Xen 
 
Home Products Support Community News
 
   
 

xen-users

Re: [Xen-users] Xen handling of graphics card

Subject: Re: [Xen-users] Xen handling of graphics card
From: Jean-Eric Cuendet <jec@xxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2006 11:26:12 +0100
Cc: xen-users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Delivery-date: Thu, 12 Jan 2006 10:32:59 +0000
Envelope-to: www-data@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
In-reply-to: <907625E08839C4409CE5768403633E0B0EAB8B@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
List-help: <mailto:xen-users-request@lists.xensource.com?subject=help>
List-id: Xen user discussion <xen-users.lists.xensource.com>
List-post: <mailto:xen-users@lists.xensource.com>
List-subscribe: <http://lists.xensource.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/xen-users>, <mailto:xen-users-request@lists.xensource.com?subject=subscribe>
List-unsubscribe: <http://lists.xensource.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/xen-users>, <mailto:xen-users-request@lists.xensource.com?subject=unsubscribe>
Organization: Riskpro Technologies SA
References: <907625E08839C4409CE5768403633E0B0EAB8B@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sender: xen-users-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
User-agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0 (Windows/20041206)

Obviously, with a Xen-aware graphics driver, it would be possible to
solve both of these problems. It is, however, not entirely trivial to
write such a driver for a decent modern graphics card. Trust me, I used
to work for 3DLabs as a driver developer, the source code for 2D side of
the driver is several megabytes, and the 3D parts of the driver are MUCH
larger than that. And I think an nVidia or ATI driver is even larger -
at least the binary is...

So if I understand well, to solve that we need a Xen driver (the same way VMWare does) that is then used by Windows. I understand that well. IMO, accelerated graphics is not high priority, if the card can just be shared by 2 domU OSes (Linux + Windows) with decent perf (like VMWare) then Desktop with Xen is near.
Hope someone with knowledge wil do that soon!
Anyone to sponsor me to develop this? :-)
Thanks for your great answers.
-jec

_______________________________________________
Xen-users mailing list
Xen-users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users