What about EXA support ?

[pinaraf]

Hi

I'm a linux lover, and I especially like the newest eye-candy projects.
nVidia is currently doing a really great job in their linux support : they support for instance OpenGl while composite is enabled (I think no other driver support that !), and that allow the project looking glass to work on nVidia cards
The next months are going to be incredible for us, linux fans : new X.org, KDE 4 with plasma...
One of the KDE developer is paid by trolltech to work on the X server, and one of its change is yet integrated in X.org (it's already available in X.org 6.9rc0 / 7.0rc0) : EXA, the new X acceleration architecture.
If the driver support this new architecture, this allow perfect XRender acceleration ! Without any RenderAccel hack or such non-solution...
That's why I'd like to know when nVidia plans to support this in their great drivers. Off course, EXA support doesn't mean that the driver will only work on the latest X.org : a driver can implement XAA and EXA (if I remember well)...

Thanks for reading me

[pinaraf]

I forgot to mention that more information are available here :
- http://lists.freedesktop.org/archive...ne/008356.html
- Changelog of X.org 6.9/7.0 : http://xorg.freedesktop.org/wiki/ChangesSince68
- Announce of the RC0 : http://lists.freedesktop.org/archive...st/008963.html

[Thunderbird]

Note that the nvidia driver doesn't use XAA they moved to their own stuff during the 4xxx releases.

[pinaraf]

Originally Posted by Thunderbird

Note that the nvidia driver doesn't use XAA they moved to their own stuff during the 4xxx releases.

Does this mean nVidia will ignore EXA ? I hope they won't do so and will follow the X developers !

[Thunderbird]

If I'm right one of the main reasons for using their own mechanism was that it would fix lots of twinview related problems.

[pinaraf]

Originally Posted by Thunderbird

If I'm right one of the main reasons for using their own mechanism was that it would fix lots of twinview related problems.

Does that mean that nVidia will totally ignore what is happening in the X servers world and use its own technologies ?
Horrible behaviour ! We're not in the windows world ! If they continue that way, what's the next step ? Integration of a multiple desktops system in their driver ?

[arokh]

Originally Posted by pinaraf

Does that mean that nVidia will totally ignore what is happening in the X servers world and use its own technologies ?
Horrible behaviour ! We're not in the windows world ! If they continue that way, what's the next step ? Integration of a multiple desktops system in their driver ?

Talk about quick judgement. Of course they will make use of EXA if it makes sense. At this point EXA is very new and untested. For christ's sake, there's no release version of X.org even including it yet, and you are talking about NVIDIA support?

If EXA proves itself as useful technology I'm sure they will look at it.

[pinaraf]

Originally Posted by arokh

Talk about quick judgement. Of course they will make use of EXA if it makes sense. At this point EXA is very new and untested. For christ's sake, there's no release version of X.org even including it yet, and you are talking about NVIDIA support?

If EXA proves itself as useful technology I'm sure they will look at it.

Just read what I said.
X.org 6.9/7.0 rc0 are out, and they include EXA.
All the usual composite managers needs EXA to work perfectly.
When KDE4 is released, it'll make heavy use of XRender, so it needs a perfect stable acceleration of XRender, and only EXA is going to provide it !
Off course, it's not yet : X.org 6.9/7.0 will be out in one month, KDE4 in nine months... But the EXA support will be stable only if people can test it, won't it ?

[Thunderbird]

Nvidia has been providing hw accelerated XRender support for years. Other X drivers still use software rendering, now with that EXA some have moved over to hw acceleration. RenderAccel isn't allways that stable but think they will look at that soon.

[pinaraf]

Originally Posted by Thunderbird

Nvidia has been providing hw accelerated XRender support for years. Other X drivers still use software rendering, now with that EXA some have moved over to hw acceleration. RenderAccel isn't allways that stable but think they will look at that soon.

1- Far from being stable (look at the number of people reporting problems with it)
2- Not enabled by default
3- Not as well performing as EXA from what I readed (a Sis graphic card with the right driver on X.org 6.9/7.0 is performing better on translucent windows that a Geforce FX 5600 !)

[Voluspa]

Originally Posted by pinaraf

That's why I'd like to know when nVidia plans to support this in their great drivers. Off course, EXA support doesn't mean that the driver will only work on the latest X.org : a driver can implement XAA and EXA (if I remember well)...

A more fundamental change in the upcoming X release is "Switched to libdl-based module loader" as can be seen here:

http://xorg.freedesktop.org/wiki/ChangesSince68

The meaning is that all external module programmers have to implement that first (unless the old way "elfloader?" can be triggered instead). I judge it unlikely that EXA will come before the dlloader.

Here's Nvidia's response to the loader change (from Jan 14):

http://lists.freedesktop.org/piperma...ry/005692.html

Mvh
Mats Johannesson

[Thunderbird]

Think nvidia implements it already as these days both a nvidia_drv.o and a nvidia_drv.so are shipped.