To add what Alberto said, our miniport has to support a huge list of desktop
and mobile ASICs. Each asic has different video BIOS to handle. The most
headache to me is the mobile ASICs on notebooks. Different OEMs have
different LCD panels. And different OEM requires different features. Also,
there are many awesome features implemented in the miniport.
Instead of “miniport”, I would call it a griantport. It’s even larger than
ntfs.sys in size. I really miss the day when I was with NDIS miniport that I
wrote every single line of code for my driver-
-----Original Message-----
From: Moreira, Alberto [mailto:xxxxx@compuware.com]
Sent: Tuesday, November 18, 2003 10:40 AM
To: Windows System Software Devs Interest List
Subject: [ntdev] Re: Flushing DMA Buffer Allocated with AllocateCommon
Buffer
There’s a lot of functionality in a Miniport, it does most of the
non-time-critical functions of driving a graphics subsystem. Some people put
support for several different chips in the same piece of code, but even if
you only have one chip, your Miniport may end up being pretty big. Some of
the actual space is taken by tables, for example, every graphics driver
supports several resolutions and bit depths, and one must keep tables of
register settings that set up your chip to the corresponding video mode.
There’s also tables with configuration and capability settings, and they
take space. You must handle initialization, capabilities, mode changes,
power management, multiple screens, resource management, you name it. You
must also manage the retrace interrupt. In WinXP there’s even new support
for DMA. BTW, Calvin, do you guys implement and use the new DMA calls that
WinXP added to the Miniport ?
Alberto.
-----Original Message-----
From: xxxxx@lists.osr.com
[mailto:xxxxx@lists.osr.com]On Behalf Of Maxim S. Shatskih
Sent: Monday, November 17, 2003 10:14 PM
To: Windows System Software Devs Interest List
Subject: [ntdev] Re: Flushing DMA Buffer Allocated with AllocateC
ommonBuffer
Wow! Am I right that this huge amount of code is due to supporting all
videocard hardware models and maintaining the backward compatibility, so
that the newest binary can work with even the old hardware?
Maxim Shatskih, Windows DDK MVP
StorageCraft Corporation
xxxxx@storagecraft.com mailto:xxxxx
http://www.storagecraft.com http:
----- Original Message -----
From: Calvin Guan mailto:xxxxx
To: Windows System Software Devs Interest mailto:xxxxx List
Sent: Tuesday, November 18, 2003 4:02 AM
Subject: [ntdev] Re: Flushing DMA Buffer Allocated with AllocateC
ommonBuffer
Well, video miniport is a lot of code-:).
Our Radeon x86 free build miniport (ati2mtag.sys) is more than 600k. the chk
build doesn’t fit into a floppy…
Calvin Guan, Software Developer xxxxx@nospam.ati.com
mailto:xxxxx
SW2D-Radeon NT Core Drivers
ATI Technologies Inc.
1 Commerce Valley Drive East
Markham, Ontario, Canada L3T 7X6
Tel: (905) 882-2600 Ext. 8654
Find a driver: http://www.ati.com/support/driver.html
http:
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Maxim S. Shatskih [mailto:xxxxx@storagecraft.com
mailto:xxxxx]
> Sent: Monday, November 17, 2003 7:20 PM
> To: Windows System Software Devs Interest List
> Subject: [ntdev] Re: Flushing DMA Buffer Allocated with AllocateC
> ommonBuffer
>
>
> > Miniport. For example, look at the Permedia P3 sample in
> the DDK, the DMA
> > rendering is handled in the driver and not in the Miniport.
> There’s not
>
> Then why the nVidia’s miniport is THIS huge (500KB or such)?
>
> Maxim Shatskih, Windows DDK MVP
> StorageCraft Corporation
> xxxxx@storagecraft.com
> http://www.storagecraft.com http:
>
>
> —
> Questions? First check the Kernel Driver FAQ at
> http://www.osronline.com/article.cfm?id=256
http:
>
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