Re: [Xen-devel] [RFC] Xen Virtual Framebuffer

[Jon Smirl <jonsmirl@xxxxxxxxx>]

When Ian gets finished fixing the X server to properly handle remote
OpenGL with accelerated calls (instead of software as it now does) you
won't need to write something custom like this.. I added Ian to the CC
list, maybe he will give us an update on when direct rendering for
remote connections will be ready.

On 12/6/05, Jacob Gorm Hansen <jacobg@xxxxxxx> wrote:
> On 12/6/05, Anthony Liguori <aliguori@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > Now that's 3.0.0's out, I thought it would be a good time to bring up
> > the topic of framebuffer virtualization.
> >
> > I threw together a proof-of-concept over the weekend of a simple virtual
> > framebuffer/keyboard/mouse.  The basic design is have a vmalloc()'d
> > buffer in the guest exposed as /dev/fb0 and mmap()'d in dom0.  There's
> > also a simple message system for keyboard/mouse events.
>
> hi,
>
> A virtual framebuffer is probably a good idea, as this is an easy way
> of getting legacy software like X11 running on Xen. My personal
> interest is in getting xenified applications running with features and
> performance comparable to modern systems such as OSX Aqua or the new
> display stuff in Vista.
>
> For the last couple of weeks I have been trying to build an
> accelerated OpenGL multiplexer for Xen. I serialize a stream of OpenGL
> commands to one or more page ranges that I share with a viewer in
> dom0, and there I interpret the streams, so that the result ends up on
> the shared screen. Clients can utilize OpenGL display lists to avoid
> the cost of interpretation.
>
> Currently, I can run glGears and similar demos, including stuff that
> uses texturing, at very decent speeds. I use the closed ATI drivers
> for the FireGL in my T42p laptop. I have a Xen patch for the open
> parts of the driver available if anyone is interested. It would also
> be great to get the open source r300 driver working under Xen, but so
> far I have been unable to make that happen (the old monolithic x.org
> tree was a major pain to work with, hopefully things will be better in
> the future).
>
> This work is in some ways inspired by an older 2D display system I
> built, for which I cannot release the source for legal reasons. With
> that system, I was able to support 12 concurrent MPlayers showing a
> 512x304 DIVX movie at 25fps, on a 3.2GHz machine with a 128MB Radeon
> 9600SE card. I expect my new system to perform at least a little
> better than that, while also supporting 3D.
>
> It seems at this point the only way to get HW-accelerated OpenGL
> running on Linux is through X11 / GLX, hopefully in the longer term I
> will be able to remove X from dom0, in order to reduce the size and
> complexity of the base installation.
>
> Best regards,
> Jacob
>
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>


--
Jon Smirl
jonsmirl@xxxxxxxxx

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