This didn't seem to get through, so let's try again!
-----Original Message-----
From: Colin Davidson [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Friday, December 01, 2000 9:19 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: [plex86] Video architecture
Fabrice Bellard wrote:
> Just a thought about 3d video acceleration - I don't know if anyone
> mentionned it:
>
>
> Wine (The Windows emulator) implements a Direct3D to OpenGL converter
> which seems to be quite good (you can launch many games). I guess it is
> possible to use the same DLL under plex86 with only a few minor
> modifications (you need a way to pass the OpenGL commands back to the
> host).
>
>
> It is not a general solution (it works only for windows, and only for
> some versions of Direct3d) but it is a simple way to implement 3d
> acceleration for plex86 and it may give us close to optimal
> performances.
Hi Fabrice,
It would be really nice if we could pick up the wine work in this area, but
I don't think it's really feasible. Wine provides the DirectX API to Windows
programms. In an actual windows system, this is provided by the Microsoft
DirectX DLLs, which then interface with a (set of) DirectX device drivers.
Now, the DirectX DLLs are downwardly compatible, so if you create a set of
DirectX 7 drivers, say, the DirectX 8 DLLs will run OK on top of this set.
(Not perfectly, there will be missing functionality, but OK). Now, if we use
the Wine approach, we have to boot out the Microsoft layer (messy -
especially as the layer is not designed for booting) and as new versions of
DirectX come out, programs that use the new version simply won't work under
Plex86 - not a desirable situation.
On the other hand, if we provide a set of pseudo-drivers, we will have a
much simpler install and automatic compatibility with new versions of
DirctX. We can update the pseudo-drivers when it suits us, not to a
Microsoft schedule. This is more than worth the extra effort.
However, as a number of the API actions do translate fairly closely into
Driver actions, we can no doubt learn a great deal from the Wine code and
save ourselves some effort. Thanks for the suggestion.
Cheers, Colin
