Re: Native mode handling

Jon Smirl <jonsmirl-/[email protected]>
Newsgroups gmane.comp.freedesktop.xserver
Message-ID <[email protected]>
--- Keith Whitwell <keith-CdwZJljFklH+2FeEXyspIVaTQe2KTcn/@public.gmane.org> wrote:
> > Plus couldn't a simple openGL driver be build on the 2D engine of cards
> > lacking 3D specs or only supporting 2D?  rather than layering sw mesa
> > over XAA/Xlib, just have the GL use the 2D engine directly.
> 
> Maybe, but it's starting to get a little complex.  If anyone really cares 
> about full support for broken/obsolete hardware, they can put some effort into
> 
> such a design at a later date.  But understand you are talking about a 
> vanishing class of hardware.
> 
> I'd expect the non-open vendors to provide drivers for this infrastructure, 
> assuming it takes off.
> 
> Keith

Something like this already exists, the miniglx driver for framebuffer. It
shouldn't be that much work to write a DRM for a 2D card. The DRM would provide
the /dev/dri device, use the OS for PCI IDs, arbitrate DMA & interrupts, etc.
The Mesa driver would be 95% software but there are still OpenGl calls that can
be accelerated with 2D bitblt. After the first 2D accelerated Mesa driver gets
written, it will be a simple matter to port it to other hardware.

=====
Jon Smirl
jonsmirl-/[email protected]

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