You will never get any speed out of a software renderer, and using Linux won't change that.
I don't think you quite understand the fundamental differences between CPU architecture and a massively parallel gpu architecture. On 18 Jun 2010 18:41, "Katrina Payne" <fullmetalhar...@nimhlabs.com> wrote: The idea of GPU is a method to take load off o the main CPU, to put it onto another processor that has the only purpose of processing the graphics you are doing. A form of delegating between multiple chips, as I understood it. This way, you have one chip working specifically on the graphics, and the other doing everything else. And you are right---a software render cannot compete with a GPU on an even field. You missed the point where Linux does not take up as much system resources, typically, as the latest versions of Windows does. The idea being, to get a software renderer on Linux, to work on the same level as a hardware renderer on Windows. Like I said, you can typically get Linux, to run in a GBA... you cannot fit anything else into there (maybe pong, I guess?). A GBA typically clocks in at about 67.5MHz IIRC, with next to no RAM. Windows 7, kind of requires 1GiB at a minimum for RAM, and you are going to need at least 1 or 2 GHz to get it running. My idea, again, in case you missed it, was to try to take up this saved overhead, use it for software rendering, to make it comparable to the hardware rendering on Windows. The idea being: If you can get that kind of comparable speed on Linux with Software Rendering... this would make graphics card companies more inclined to make drivers for Linux--as this shows how much more resources you can fit games into. I mean, no idea how this point was lost, when what started this train of thought was that Nvidia and ATI had issues supporting Linux with their drivers. The software rendering engine would never be more than used as a form of insane PoC idea. Or at least, never commercially. It would be a demo, that would be aimed at getting the attention of hardware driver developers to target linux for these drivers. A publicity stunt was what I was suggesting. ~Katrina On Tuesday, June 15, 2010 02:45:33 pm Adam Buckland wrote: > I was under the impression that the wh... _______________________________________________ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: http://list.valvesoftware.com/mailman/listinfo/hlcoders
