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Request for DRI2 Support in Linux Drivers

I would like to submit an enhancement request for DRI2 support to be added to the Linux drivers.  I didn't see a form on the site for such a submission so I thought I'd just post to the forum here hoping someone at AMD/ATI picks this up.

The use case is that Compiz as a compositing window manager depends on DRI2 capability in order to render OpenGL windows along side composited windows.  This has been discussed at:

http://forum.compiz-fusion.org/showthread.php?p=71104#post71104

The current state of things is that certain visual effects for window management can only be applied when the windows themselves are not OpenGL.  This creates an unfortunate decision for the user to choose between visual effects for window management or OpenGL applications that have nice visuals themselves.  The two are currently mutually exclusive.  It would seem that adding DRI2 support would resolve this and open a development path for a much more excting desktop experience.

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bridgman
Staff

What you really want is "Redirected Direct Rendering" (RDR), which gives you the ability to redirect the output of a direct-rendered GL application via Compiz.

DRI2 is one of the ways in which RDR can be implemented. DRI2 was delayed a couple of times (as a result of changing the underlying memory manager from TTM to GEM) so right now it's most likely that we will implement RDR (solving the problem you described) without relying on DRI2.

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Thanks for the clarification.  Yes, the more generic RDR functionality is the actual target.  If DRI2 isn't the best way to do it then I'd suspect Compiz can be made to use RDR with another API.

What form would such an enhacement take?  Could I hope to see RDR as part of the Linux driver package and therefore just keep an eye on the Release Notes for future drivers?

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I have filed this request as Bug 1461 as an enhancement in the Bugzilla system (http://ati.cchtml.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1461).

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Great job on the Catalyst 9.3 drivers!  They now have nice support for redirected direct rendering and OpenGL windows appear to be working nicely with compiz.  This news was covered over at Phoronix (http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=amd_catalyst93_composite&num=1).  This is an exciting feature.  Thanks!

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What you really want is "Redirected Direct Rendering" (RDR), which gives you the ability to redirect the output of a direct-rendered GL application via Compiz.

DRI2 is one of the ways in which RDR can be implemented. DRI2 was delayed a couple of times (as a result of changing the underlying memory manager from TTM to GEM) so right now it's most likely that we will implement RDR (solving the problem you described) without relying on DRI2.

Edit: Removed advertising

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