xref: /xsrc/external/mit/xorg-server.old/dist/hw/xwin/README

Cygwin/X Release Notes
======================

Release X11R6.7
===============

Cygwin/X has continued its rapid pace of development that it has sustained
since Spring 2001 and this release shows it, we now have: a stable and fast
multi-window mode, seamless clipboard integration, a configurable tray menu
icon, popups on error messages pointing users to the log file and our mailing
list, the beginnings of indirect 3D acceleration for OpenGL applications,
improved non-US keyboard and clipboard support, and only a handful of bugs
that continue to be reported.

Between the XFree86 4.3.0 release and the X.Org X11R6.7 release the Cyg-
win/XFree86 project broke away from The XFree86 Project, Inc. due to a lack
of support from the XFree86 project.  As such, the Cygwin/XFree86 project was
renamed to the Cygwin/X project and the upstream source code tree that Cyg-
win/X pulls from and pushes to is now the tree managed by the X.Org Founda-
tion.  The Cygwin/X project has seen a rush of development and interest in
the project since the split; one metric showing this is that the number of
CVS committers we have has gone from zero to six.

The most outstanding features of this release are

   o Major multi-window mode improvements. (Takuma Murakami, Earle F. 
     Philhower III)

   o Initial work of accelerated OpenGL using the windows OpenGL drivers. 
     (Alexander Gottwald)

   o Massive rework of clipboard integration with windows. (Harold L Hunt II,
     Kensuke Matsuzaki)

   o Improved Japanese clipboard and keyboard support. (Kensuke Matsuzaki,
     Takuma Murakami, Alexander Gottwald)

   o Customizable tray menu icon allowing shortcuts to start programs,
     etc.(Earle F. Philhower III)

   o New icons. (Jehan Bing, Michael Bax, Benjamin Rienfenstahl)

   o Fix some multi-monitor problems.(Takuma Murakami)

   o Fix repeated key strokes. (Ivan Pascal)

   o Automatic keyboard layouts for the most frequently used keyboard lay-
     outs. (Alexander Gottwald)

   o Built in SHM support with detection of the SHM engine (cygserver).
     (Ralf Habacker, Harold L Hunt II)

   o Merged in work on the NativeGDI engine. (Alan Hourihane)

OpenGL with Cygwin/X
====================

Cygwin/X has supported GLX only with software rendering provided by the Mesa
library. Starting with X11R6.7 we add support for hardware accelerated OpenGL.

This support is still under development and still has some bigger problems. 
To provide both versions (the stable software rendering and the new hardware
accelerated) we ship to binaries. XWin.exe contains the software rendering 
and XWin_GL.exe uses the hardware acceleration provided by the windows drivers.

The known problems with hardware accelerated OpenGL are:

   o Only multiwindow mode is useful. In the other modes the OpenGL output 
     does not align with the X11 windows.

   o Using two programs which require different visuals will fail. For example
     glxgears and glxinfo will not work without restarting XWin_GL.exe.

   o OpenGL extensions and functions from OpenGL 1.2 and later should work 
     but are not completely tested.

   o The standard Windows OpenGL driver will produce no output. Use the one 
     from your video adapter vendor.  

If you notice problems with some programs please send a message with the 
logfile /tmp/XWin.log and a short error description to <cygwin-xfree@cygwin.com>

The hardware accelerated OpenGL was tested using: 

   o glxgears
   o glxinfo
   o blender
   o tuxkart
   o GLUT demos (some did fail)
   o tuxracer (currently not working)

    
Release X11R6.8
===============

Having reached a quite mature state in release X11R6.7 the development 
has slowed down a little bit. Some of the former active developers have
retired or cut their work for the Cygwin/X project due to conflicts with 
job, study and family. 

The X11R6.8 release now includes major improvements from the xserver project.
This includes the XFixes, Damage, Composite and XEVIE extension which is a 
major step towards allowing Cygwin/X to have real transparency. 

But at the current state Composite is not working with Cygwin/X. Not all code
in the Cygwin/X Server has been updated to support the Composite feature and
using it will even crash the xserver. But as a second problem nearly all
functions required for compositing are lacking acceleration in Cygwin/X so
the feature would not be very useful if it would work. So it is disabled by
default. 

OpenGL with Cygwin/X
====================

The OpenGL support has lost some of it's limitations from the last release 
and should be much more stable. But due to missing wide spread testing in 
the community it is still available in a separate program. XWin still uses 
the old software OpenGL which is known to be stable.

The known problems with hardware accelerated OpenGL are:

   o Only multiwindow mode is useful. In the other modes the OpenGL output 
     does not align with the X11 windows.

   o OpenGL extensions and functions from OpenGL 1.2 and later should work 
     but are not completely tested.

   o The standard Windows OpenGL driver will produce no output. Use the one 
     from your video adapter vendor.  

If you notice problems with some programs please send a message with the 
logfile /tmp/XWin.log and a short error description to <cygwin-xfree@cygwin.com>

The hardware accelerated OpenGL was tested using: 

   o glxgears
   o glxinfo
   o blender
   o tuxkart
   o GLUT demos (some did fail)