Andreas Ehliar wrote:
> > I just read through parts of the mailing list archive, the parts dealing
> > with graphics in particular since I'm interested in that kind of stuff.
> > I've seen a couple of ideas tossed around and I wanted to comment on some
> > of them:
> >
> > * Dual head
> > Personally I think the dual head idea is quite cool. On the other hand,
> > it might be very hard to get working in the real world since most modern
> > graphics card use both interrupts and direct memory access regularly.
> > I don't think it would be trivial to virtualize DMA on a PC...
> > (If you really want to virtualize DMA you should probably take a look
> > at the GART though.) I've heard that Matrox uses DMA to transfer
> > 2d-commands to their cards in Windows. I don't know about any other
> > manufacturers but it wouldn't surprise me much if they use DMA for 2d as
> > well. 3d is another matter, I think all modern cards use DMA in that case.
> >
> > There is one exception to this though, the Voodoo1 and Voodoo2. They don't
> > use DMA and they don't use interrupts as far as I know. It is just one
> > big memory region that you can map into your virtual memory.
> > I think this would be a very nice option to have and I don't think it would
> > be very difficult to implement. You would have to live with the fact that
> > users having direct access to the card could crash the machine though.
> > You would also have to make sure that you don't try to run two applications
> > accessing the vodoo card directly simultaneously :)
> >
> > * Emulating an entire card.
> > This could very well be doable for some older cards that don't have any
> > acceleration. Emulating a newer card is also certainly possible, but I don't
> > think it is a good starting point due to the complexity.
> > One point that haven't been raised before is the legal one. I think you
> > would risk upsetting the legal division of a manufacturer if you implement
> > an emulation of their cards...
> >
> > * VESA emulation
> > This is probably a quite good idea if you want to have more advanced
> > graphics while running Linux inside plex86. (Think vesafb.)
> > Not sure about other OSs though. Anyone know wether there is a VESA display
> > driver for Windows/FreeBSD/BeOS/etc?
> >
> > * Making a native driver of some sort.
> > This would probably be the best solution if you could find people willing to
> > write it on all or most of the operating system you would like to run through
> > plex86. People have talked about ways of transferring commands from
> > the hosted OS to the host. One way that hasn't been brought up is the GLX
> > protocol. It could only send OpenGL commands of course, but it might be
> > almost ideal if you want OpenGL support on the hosted OS.
> > Another way would be to port the DRI drivers to the hosted operating
> > system and allow them to access the kernel module you are already using.
> > You would have to do some serious hacking for this to happen though. This
> > would probably be the fastest solution though.
> >
> >
> >
> > regards
> > Andreas Ehliar
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Kevin Lawton [EMAIL PROTECTED]
MandrakeSoft, Inc. Plex86 developer
http://www.linux-mandrake.com/ http://www.plex86.org/
