DIB Engine, some summarization

[Damjan Jovanovic]

On 2/12/07, Rolf Kalbermatter <r.kalbermatter at hccnet.nl> wrote:
> The issue about network transparency for the display driver would not be an
> issue IMO.
> Once complete the DIB engine would handle all DIB operations locally and so
> no need for
> translating direct memory access into remote calls to some display server
> would be
> necessary. And the blitting of DIBs to the display when necessary would
> still be done
> through the driver of course so everything would be transparent as far as
> the capabilities
> of the used display device itself allow for that.

What about the case where you draw with GDI, then render with OpenGL
on top of that, then draw on top of that with GDI, then swap buffers?
If you draw only client-side, you have to copy to the server, then
copy back, then copy to the server *again*. You have to upload or
download the image *every time* you go between OpenGL and GDI drawing,
whereas when you draw with X11, there is no uploads/downloads unless
you use DIB sections and draw directly.

X11 drawing has some more advantages, like being able to use forms of
hardware acceleration (XAA/EXA) that client-side drawing can't.

A pure client-side drawing strategy is IMO inferior to a strategy
where you can draw  client-side or server-side, as the need arises.

> Rolf Kalbermatter

Damjan Jovanovic