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authorZhigang Gong <zhigang.gong@linux.intel.com>2011-11-11 14:00:39 +0800
committerZhigang Gong <zhigang.gong@linux.intel.com>2011-11-11 14:50:11 +0800
commit714667157f0e27bc861905dd7ef2fe3ac630f3c1 (patch)
treed92e23d2772bc958f5d8357bafea2db62c63b1fc /README
parentdac277199e86af1d178f4cb8600d01498acc3a69 (diff)
Added more details to introduce GLAMOR in README.
Signed-off-by: Zhigang Gong <zhigang.gong@linux.intel.com>
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@@ -3,10 +3,79 @@ Open-source X.org graphics common driver based on GL library.
What is glamor
------------------------
+
The glamor module is an open-source 2D graphics common driver for
the X Window System as implemented by X.org. It supports a variety of
graphics chipsets which have OpenGL/EGL/GBM supports.
+It’s a GL-based rendering acceleration library for X server only:
+
+ It uses normal texture to represent a drawable pixmap
+ if possible.
+ It calls GL functions to render to the texture directly.
+
+It consists of two packages:
+
+ glamor : Rendering library. All the rendering functions
+ are implemented in this package.
+ glamor-egl : EGL support library. This package provides
+ functions to create and initialize OpenGL/EGL context.
+
+
+It’s somehow hardware independently. And could be a building
+block of any X server’s DDX driver:
+
+ Xephyr or any other X-in-X server could use glamor to
+ acclerate the rendering if the hostX has glx support.
+ Xorg’s DDX driver could leverage glamor-egl package to
+ create a egl context without any native X system. This
+ package can support every platform which has OpenGL and
+ gbm and drm libraries.
+
+
+Why glamor
+----------------------------------------------
+Basiclly, two intentions come to my mind of why we want to
+develop glamor.
+
+1. Graphic device has powerful 3D capability. To use 3D function
+to accelerate 2D rendering is possible and many drivers already
+do so. OpenGL provides a more convenient and standard interface
+to leverage GFX device’s 3D power. It would be better to call
+OpenGL directly rather than manually write 3D pipeline control
+code for each different GFX device.
+
+2. We have heard of complains about why we need to develop two
+version drivers for a single graphic device for a long time.
+One is for mesa’s DRI driver and the other is for 2D DDX driver.
+One of glamor’s purpose is to eliminate the latter one.
+
+How glamor works
+----------------------------------------------
+One prerequisite is that Xorg’s upper layer never access a
+drawable directly. It always use low level DDX functions to
+handle rendering.
+
+All DDX functions access those drawables through two methods:
+First method is to use DRM to map the drawable to a virtual
+memory buffer, and then use libfb to access it directly.
+In many cases, this way is the fallback path.
+Second method is to setup appropriate 2D or 3D pipeline
+according to the rendering request. Normally, it will prepare
+a serial of hardware dependent command, and then upload the
+command to the GFX device through DRM interface.
+
+Glamor just providess the third access method:
+Each pixmap has a normal texture object. Bind the texture
+object to a frame buffer object. Writing shaders according
+to the rendering type and then call GL functions to render
+to the texture directly.
+
+Eventually, the DRI driver in the openGL implementation (mesa)
+will setup appropriate 2D or 3D pipeline to perform the rendering
+operation. Functionally, it should be identical to the normal
+2D driver.
+
Where to get more information about the driver
----------------------------------------------