In computing, the Direct Rendering Infrastructure (DRI) is an interface used in the X Window System to securely allow user applications to access the video hardware without requiring data to be passed (slowly) through the X Server. Its primary application is to provide hardware acceleration of the Mesa implementation of OpenGL. It has also been adapted to provide OpenGL acceleration on a framebuffer console without an X Server running. Originally, the word computing was synonymous with counting and calculating, and a science and technology that deals with the original sense of computing mathematical calculations. ... KDE 3. ... In computer graphics, Mesa is an open source software implementation of OpenGL, licensed under the MIT License. ... OpenGL official logo OpenGL (Open Graphics Library) is a standard specification defining a cross-language cross-platform API for writing applications that produce 3D computer graphics (and 2D computer graphics as well). ... The Linux framebuffer (fbdev) is a graphic hardware-independent abstraction layer to show graphics on a console without relying on system-specific libraries such as svgalib or the heavy overhead of the X Window System. ...

The project was started by Jens Owen of Precision Insight. It was first made widely available as part of XFree86 4.0 and is now part of the X.Org Server. It is nowadays maintained by Tungsten Graphics and many other open-source developers. XFree86 is an implementation of the X Window System . ... The XOrg Foundation Open Source Public Implementation of X11 (the XOrg Server) is the official reference implementation of the X Window System. ...

The DRI OpenGL support consists of several pieces. The first is the Direct Rendering Manager (DRM). The DRM is a combination of at least two kernel modules, one of core DRM code and others providing APIs to userland to access different classes of video hardware. Second is a userland driver module, which contains an OpenGL driver that typically prepares buffers of commands to be sent to the hardware by the DRM, and interacts with the windowing system for synchronization of access to the hardware. Third, there is some sort of server. In X this is the libdri.so support module and a DRI-enabled DDX (2D driver). In the framebuffer implementation this is MiniGLX, which initializes the DRM and provides some X APIs to the userland driver despite the lack of an X Server. The DRM is a Linux kernel module that gives direct hardware access to DRI clients. ... For information on the company called UserLand, see UserLand Software. ... MiniGLX is a unix programming library that provides a means to use DRI (Direct Rendering Infrastructure, a facility in the linux kernel that allows access to the OpenGL features of graphics cards) without needing to use the X windows system. ...

Several Open Source DRI drivers have been written, including for ATI Mach64, ATI Rage128, ATI Radeon, 3dfx Voodoo3 through Voodoo5, Matrox G200 through G400, SiS 300-series, Intel i810 through i915, S3 Savage, and VIA unichrome graphics chipsets. Some graphics vendors have written closed-source DRI drivers, including ATI and Kyro. The DRI is supported on Linux and FreeBSD, and it has been ported to NetBSD in the past. ATI Technologies Inc. ... Matrox Electronic Systems Ltd is a Canadian company based in Dorval, Quebec, which produces video card components and equipment for personal computers. ... Intel Corporation (NASDAQ: INTC, SEHK: 4335), founded in 1968 as Integrated Electronics Corporation, is an American multinational corporation that is best known for designing and manufacturing microprocessors and specialized integrated circuits. ... S3 Graphics, Ltd design graphics chipsets for PCs. ... VIA Technologies logo VIA Technologies is a Taiwanese manufacturer of integrated circuits, mainly motherboard chipsets, CPUs, and memory, and is part of the Formosa Plastics Group. ... Linux (also known as GNU/Linux) is a Unix-like computer operating system. ... FreeBSD is a Unix-like free operating system descended from AT&T UNIX via the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD) branch through 386BSD and 4. ... NetBSD is a freely redistributable, open source version of the Unix-like BSD computer operating system. ...

References

• A Multipipe Direct Rendering Architecture for 3D (Jens Owen and Kevin Martin) (original DRI design document)
• DRI Extension for supporting Direct Rendering Protocol Specification (Jens Owen and Kevin Martin, Precision Insight, 1999)
• DRI explanation (Adam Jackson)
• Getting X Off The Hardware (Keith Packard)

External links

• Direct Rendering Infrastructure project home page
• Mesa
• Tungsten Graphics