From owner-freebsd-hackers Sat Sep 21 0:15: 7 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.FreeBSD.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2FCE237B401 for ; Sat, 21 Sep 2002 00:15:06 -0700 (PDT) Received: from priv-edtnes44.telusplanet.net (defout.telus.net [199.185.220.240]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6339743E65 for ; Sat, 21 Sep 2002 00:15:05 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from sh@planetquake.com) Received: from dbs ([216.232.29.145]) by priv-edtnes44.telusplanet.net (InterMail vM.5.01.04.05 201-253-122-122-105-20011231) with SMTP id <20020921071504.BRR21632.priv-edtnes44.telusplanet.net@dbs> for ; Sat, 21 Sep 2002 01:15:04 -0600 Message-ID: <001001c2613e$a2a7fca0$911de8d8@slugabed.org> From: "Sean Hamilton" To: Subject: Direct video access Date: Sat, 21 Sep 2002 00:14:46 -0700 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2600.0000 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2600.0000 Sender: owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Greetings, I have been doing graphics programming in Windows for a few years, and am interested in broadening my horizons. I'm interested in attempting to get FreeBSD to switch video modes and gain access to video memory, perhaps to attempt a simple OpenGL-like implementation or the like, entirely foregoing xfree86 and mesa. Which card would I be best off using? I currently have an nvidia geforce256, but understand nvidia is fairly hush-hush about how their hardware works. I know nvidia is about to release an xfree86 module, but I'm not too interested in using xf86. I hear ATI is somewhat more open about the technical details of their cards. For this card, where should I look to get details of the interface? I really know nothing about talking directly to hardware, but am eager to learn. I am assuming all cards have a standard set of commands to do things like set video modes and possibly even things like hardware accelerated lines and such, but I imagine things like matrix multiplications and transformations, blitting, etc, are all proprietary. I know DOS uses a set of interrupts to change video modes, and a static address for the framebuffer, but I'm assuming this isn't the case with FreeBSD. If it *is* a static address, would I then have to be running in kernel mode to access such an address? Is this the inappropriate list for questions like this? freebsd-multimedia looks more like userland type stuff... thanks, sh To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message