Re: Is a FontCache worth implementing ?

[James S. <jsi...@li...>]

>>I'm working on the removal of the console_spinlock so we can use DMA.
>>This will greatly speed up fbcon.
>
>Err, ...
>
>so this would mean using the drm/dri stuff for doing DMA ?
>
>what about cards that don't have drm support yet ?
>
>Or will we just mess up things if we want to run simoultanous with
>X+Accelerated OpenGL ?

No. For some cards like the intel i810 we have to use DMA/irq because we
have no choice. Their is no mmio mode for these types of cards. Once of
the big changes for 2.5.X is the comcept of a console state and a graphics
state. When you open explictly /dev/fb or /dev/drm the console system
shutdowns, via being replaced by dummy con. This prevents any conflicts
while using the accel engine directly.

>Will this enable us to do accelerated Mesa on fbdev ?

No. But I do have plans to merge fbdev and dri at some point in the
future :-)

>Textures is only one of the way of doing this. I guess games oriented
>3dfx HW will only have textures, and not dedicated 2d font mapping stuff,
>like bitmap expansion or direct glyph writing ?

Yep. From what I seen in the specs this is the case. In fact their is no
real framebuffer for the voodoo 1. With some magic we get a fbdev driver
going.

>But notice that textures can be expensive to use, if other means are
>easily available, which are handled only in the fb access units.

I agree. I'm just showing it is possible to make drawimage flexiable
enough to do this.

MS: (n) 1. A debilitating and surprisingly widespread affliction that
renders the sufferer barely able to perform the simplest task. 2. A disease.

James Simmons  [jsi...@li...]               ____/|
fbdev/console/gfx developer                             \ o.O|
http://www.linux-fbdev.org                               =(_)=
http://linuxgfx.sourceforge.net                            U
http://linuxconsole.sourceforge.net