[Xen-devel] possible to give/switch direct graphics hw access to doms?

["Jean Blignaut" <jean@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

I hope this is the right place to be posting this question.

I was wondering about the possibility of giving full access to graphics hw to 
domU perhaps especially when intel VT or AMD pacifica is available?

I have been reading every thing I can find on the subject as it would be most 
use full for my personal desktop system (and I'm sure I'm not alone ... )

To be able to share or in some way switch which OS has access to your graphics 
hardware (amongst other such as sound etc.)

I realize that this is only realy use full in desktop/workstation situations 
but I have been pondering the subject for some years.

One problem I guess would be the state/mode of the graphics hardware in 
different doms - whitch is probably why they could not share it at the same 
time - but perhaps switching is more feasible. I seem to remember that there 
was an INT 10 function in vga (pre svga) that could store the state of all the 
registers etc. on the card. Combined with some sort of frame buffer (that only 
gets used when graphics operation is suspended ex. A nother dom has the graphhw 
at the moment) you could perhaps store the mode, state and graphichs ram of 
each dom and be able to restore each in turn?

Forgive my ignorance but the last time I seriously spent time with lowlevel hw 
programming was on 486 hardware :) 

Regards 
Jean Blignaut

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