Graphics address remapping table

Last updated

The graphics address remapping table (GART), [1] also known as the graphics aperture remapping table, [2] or graphics translation table (GTT), [3] is an I/O memory management unit (IOMMU) used by Accelerated Graphics Port (AGP) and PCI Express (PCIe) graphics cards. The GART allows the graphics card direct memory access (DMA) to the host system memory, through which buffers of textures, polygon meshes and other data are loaded. AMD later reused the same mechanism for I/O virtualization with other peripherals including disk controllers and network adapters. [4]

Contents

A GART is used as a means of data exchange between the main memory and video memory through which buffers (i.e. paging/swapping) of textures, polygon meshes and other data are loaded, but can also be used to expand the amount of video memory available for systems with only integrated or shared graphics (i.e. no discrete or inbuilt graphics processor), such as Intel HD Graphics processors. However, this type of memory (expansion) remapping has a caveat that affects the entire system: specifically, any GART, pre-allocated memory becomes pooled and cannot be utilised for any other purposes but graphics memory and display rendering.

Operating system support

Linux

Jeff Hartmann served as the primary maintainer of the Linux kernel's agpgart driver, which began as part of Brian Paul's Utah GLX accelerated Mesa 3D driver project. The developers primarily targeted Linux 2.4.x kernels, but made patches available against older 2.2.x kernels. Dave Jones heavily reworked agpgart for the Linux 2.6.x kernels, along with more contributions from Jeff Hartmann. [5]

FreeBSD

In FreeBSD, the agpgart driver appeared in its 4.1 release. [6]

Solaris

AGPgart support was introduced into Solaris Express Developer Edition as of its 7/05 release. [7]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Accelerated Graphics Port</span> Expansion bus standard

Accelerated Graphics Port (AGP) is a parallel expansion card standard, designed for attaching a video card to a computer system to assist in the acceleration of 3D computer graphics. It was originally designed as a successor to PCI-type connections for video cards. Since 2004, AGP was progressively phased out in favor of PCI Express (PCIe), which is serial, as opposed to parallel; by mid-2008, PCI Express cards dominated the market and only a few AGP models were available, with GPU manufacturers and add-in board partners eventually dropping support for the interface in favor of PCI Express.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">OpenGL</span> Cross-platform graphics API

OpenGL is a cross-language, cross-platform application programming interface (API) for rendering 2D and 3D vector graphics. The API is typically used to interact with a graphics processing unit (GPU), to achieve hardware-accelerated rendering.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">UEFI</span> Operating system and firmware specification

Unified Extensible Firmware Interface is a specification that defines an architecture for the platform firmware used for booting a computer's hardware and its interface for interaction with the operating system. Examples of firmware that implement the specification are AMI Aptio, Phoenix SecureCore, TianoCore EDK II, InsydeH2O.

x86 virtualization is the use of hardware-assisted virtualization capabilities on an x86/x86-64 CPU.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shader</span> Type of program in a graphical processing unit (GPU)

In computer graphics, a shader is a computer program that calculates the appropriate levels of light, darkness, and color during the rendering of a 3D scene—a process known as shading. Shaders have evolved to perform a variety of specialized functions in computer graphics special effects and video post-processing, as well as general-purpose computing on graphics processing units.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">SGI O2</span> Unix workstation from Silicon Graphics

The O2 is an entry-level Unix workstation introduced in 1996 by Silicon Graphics, Inc. (SGI) to replace their earlier Indy series. Like the Indy, the O2 uses a single MIPS microprocessor and was intended to be used mainly for multimedia. Its larger counterpart is the SGI Octane. The O2 was SGI's last attempt at a low-end workstation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Direct Rendering Infrastructure</span> Framework

The Direct Rendering Infrastructure (DRI) is the framework comprising the modern Linux graphics stack which allows unprivileged user-space programs to issue commands to graphics hardware without conflicting with other programs. The main use of DRI is to provide hardware acceleration for the Mesa implementation of OpenGL. DRI has also been adapted to provide OpenGL acceleration on a framebuffer console without a display server running.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">OpenGL ES</span> Subset of the OpenGL API for embedded systems

OpenGL for Embedded Systems is a subset of the OpenGL computer graphics rendering application programming interface (API) for rendering 2D and 3D computer graphics such as those used by video games, typically hardware-accelerated using a graphics processing unit (GPU). It is designed for embedded systems like smartphones, tablet computers, video game consoles and PDAs. OpenGL ES is the "most widely deployed 3D graphics API in history".

The Direct Rendering Manager (DRM) is a subsystem of the Linux kernel responsible for interfacing with GPUs of modern video cards. DRM exposes an API that user-space programs can use to send commands and data to the GPU and perform operations such as configuring the mode setting of the display. DRM was first developed as the kernel-space component of the X Server Direct Rendering Infrastructure, but since then it has been used by other graphic stack alternatives such as Wayland and standalone applications and libraries such as SDL2 and Kodi.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mesa (computer graphics)</span> Free and open-source library for 3D graphics rendering

Mesa, also called Mesa3D and The Mesa 3D Graphics Library, is an open source implementation of OpenGL, Vulkan, and other graphics API specifications. Mesa translates these specifications to vendor-specific graphics hardware drivers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Free and open-source graphics device driver</span> Software that controls computer-graphics hardware

A free and open-source graphics device driver is a software stack which controls computer-graphics hardware and supports graphics-rendering application programming interfaces (APIs) and is released under a free and open-source software license. Graphics device drivers are written for specific hardware to work within a specific operating system kernel and to support a range of APIs used by applications to access the graphics hardware. They may also control output to the display if the display driver is part of the graphics hardware. Most free and open-source graphics device drivers are developed by the Mesa project. The driver is made up of a compiler, a rendering API, and software which manages access to the graphics hardware.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Radeon R100 series</span> Series of video cards

The Radeon R100 is the first generation of Radeon graphics chips from ATI Technologies. The line features 3D acceleration based upon Direct3D 7.0 and OpenGL 1.3, and all but the entry-level versions offloading host geometry calculations to a hardware transform and lighting (T&L) engine, a major improvement in features and performance compared to the preceding Rage design. The processors also include 2D GUI acceleration, video acceleration, and multiple display outputs. "R100" refers to the development codename of the initially released GPU of the generation. It is the basis for a variety of other succeeding products.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Input–output memory management unit</span> Configuration in computing

In computing, an input–output memory management unit (IOMMU) is a memory management unit (MMU) connecting a direct-memory-access–capable (DMA-capable) I/O bus to the main memory. Like a traditional MMU, which translates CPU-visible virtual addresses to physical addresses, the IOMMU maps device-visible virtual addresses to physical addresses. Some units also provide memory protection from faulty or malicious devices.

Windows Display Driver Model is the graphic driver architecture for video card drivers running Microsoft Windows versions beginning with Windows Vista.

The Radeon R700 is the engineering codename for a graphics processing unit series developed by Advanced Micro Devices under the ATI brand name. The foundation chip, codenamed RV770, was announced and demonstrated on June 16, 2008 as part of the FireStream 9250 and Cinema 2.0 initiative launch media event, with official release of the Radeon HD 4800 series on June 25, 2008. Other variants include enthusiast-oriented RV790, mainstream product RV730, RV740 and entry-level RV710.

nouveau (software) Open source software driver for Nvidia GPU

nouveau is a free and open-source graphics device driver for Nvidia video cards and the Tegra family of SoCs written by independent software engineers, with minor help from Nvidia employees.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Radeon HD 5000 series</span> Series of video cards

The Evergreen series is a family of GPUs developed by Advanced Micro Devices for its Radeon line under the ATI brand name. It was employed in Radeon HD 5000 graphics card series and competed directly with Nvidia's GeForce 400 series.

The graphics processing unit (GPU) codenamed the Radeon R600 is the foundation of the Radeon HD 2000/3000 series and the FireGL 2007 series video cards developed by ATI Technologies.

The graphics processing unit (GPU) codenamed Radeon R600 is the foundation of the Radeon HD 2000 series and the FireGL 2007 series video cards developed by ATI Technologies. The HD 2000 cards competed with nVidia's GeForce 8 series.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Radeon 300 series</span> Series of video cards

The Radeon 300 series is a series of graphics processors developed by AMD. All of the GPUs of the series are produced in 28 nm format and use the Graphics Core Next (GCN) micro-architecture.

References

  1. Accelerated Graphics Port Interface Specification: Revision 2.0 (PDF). 4 May 1998. p. 24.
  2. AGP V3.0 Interface Specification (PDF). September 2002. p. 116.
  3. freedesktop.org. "GART" . Retrieved 2010-03-05.
  4. AMD I/O Virtualization Technology (IOMMU) Specification, 32-bit to 64-bit Legacy I/O Device Mapping
  5. Jones, Dave (2003-07-24). "Ugly Ducklings: Resurrecting unmaintained code – agpgart adapted for Linux 2.6 kernel" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2014-02-03. Retrieved 2014-06-05.
  6. "agp(4)". FreeBSD Man Pages: FreeBSD Kernel Interfaces Manual. freebsd.org. 2007-11-28. Retrieved 2014-06-10.
  7. "agpgart_io manpage". docs.sun.com. Sun Microsystems. Archived from the original on 2009-03-23. Retrieved 2007-12-04.