[ydl-gen] Video Monitors--2

[Ted Zlatanov]

On  9 Jan 2007, jmzorko at mac.com wrote:

> I think there is a big difference between "accelerated" and "direct"
> video.  The accelerated video is much more likely I think (after
> all, GameOS games have very good video performance, and they also
> run under the hypervisor), though the direct video (if you mean
> direct access to the hardware) I seriously doubt will happen on the
> PS3.  The whole purpose of a hypervisor _is_ to abstract away the
> hardware and put it behind a gatekeeper (to make it much harder for
> certain malware applications to adversely impact the system, among
> other reasons).

I mean that the framebuffer is just about the slowest way to access
the video hardware; if access is through the hypervisor then that's as
"direct" as possible on this hardware and that's my original wish.  So
yes, I definitely agree with you that it would be through the
hypervisor, I just expressed it wrong :)

>> As clever as this is, it's kind of silly to go that route considering
>> the graphics device is right there on the motherboard.  If I could
>> pick one program to get that acceleration, though, it would be  
>> mplayer :)
>
>
> It's not silly if you want what a hypervisor gives you, and it is a
> very secure way to design a system.

I mean it's silly to write code that does video acceleration on the
main processor if a powerful GPU is potentially available, so we
should first ensure that Sony will not release even 2D-accelerated
video drivers before spending time and effort on the alternatives.
That time and effort are not wasted--hacking the Cell to do video
acceleration is a cool project--I just hope it doesn't end up being
the only option.

> I do agree that the current PS3 video performance under Linux isn't
> so great, though, and I am hopeful that some of the solutions
> discussed here can be implemented successfully.  I want Linux on my
> PS3 to be much more like OSX on my PPC and Intel Macs -- that being,
> really smooth and nice :-)

Agreed.  As I said, I hope Sony realizes they are making a mistake
with the video driver, and releases at least 2D-accelerated drivers.
If not, I hope they make a definite "no, never" statement so we at
least know the situation.

Ted