From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1NJO4R-0004tj-Pa for qemu-devel@nongnu.org; Sat, 12 Dec 2009 04:15:23 -0500 Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1NJO4N-0004kr-SO for qemu-devel@nongnu.org; Sat, 12 Dec 2009 04:15:23 -0500 Received: from [199.232.76.173] (port=55815 helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1NJO4N-0004kc-Nr for qemu-devel@nongnu.org; Sat, 12 Dec 2009 04:15:19 -0500 Received: from lo.gmane.org ([80.91.229.12]:50012) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS-1.0:RSA_AES_256_CBC_SHA1:32) (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1NJO4N-00087o-8I for qemu-devel@nongnu.org; Sat, 12 Dec 2009 04:15:19 -0500 Received: from list by lo.gmane.org with local (Exim 4.50) id 1NJO4L-0006dE-Jx for qemu-devel@nongnu.org; Sat, 12 Dec 2009 10:15:17 +0100 Received: from 85.93.118.17 ([85.93.118.17]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Sat, 12 Dec 2009 10:15:17 +0100 Received: from pbonzini by 85.93.118.17 with local (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Sat, 12 Dec 2009 10:15:17 +0100 From: Paolo Bonzini Date: Sat, 12 Dec 2009 10:14:54 +0100 Message-ID: References: <1393046876.1549021260539141025.JavaMail.root@zmail05.collab.prod.int.phx2.redhat.com> <4B226BFC.1040606@codemonkey.ws> <20091211204828.464707cf@redhat.com> <4B2297A2.8040102@codemonkey.ws> <20091211212135.645864f9@redhat.com> <4B229DCE.7070500@codemonkey.ws> <20091211213911.0dce90dc@redhat.com> <4B22A2D9.6020602@codemonkey.ws> <20091211222101.5e924d20@redhat.com> <4B22AFBF.6080709@codemonkey.ws> <20091211231334.3d8a599f@redhat.com> <4B22BFAC.90100@codemonkey.ws> <4B230F4A.2050506@codemonkey.ws> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In-Reply-To: <4B230F4A.2050506@codemonkey.ws> Sender: news Subject: [Qemu-devel] Re: Spice project is now open List-Id: qemu-devel.nongnu.org List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , To: qemu-devel@nongnu.org On 12/12/2009 04:34 AM, Anthony Liguori wrote: >> Firefox uses that extensively, for example to render tiled backgrounds >> (though probably GTK user interface elements can do so less >> successfully). > > Yes, but this is just a single application. The point is that these > things are not as widely standardized on X as they are on Windows. They are standardized (Xrender) and there are high-level de facto standard APIs (Cairo or the Qt equivalent). If glyphs are rendered with Xrender it means that the shapes must be somehow transferred to the X server (and hence with SPICE-like protocols to the SPICE client), unlike with X fonts. However these shapes will be grayscale (cheap) and the complicated compositing with the background will be all done via XRender (i.e. on the SPICE client too). Regarding compositing, this is done via OpenGL so even though it is true that nothing goes through X calls, it is also true that everything does go though a high-level API which can be sent on the wire (cfr. AIGLX). Actually, compositing might really be where a protocol like SPICE shines, since it does not generate nearly as many expose events, and since you do not have to resend occluded contents on the wire any time someone raises a window. I have no idea how SPICE performs now, but there's definitely nothing in a modern X Windows desktop that it cannot deal with. The only negative point it might have compared to Windows is IMO the rendering of text. Paolo