On Aug 22, 2021, at 6:44 AM, Paul Lalonde <paul.a.lalonde@gmail.com> wrote:I'd love to see GPU support for Plan9. This discussion falls right into my professional capacity. I'll say that people generally *grossly* underestimate the complexity of a modern GPU and of its supporting software stack. The GPU driver is effectively a second operating system with shared memory and DMA interfaces to the host. Even bringing up a modern GPU for just compute tasks is a very large endeavour.That being said, if you want real hardware support, the best place to start is currently AMD's open-source stack. Ignoring the Vulkan bit, understanding their platform abstraction layer (PAL) and shader ISA (https://developer.amd.com/wp-content/resources/Vega_Shader_ISA_28July2017.pdf) is the base. The lower hardware levels are reasonably well-described in linux's libdrm and its AMD support in amdgpu.Opinions on how to bring this to Plan9? I don't really have any - it's a huge pile of work with minimal benefit. If you're looking for lightweight graphics, WebGL is a doable path, and almost certainly the right way to experiment with Plan9-like interfaces to graphics hardware.PaulOn Sun, Aug 22, 2021 at 5:30 AM sirjofri <sirjofri+ml-9fans@sirjofri.de> wrote:
22.08.2021 14:10:20 Stuart Morrow <morrow.stuart@gmail.com>:
> Also:
>> people have discussed that for years
>
> They have? I mean I might have seen occasionally someone vaguely
> going "some sort of GPU support would be cool to have". That isn't
> discussion.
I've even heard of someone actually making GPU stuff work on plan 9. I've
only heard from their partner, who made a cute glenda thing on a piece of
cloth. I chatted with her a little and told her she should encourage her
partner for some discussion about this in our channels. It looked like
it's some academic work, but I don't know any details about it.
Worst case, someone already has a proper and good GPU implementation for
Plan 9 and nobody knows about it.
sirjofri
Btw if the said person reads this: it would be nice to learn some
details.
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