Re: Rethinking the design of xwidgets

[Arthur Miller <arthur.miller@live.com>]

Dmitry Gutov <dgutov@yandex.ru> writes:

> On 19.10.2020 06:44, Richard Stallman wrote:
>> [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
>> [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
>> [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]
>> 
>>>     > do believe if Elisp
>>>     > via Emacs let one do some cool visual stuff, like programming some
>>>     > graphics, and doing drawing in the editor would make it more useful and
>>>     > more efficient. Also I see it as a one brick in making Emacs more
>>>     > popular. I personally think it would be super cool to see Emacs do 3D
>>>     > with Elisp,
>>    > > Would this be a feature that works acceptably fast
>>    > > only if there is nonfree software in your system load?
>>    > Like I described, modern Intel GPUs are reasonable fast at OpenGL
>>    > already.
>> In the Free World, we don't get the modern Intel GPUs.  The computers we can
>> use -- because we can turn off the Management Engine -- are the X200 and T400.
>
> Ah, okay. That makes it more of a problem.
>
> Have you looked into the use of me_cleaner for computer vendors that cooperate
> with FSF? Here's a detailed guide, which seems dangerous for random users but
> can be fine for hardware manufacturers because they can standardize on specific
> motherboards, etc:
> https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/User:Sakaki/Sakaki%27s_EFI_Install_Guide/Disabling_the_Intel_Management_Engine#Modifying_Firmware_using_me_cleaner.2C_to_Disable_the_IME
>
> Also, some vendors have started offering machines with IME disabled (System76,
> Purism, and, most recently, Dell):
>
> https://www.extremetech.com/computing/259879-dell-now-shipping-laptops-intels-management-engine-disabled
>
>> Would this feature run fast enough on them?
>
> The GPU is Intel GMA 4500, right?
>
> We can definitely say that it's possible. From my brief research, people have
> been running games on it on GNU/Linux, such as Amnesia: Dark Descent and
> Bit.Trip.Runner (one is a 3D game, another is 2D).
>
> This GPU is limited on OpenGL 2.1 only, though, so it might cause problems if
> whatever wrapper libraries we decide to use require a higher version.
>
> Ultimately, I think the question can only be answered with certainty if someone
> wrote a prototype and then tested it on one of the X200 machines.

OpenGL 2.1 is probably fine for many cases.

2.0 adds non power of two textures which makes it possible to work
easier with images, multiple render targets, and it has VBOs and PBOs,
which gives for lots of fun :-).

OpenGL features are queried at runtime, but I am not sure
if this feature would be *legal* in Emacs; I mean loading a function
pointer at runtime from a so/dll is essentially ffi, which I
understand is not allowed in Emacs for legal purposes.