Yes it would be nice if X.org could use OpenGL directly for it's display and composition, but to date, nobody has made this possible. Is it wrong for a business to make it so? Since when does developing software for GNU products mean that they aren't allowed to do it privately? If Novell is developing XGL behind closed doors, and paying the developers to build it... Where's the problem?
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Member since:2005-07-06
One technology I believe will be key in the future is storing normal (not game) window contents on the graphics card in vector form.
People keep missing the fact that Cairo antialiases objects to a fixed sized buffer. If the window manager transforms this buffer in any way other than a straight copy all of the antialiasing is lost. Even simple scaling ruins the antialiasing computation.
Storing the window contents in vector form lets the antialiasing computation be deferred (and done on the GPU) only after the window manager has decided on final window placement. Doing this requires GPU based glyph bitmap generation, but this has already been demonstated to work.
Yes, all of this can be done on the main CPU and that line of thinking gave us WinModems!
Member since:
2005-12-06
Why move away from commandline? Wasn't win 3.1 good enough? What acceleration provides is capabilities to innovate in ways that couldn't previously be done.
While there will always uses of new technology that have no merit other than looking pretty while taxing your computer, advancements like the OpenGL acceleration have given the tools to create more useable interfaces that would be otherwise impossible to create. And often you need the technology in place so you can experiment with it to find a new paradigm. One area I hope they go to is some standard backend that all programs communicate with, which will resize icons, text, and like dynamically as you change the resolution. Among other things it would help those with poor sight to easily move to higher resolutions.
Also, as others have mentioned, there are immeadiate practical benefits as well with anti-aliasing and eliminating problems like flickering.