Re: Re: FW: XFree86 future

Am Dienstag, 25. März 2003 13:29 schrieb Michel Dänzer:
> On Son, 2003-03-23 at 19:49, Havoc Pennington wrote:
> > On Sun, Mar 23, 2003 at 01:30:42PM +0100, Lukas Molzberger wrote:
> > > > > If direct rendered 2D would bring little to no benefit why then is
> > > > > the performance of direct rendered 3D under XFree so much better
> > > > > than the 2D
> > > >
> > > > How can you compare them ?
> > >
> > > I admit that this is mainly a subjective thing, but in 3D I can load
> > > really complex objects and I can move them around and it feels smooth
> > > and fluent. The 3D won't let me see any broken or incompletly drawing
> > > states. But that's the case on the X11 desktop. Sometimes I can watch
> > > the system redrawing a window. The X11 desktop just doesn't feel good.
> >
> > This isn't primarily about speed, it's about
> > flicker/tearing/lack-of-animation, as already discussed.
> >
> > What makes it harder in the X11 case vs. the 3D/direct-rendering case
> > is not network protocol vs. direct-rendering, but the fact that
> > multiple applications are involved that need to be synchronized.  If
> > you are doing direct rendering, you still need some way to do that.
>
> Absolutely, and I'd argue it's easier and cleaner in a central server
> than with several direct rendering clients.
>
> E.g., it might be possible for the server to transparently use double
> buffering.

I've thought about it again and you may be right that the problem is not that 
much whether a client-server model or a direct-rendering model is the right 
way to go. The major problem is that a standardized network protocol freezes 
the development of the API as long as the API is reflected in the protocol. 
Just extending the protocol forever doesn't solve the issue. Sure, a new 
minor version number of the X11 protocol would solve the issue for now and 
would permit to rewrite the API. However, the API would then again be frozen 
for the next ten years. 

If more and more applications start doing their drawing inside the application 
and using X11 just to copy the framebuffer to the screen then the X11 
Protocol will end up being nothing more than VNC.

Cheers
Lukas