[dot] New Acceleration Architecture for X.org

[Dot Stories]

URL: http://dot.kde.org/1119948104/

From: binner <>
Dept: everyone-hug-zack
Date: Tuesday 28/Jun/2005, @03:41

New Acceleration Architecture for X.org
=======================================

   At the recent European X.Org Developers Meeting
[http://wiki.x.org/wiki/LinuxTagMeeting2005] KDE developer and Trolltech
[http://www.trolltech.com/] employee Zack Rusin
[http://www.kdedevelopers.org/blog/14] presented a new acceleration
architecture
[http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/xorg/2005-June/008356.html] named
Exa (eyecandy X architecture) for X.org [http://x.org/]. Being based on
KAA (KDrive
[http://www.usenix.org/events/usenix04/tech/freenix/full_papers/anholt/anholt_html/]
acceleration architecture) it's designed to be an alternative to the
currently used XAA (XFree86 acceleration architecture) with better
acceleration of XRender which is used by composite managers for desktop
eyecandy effects. The next X.org release which is expected to contain
Exa is planned to be released in September
[http://lists.freedesktop.org/pipermail/xorg/2005-June/008325.html].

     Making existing graphic card drivers using XAA take advantage of
Exa is said to be easy and Zack volunteered to, besides bringing Exa
into X.org, to port all unmaintained graphic card drivers as soon as he
gets the respective hardware in his hands. Exa is meant to improve the
desktop experience and bring users some much needed eye-candy while Xgl,
an X-Server [http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software_2fXgl] layered on
top of OpenGL is being worked on.