Linux to provide any kind of > reasonable 3d engine for that kind of environment, and it might be > better to target a design like the Open Graphics Project is working > to provide. Its typically a device you feed a series of fairly low level rendering commands to sometimes including instructions (eg shaders). DRI provides an interface that is chip dependant but typically looks like [User provided command buffer] | [Kernel filtering/DMA interface] | [Card command queue processing] All the higher level graphic work is done in the 3D client itself. - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/