Is XAA still supported in recent and future xserver?

[Alex Deucher]

On Mon, Sep 13, 2010 at 11:18 AM, Matt Dew <matt at osource.org> wrote:
> On Mon, Sep 13, 2010 at 8:37 AM, Alex Deucher <alexdeucher at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Mon, Sep 13, 2010 at 10:29 AM, Matt Turner <mattst88 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> On Mon, Sep 13, 2010 at 4:06 AM, Marc Scherer <marc.scherer at mp-ndt.de> wrote:
>>>> We are using the siliconmotion video driver and the performance on a
>>>> xserver dated June 2009 was better with XAA than with EXA.
>>>>
>>>> Since I am just starting again to work on the driver: will XAA be
>>>> available and supported in the near future?
>>>>
>>>> Thanks for comments,
>>>>
>>>> Marc
>>>
>>> Yeah, XAA is still there. Too many older DDXs only support XAA to
>>> think about removing it.
>>>
>>
>> That said, it's not seen active development in years and has
>> bit-rotted in a number of areas resulting in various bits of
>> functionality being disabled (offscreen pixmaps for example).
>>
>> Alex
>>
>>> Matt
>
> Is that something that should go on a TODO (wish)list?  Move remaining
> DDXs from XXA to EXA? Maybe improve those drivers' performance on EXA
> first?

I'm not sure it's worth the effort.  Much of the older hardware isn't
even capable of EXA (lack of offset-based blitters for solid/copy and
the lack of 3D engines for composite).  For hw that is, it's a lot of
work for old hardware that hardly anyone one uses.  I suppose there
are a few chips that are still used where it may make sense.  In many
cases shadowfb is as fast or faster than the blitters on these old
chips anyway. XAA is mostly sw rendering now anyway.

Alex

>
> Matt
>