Graphics feature allocation extension for GGI

Name

libgalloc : Graphics feature allocation extension for GGI

Description

LibGAlloc defines a standardized system which can be used to check for the presence of graphics target features, and to resolve resource conflicts between the features.

It provides both a simple, ad-hoc interface and a more powerful, but more complex, interface to its internals. Its main reason for existing is to become the bridge between the offshoot KGI project's graphics drivers, LibGGI, and LibGGI extensions.

For example, LibGAlloc can tell an application or an extension library how to set the main video mode in such a way that a Z-buffer is available, if the target supports it. It can also reserve the graphics RAM needed for that Z-buffer, so that if another extension wishes to know how much RAM is available for 3D textures, it does not have to interface directly to the extension that owns the Z-buffer to find out how much it ate.

LibGAlloc consists of a main library (libgalloc.so) and a multitude of dynamic drivers. At runtime, the library loads the necessary drivers taking hints from the graphics device if necessary.

LibGAlloc has been designed after years of thought and discussion on the shortfalls of modern graphics libraries, and of LibGGI itself. We believe LibGAlloc will open the door to LibGGI finally becoming everything that it was originally intended to be.

See Also