Does Plan 9 use graphics hardware

Does Plan 9 use graphics hardware

[jmk]

	Does Plan 9 use hardware graphics accelerators?  If not, does the design
	allow efficient use of graphics accelerator hardware or does it require
	a dumb frame buffer?
	-- 
	    John Carr (jfc@mit.edu)

at present the accelerator hardware is not used, other than a hardware cursor
on those cards that support it.

Does Plan 9 use graphics hardware

[forsyth]

>>	Does Plan 9 use hardware graphics accelerators?  If not, does the design
>>	allow efficient use of graphics accelerator hardware or does it require
>>	a dumb frame buffer?

and they rarely come dumber than the PC design... what an architecture.

/sys/src/9/indigo3k/screen.[ch] shows one way to make some use of
an accelerator behind the /dev/bitblt interface.  i adapted it on the old
release to produce a version of devvga.c that would use some of the S3
accelerator functions.  it still had some mistakes in it when i put it
aside along with the S3 (it was old enough to have a proprietary local bus).
the DX4/100 and ET4000/W32 are fast enough for me now that i haven't
bothered to look at it again.  on the PC, there's possibly more scope
for improvement for everything by changing the way it handles the
stupid byte ordering problem (PC vs. display).

i installed a linux system yesterday and although i'm prepared to
believe that X11's ET4000/W32p driver gains a lot by using the accelerator
features, Plan 9 feels snappier: not because it draws a new window
to the screen faster, but because the window (and its contents) start
so much faster.

Does Plan 9 use graphics hardware

[rob]

>Does Plan 9 use hardware graphics accelerators?  If not, does the design
>allow efficient use of graphics accelerator hardware or does it require
>a dumb frame buffer?

It doesn't support such accelerators, but there are several ways to
consider adding support.  One might hide the interface between the
existing /dev/bitblt etc. files, so all programs can use the accelerator
on that hardware.  One might add new interface files, /dev/graphics
for example, that interested programs could look for to see if the
device is available, falling to the old way if the open fails.
The important point is, if possible and reasonable, to make the
interface available via files so that remote programs can access
the graphical hardware.

-rob