From: Jon M. Taylor <taylorj@ecs.csus.edu>
  To  : ggi-develop@eskimo.com
  Date: Fri, 12 Feb 1999 12:41:31 -0800 (PST)

Re: FYI: 3d infrastructure under consideration for X

On Fri, 12 Feb 1999, Marcus Sundberg wrote:

> Aaron Van Couwenberghe wrote:
> > 
> > On Thu, Feb 11, 1999 at 08:27:45PM -0700, Sengan Baring-Gould wrote:
> > > Precision Insight is working on a 3D infrastructure
> > > for X and Mesa under contract to RedHat:
> > > http://www.xfree86.org/majcontrib.html#pi
> > >
> > > Might be worth taking seriously.
> > 
> > When will RedHat realize that frontends to X *are not* the long-lasting
> > answer?? It will be importable, slow... etc. 
> 
> Well, I need to correct you here. First X is without competition the
> most portable graphics system there is (LibGGI is aiming for that
> position, but it's a long way to go before we are there. Even though
> not much work is needed to make LibGGI run on a new system the
> difference is that for X the work is already done.)

	Sure, but we are getting there.  And our solutions for 
framebuffering (LibGGI), region management (LibGWT), input (LibGII), 2D 
primitives (LibGGI2D), and 3D (MesaGGI and possibly LibGGI3D later) are 
much cleaner, more efficient and more modular than the X equivalents.  
I'll bet that when our stuff is finished, we will be able to use it to 
create an XGGI that is very small and very fast.  I'll bet further that 
the whole assemblage will be smaller and faster than a monolithic X 
server equivalent.

> Secondly X and GLX is what SGI's using, and their machines are not
> exactly known to be slow.

	It is very easy to do this when:

* Your hardware directly exports OpenGL 1.1

* Your hardware contains advanced support for state maintenance, 
  privilege levels, interruptible accel commands, etc

* You do not have to support any other type of hardware

* You only want to use X and have a highly tuned X server

* You have the time and money to create the above

* You have a captive market that will pay obscenely inflated prices
  for all the above.

Jon

---
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