Windows NT graphic drivers subsystems

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GreatLord
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Post by GreatLord »

The current goal is ReactOS will run on i486 with 32MB or less.
That goal have not been change at all
walter
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Post by walter »

GreatLord wrote:The current goal is ReactOS will run on i486 with 32MB or less.
That goal have not been change at all
this is great!!! :D
cmoibenlepro
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Post by cmoibenlepro »

The current goal is ReactOS will run on i486 with 32MB or less.
It's 32MB or more... :wink:
oiaohm
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Post by oiaohm »

GreatLord is right its Less.

If there is more memory it will use it of course. But 32 megs or less should be able to make it operational.

The min for a operational graphical envorment in linux (not kde or gnome). Is less than 16 megs.

For a nice looking opengl enhanced interface in linux is 256 megs of ram.

Basically Vista is a Hog. The 256 meg line in Linux has been that way for many years. Linux was always classed as the hog of graphical interfaces because every other OS would use less to have its graphical interface operational including XP. Now Vista takes that title. Not a title a OS wants.
cmoibenlepro
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Post by cmoibenlepro »

So Reactos will boot on a system with 3MB? 3MB is less than 32MB...

32MB or less is not a precise minimum requirement :?
GreatLord
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Post by GreatLord »

3MB is bit low. ReactOS have been booting at 8MB-16MB as minium.
But ReactOS installer have some bugs we are talking about how to solv it req allot more memort
our goal is have so lite memory as posible
and we should always try keep reactos at max 32MB even for the installer.
Atari
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Post by Atari »

yes the low resource usage of Reactos is one of the major draws for me. even though my 'work' machine has 2gb ram, since I'm running alot of ram demanding applications (my interests are in 3d modeling/rendering, compression/encoding) a leaner 'windows' is much appreciated. add to that the fact that it's open source, which means that I can compile it specifically for my target platform to further squeeze some performance out of it. then we have other bonuses like developers adding the kernel improvements from later windows versions such as win2003, it's a dream come true. sure, there is a long way yet to go before it's an actual windows alternative, but it's making good steady progress and I'm really looking forward to try out 0.3.1.
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Post by bastetfurry »

On nowadays machines you dont need to compile yourself.
Someone tested it with the linux kernel, stock versus selfmade, and the performance boost was somewhere in the 0.5%, IOW, not worth the work.
I assume its the same with the ros-kernel.
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etko
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Post by etko »

Talking about Vista and OpenGL support. As far as I know it's like that:

From Win NT4.0 till Win 2003 Server there is absolutely no OpenGL support at all. However there is software OpenGL lib provided, and that was all the support. HW OGL uses HW's vendor's ICD. How that thing plugs into WinNT system was the subject of this discussion.

In Vista there is native OGL support for the first time, in Windows world. OGL provided is frozen at 1.4 I think. Windows implements OGL through provided OpenGL lib, but using DX :). So basically you can play HW accelerated OGL games, just by installing DX driver. However it will always report OpenGL version 1.4. It is in same position as software OGL provided by MS in WinNT-2k3.

Anyway if you have nVidia card on Vista, vendor driver will install it's own ICD, basically disabling MS provided one. Now you can play fullscreen OpenGL games like on WinXP with no problem (Doom 3, Quake 4 and all).

The problem was, when Aero's DX compositor was enabled (Glass UI with eyecandy effects - effectively only bshit), and you started OGL app which doesn't run in fullscreen mode, but in windowed mode, Aero switched to software or what, because according to MS, OGL and DX acceleration cannot intermix, and Aero is basically DX app.

Anyway there are articles on net that all this was FUD. After all in latest Vista build, interface for vendors is provided, so nVidia and other canimplement necessary things in their driver, and you can have accelerated OGL in windowed mode, even when Aero is enabled. There are some reports about this. So basically at least this gets into final Vista, there is no problem, and I guess it will be like that becuse there are many apps using OGL in windowed mode.

I think that this statement only supports this claim :) : Maybe I can do a screenshot where you see Vista Aero and Quake 3 running...

However to return to OGL it looks like, from everything said here, that nVidia's OpenGL implementation on Widows NT-2k3 is done same way like in some NT coding demos? Basically calling kernel driver from usermode DLL/EXE. Same way, like for example Mark Russovich's Sysinternals tools, which are able to monitor registry and file access etc on NT?

So there is no interface provided and it is on vendor how he does it?
oiaohm
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Post by oiaohm »

The problem is Current Opengl is not 1.4 its 2.1. Ie Vista default is 3 versions out of date. From a Opengl point if view 1.4 is not functional.

1.4 is a improvement I am not sure. If you don't have 3d drivers instilled. Vista is worse it drops back to opengl 1.1 when forced to do software. XP will do 1.2 opengl in software mode.

Now a few little corrections opengl is forced into window mode because while Aero is active so is PVP(Protected Video Path). They don't want opengl direct video card interface to use the gpu for screen capture and encoding. Turning Aero off also removes some of the limitations on opengl. You loss the means to use PVP.

The beta's had the problem where the drivers would not work at all if Aero was active. Until Nvidia and ATI arm twisted microsoft.

Please do some performance tests between Aero and not Aero is a huge difference in Opengl speed. Locked out of full screen stuffs with opengl processing on video card. It does not get ti idle the interface processing. Vista does not bench too good either for most tasks http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/01/29/ ... index.html
So there is no interface provided and it is on vendor how he does it?
As I said before its wild west. Perfectly up to vendor. And this is completely required. Opengl 3.0 if it stick to plan is a complete rewrite. Current opengl libs will have to be completely replaced.
etko
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Post by etko »

Can someone with insight describe how that comunication is usualy performed? On nvidia drivers for example.

Regarding Vista I got one confirmation that OpenGL works no matter what.

oiaohm you are misunderstanding this. If you have e.g DX only 3D card whose vendor doesn't support OpenGL, you can play OpenGL games up to OGL 1.4 with HW accel on Vista (up to Quake 3), if vendor provides at least DX driver. On all other Windows versions you get "OpenGL32 not present message" (W95 :) ) or you get software rendering (W98+). So this is improvement!

If the vendor supports OpenGL drivers, no concern, you get even OpenGL 3, with or without Aero enabled, windowed or fullscreen, finito. Such states Microsoft.

So everyone stop repeating that Vista doesn't support OpenGL. It supports it to the fullest. By supporting that hoax you are only helping to propagate this useless FUD . There was problem with beta, however this was fixed year ago because of commercial pressure. Performance now depends on vendor supplied drivers.
GreatLord
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Post by GreatLord »

It is not easy question to answers.

I keep out vista, vista need a diffent answers.

I can only tell what a manfcator need to implemet in the drv
it is GDI amd DX driver api document in ddk/wdk
(true for vista as well, but vista call there drv runing in user mode)

About GDI
Winodws it self using gdi to draw all graphice
apps talk with gdi32.dll/user32.dll and thuse dll talks with win32k.sys
and win32k talks with the drv.

About DX graphice system
not all apps use it. to access this interface a dx graphice dll file need go trung the gdi32.dll then u apps comucate with gdi32.dll and gdi32 pass the
info to win32k.sys and win32k.sys pass that info to the drv.
not 100% true in windows Nt4/2000, it working bit diffent what windwos xp does but this is basic how it works, and this is true for most case for win2k but not all case, I do not go into diffent here.
oiaohm
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Post by oiaohm »

I am not.

If you don't have a card with a direct 3d driver. Vista Business can be installed without Aero. It drops back to opengl 1.1. I really don't know why when XP had better.

Direct X 8.0 driver is able to provide at least 1.5 opengl and Vista is Direct X 10 what the heck is going on.. I am not saying it does not Support Opengl support. I say its support is a joke. http://www.scitechsoft.com/products/ent/gld_home.php Install that get opengl 1.5 going threw Direct X. Pitty that does not work on Vista. Note the OS's it installs on. This is not a new wrapper.

And the PVP does cause some performance problems as well.
Matthias
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Post by Matthias »

frik85 wrote:I have watched several Channel9 videos, and afaik it is this way:

If you run Vista with WinXP graphic drivers you cannot use Aero, but you can use OpenGL without restrictions, the same as in WinXP.

If you want to use Aero, you have to use Vista only graphic drivers, which limit the usage of OpenGL, as OpenGL has to run over a DirectX Wrapper.
That's BS. The Direct3D Wrapper is used only if there is no better alternative. However, the vast majority, if not all chip manufacturers still provide proper OpenGL drivers, so that OpenGL runs natively on Vista and not with a Wrapper. Please inform yourself properly before spreading things that aren't true.

Also, 1 GiB of RAM is enough for Vista. If you disable Aero, it works just as fast or faster than Windows XP on any machine i've seen.
frik85
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Post by frik85 »

Matthias wrote:
frik85 wrote:I have watched several Channel9 videos, and afaik it is this way:

If you run Vista with WinXP graphic drivers you cannot use Aero, but you can use OpenGL without restrictions, the same as in WinXP.

If you want to use Aero, you have to use Vista only graphic drivers, which limit the usage of OpenGL, as OpenGL has to run over a DirectX Wrapper.
The Direct3D Wrapper is used only if there is no better alternative. However, the vast majority, if not all chip manufacturers still provide proper OpenGL drivers, so that OpenGL runs natively on Vista and not with a Wrapper. Please inform yourself properly before spreading things that aren't true.
Can't you read? I wrote "as far as I know" (afaik) and about how Vista default situation is, of course you can install third party drivers, and I had known about it, although I hadn't written about it.
Matthias wrote:Also, 1 GiB of RAM is enough for Vista. If you disable Aero, it works just as fast or faster than Windows XP on any machine i've seen.
Vista Starter Edition limits you to (afaik) 256 MB ram (and 3 apps at the same time)
Normal Vista eats too much ram for (at least from my point of view) unneeded things.
Vista needs ACPI which limit it to about min 90 MHz AMD K5 with 224 MB ram.
WinXP Home/Pro requiere about 256 MB for normal usage, it's even possible to use it (if you have enough time to wait 30 min boot-time) on a 8 MHz Pentium 'overdrive' with 20 MB ram.

If you have time you can test your favorite OS on an even slower computer, some stats can be found there:
http://winhistory.de/more/386/xpmini_eng.htm
http://winhistory.de/more/386/winq.htm

To sum up, Vista requieres a lot more disk space, memory and energy (costs money) for on the other side (in comparison to Win2k3) little improvements (in general point of view).
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