Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!iuvax!purdue!decwrl!gilroy.pa.dec.com!klee
From: klee@gilroy.pa.dec.com (Ken Lee)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Re: X speed, accelarators
Message-ID: <1574@bacchus.dec.com>
Date: 13 Jul 89 22:21:26 GMT
References: <1042@krafla.rhi.hi.is>
Sender: news@decwrl.dec.com
Lines: 18

There are many ways to accelarate X with hardware.  The simplest (and
probably most common) method is to rewrite portions of the device
dependent (ddx) part of the X server to take advantage of hardware
graphics primitives.  Most of the sample servers strive for
portability, so do most of the graphics in software.  Most servers
supplied by hardware vendors probably do this to some extent.

An alternative is to dedicate a CPU (on multi-CPU machines) or memory
(if it can be dedicated) to the X server.  This avoids much of the
overhead of multi-processing operating systems.  I've seen
announcements for VME-bus and AT-bus boards that include a CPU and
memory and claim that they can run an X server.  I don't know how well
they work, though.

Ken Lee
DEC Western Software Laboratory, Palo Alto, Calif.
Internet: klee@decwrl.dec.com
uucp: uunet!decwrl!klee