On 5/12/06, Dieter <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Nowhere in that description do I see "3D" or "OpenGL".
I *still* don't see what the 3D stuff is useful for. Animations, maybe?
While our 3D engine will be fast enough to run many games, it is most
useful to us for doing things like compositing (alpha blending,
transparency), rotation, scaling, and other operations that is
interesting for so-called 3D desktops like you see with MacOSX.
I've been developing X11 drivers (DDX layers) for various graphics
cards since 1996. I have developed drivers for chips from 6 major GPU
manufacturers. I am very familiar with X11 and I know what is
necessary to develop an efficient driver for everything from UNIX
desktops to Air Traffic Control systems.
Just off the top of my head, OGA is spec'd to accelerate most X11 2D
functions, including:
- Lines (solid and dashed)
- Rectangle fills (solid, tiled, and stippled)
- Bitblts
- Copyplane
- Polygons (indirectly as triangles or spans)
- Text
- Image upload/download
- Raster operations and planemasks
- A whole bunch more I'm too tired to think of
> FPGAs are getting
> cheaper and more powerful. Perhaps we should just count on that and use
> it to do things a static ASIC simply can't do?
I thought FPGAs were expensive and power hungry?
They are.
> I have a constructive suggestion for what the OGP card should be, but
> will send it in a later email, as I do not want it to be mixed in with
> this discussion.
I look forward to reading it.
=====================
Start with actual requirements.
I see three basic categories of things a graphics/video chip might
do:
1) "desktop" apps
X window manager
xterm
web browsers
image viewers (xv, gs/gv/xpdf, ...)
xfig, CAD
gimp
You don't optimize for applications. You optimize for the rendering
functions that these applications require, which is dictated in large
part by what functions the X11 API provides.
2) video
1080p
sync with audio
hardware assist for mpeg2ts
The video stuff is in there. And at the very least, we'll support
hardware YUV -> RGB conversion.
3) gaming
more is never enough
Ray is asking for something that does not support games.
Last I heard, OGP wasn't planning to attempt the gaming market,
at least not for the first generation. Not practical to try
to compete with ATI/Nvidia the first time out. I agree.
I don't see anything in desktop or video that needs 3D.
Except all that nifty scaling, rotation, and compositing stuff that
Ray asked for.
OGP has been planning on supplying "some" 3D capability,
and from what I've been reading, even this limited 3D
is going to take forever to design.
Well, yes, the timescale has been a bit of a problem. We'll see if
OGD1 alters our finances positively.
What if we scrap 3D completely for the first generation and
concentrate on desktop and video?
Then we won't end up scrapping 3D. I feel like I'm repeating myself. :)
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