XPe Graphics Performance

  • Thread starter Thread starter Jim Boyle
  • Start date Start date
J

Jim Boyle

My target system is a 266 MHz Pentium MMX with 256 MB of RAM and a
CT69000 graphics controller.

I am evaluating the performance of .NET graphics and the CPU load is
excessive. At first I attributed this problem to the display driver
(VGASAVE). I thought that by using the CT69000 XPe drivers that
performance would improve greatly since the app would take advantage of
hardware acceleration. This did not turn out to be the case. The CPU
load was the same.

I have been investigating XP and .NET graphics capabilities and have
found information that states that both XP and .NET use GDI+ and not
GDI. I have also found some information that GDI+ does not take
advantage of hardware acceleration and puts all of the graphics
processing load on the CPU.

Is this the same for XPe? Does XPe use GDI+? Is there a way to
configure XPe to use GDI?

The information I have found so far is that in order to use hardware
acceleration under XP you need to use DirectX 9. But DirectX 9
utilizes Direct3D not DirectDraw according to what I have read. The
CT69000 graphics controller does not support Direct3D. Its driver only
supports DirectDraw. Is Direct3D built on top of DirectDraw? Will
DirectX 9 use DirectDraw and hardware acceleration if it finds that the
driver supports those capabilities? Or does Direct3D only check if the
driver supports Driect3D and if not then all the graphics load is back
on the CPU?

Any information clarifying these issues will be appreciated.

Also, I welcome any suggestions on how to improve .NET graphics
performance on my target system using XPe.

Thanks,

Jim Boyle
 
Hi Jim,

Basically this is wrong news group.
What ever apply on XPP for graphic is translated to XPe as well.

Beside video drivers you need to include also GART drivers for your chipset to enable accelerations.
DirectX9 is backward compatible so you can use DirectDraw interfaces in the same way as we were able to use it before. (There are
just no new functionality available)

DirectX can be used trough some form of native DirectX API that was documented almost a year ago by MS. So you can access driver
part of DX trough API functions instead of using COM interfaces.

Regards,
Slobodan
 
Slobodan,

Thanks for the information.

The CT69000 is a PCI-based graphics controller. Does GART apply to PCI
or just AGP?

Regards,

Jim
 
Hi Jim,

I must say that I do not know how old PCI card are covered. But I guess that for direct access to video memory to work you must have
something like GART (Graphics address remapping table). Otherwise all accesses must be emulated for compatibility purposes.

Check if you are using latest drivers for your chipset and that they are working.

Best regards,
Slobodan
 
Back
Top