Re: [Mesa3d-dev] 8 TMUs & ATIX_texture_env_combine3

[Keith W. <ke...@va...>]

Daniel Vogel wrote:
> 
> On Sat, Dec 16, 2000 at 08:52:53PM -0700, Keith Whitwell wrote:
> >
> > I plan to extend it out to 8 in 3.5 development.  The t&l module supports 12,
> > the software rasterizer pretty much supports an infinite number, the core
> > state management code currently is limited to 4 but can easily extend that out
> > to 8 by rearranging some flags.
> 
> Sweet.
> 
> > > On a different note, would there be any legal issues implementing
> > > ATIX_texture_env_combine3 in Mesa?
> >
> > Don't know, sorry.
> 
> I guess I'll have to email someone at ATI.

Some background for people thinking about extensions -- the software
rasterizer is the key to implementing any extension.  Ususally we can't make
use of the extension even on hardware that supports it until the software
rasterizer code has been written.  The reason is fallbacks - there is almost
always going to be some way to expose the effects of the extension on an
already existing fallback path -- if the software rasterizer doesn't support
the extension, we can't get these new fallback paths right...

Thus it's possible for interested parties to advance the (potential) state of
hardware acceleration under Mesa without ever touching a card at all...

Keith