[ydl-gen] Video Monitors--2

[jmzorko at mac.com]

Ted,

> 1) Will there ever be a way to access the video card directly?  The
> drivers already exist, I think.  We don't need anything crazy either,
> just some way to watch video in 1080P.  So the open-source nvidia X
> driver may just work if the hardware was accessible.  If nVidia or
> Sony give us a binary-only 2D-accelerated video driver, that's great.

I doubt this -- on the Xbox 360 as well as the PS3, I believe all  
code runs under a hypervisor e.g. it "virtualizes" everything, so no  
code outside of the hypervisor ever accesses hardware directly (for  
some evidence, do a "df -k" in bash while running YDL, and notice  
that you never see the partition Sony made for GameOS -- the kernel  
knows nothing about it because the hypervisor is only letting the  
kernel see the non-GameOS partition for Linux).  That being said, if  
this is true then obviously the hypervisor is accessing the video  
hardware (on behalf of PS3 games in GameOS mode, and X while running  
Linux), so the games are asking more of the hypervisor than YDL is.   
Perhaps Sony hasn't given YDL the means to do this, or perhaps YDL  
hasn't implemented it yet, or perhaps i'm completely wrong?

Regards,

John

Falling You - exploring the beauty of voice and sound
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