-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Terry Hancock wrote: > James Richard Tyrer wrote: >> >>> With a graphics card that uses DMA, you offload the I/O >> >>> overhead from the CPU to the GPU, so the CPU can do other >> >>> things. This has the effect of lowering the load for the X >> >>> server, so it gets a higher process priority. >> >> >> >> With a graphics card that runs the X server, you would offload >> >> even more overhead. :-D >> > >> > >> > True, but is it worth it? >> >> Don't know for sure. This would be a unique product. Although I >> note that this wouldn't be a totally new idea. TI was pushing this >> idea although I don't think that a commercial product ever made it to >> market. DEC used to sell workstations which had a separate processor >> to run the X server. IIRC, this was not nearly as powerful processor >> as the main CPU. >> >> IAC, it seemed like a way to proved the "Amiga like" performance. >> Since the only thing that could slow down the mouse and keyboard >> input would be PCI bus contention and the X server would never be >> swapped out since it would have its own dedicated memory space. > > That would actually be pretty cool. It would keep X from competing > with ordinary application tasks for resources, which is often a source > of hang-ups or slow performance on typical single-CPU Linux desktop > machines. > > It might be more practical to just go to dual processors or something, > though I've never attempted that. An X server in hardware though, > as a simple drop-in system has real potential, I would think. Would > you > then support the pointing device through the same card (seems like > you would). >
Seems to me you'd want to make the card almost a small computer (For flexibility). Say an embedded PPC or something with built-in fp, and a coupled GPU. Making the X server completely HW (i.e. the X in the FPGA) would be pretty expensive by the time you got an FPGA big enough & fast enough to run it wouldn't it? Especially since you'd have to allow for several years of bloat in the code as you update to get the latest X features... Hey! You've re-invented the X-Terminal! NCD would be proud... H -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFEmmCf/3QXwQQkZYwRAgstAKDUkxVZXgpjmFqTJym6BWVqwaLeIACfV1uS dBfrO/8mTWVmf5qsZrNQXUE= =rT01 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- _______________________________________________ Open-graphics mailing list [email protected] http://lists.duskglow.com/mailman/listinfo/open-graphics List service provided by Duskglow Consulting, LLC (www.duskglow.com)
