Anyone ever done "hello world" through a modern GPU?

[Rusky]

Your confusion seems to stem from a bunch of definition-pedantry. The video card, the CRTC, whatever else you want to call it- there's some device you can poke to set the resolution of the framebuffer, which is independent of the GPU, the extra hardware used for hardware acceleration.

All you need for high resolutions is to set up the framebuffer, which does not require a full GPU driver (the GPU does things like rendering triangles, texture sampling, etc.), just a framebuffer/CRTC/whatever driver, which could just use VESA/VBE. You can do "hello world" with just the framebuffer and not the GPU by writing directly to it from the CPU, or if you have an extra lifetime the GPU equivalent of "hello world" is probably something like glxgears running with hardware acceleration, which does require an actual GPU driver.

[Combuster]

I'm not in the mood to write a 5-page post that is autistically correct, because:
1) I and anybody else probably gets flamed yet again for any and all cases we haven't covered anyway.
2) If you so badly need something written like that, you can't get any other worthy OS development done anyway without equal handholding.
3) There's always some other nut that needs to have a slightly different terminology.

In other words, suit yourself.

[Bender]

This thread has cleared some of the misconceptions I had.
As I see it, the video card has two parts, one controls the video mode settings (screen resolution, etc.) and the other is possibly ( ) the GPU? So the actual setting of video mode is entirely away from the GPU,
this I think is an explanation for the existence of VBE Interfaces, as nVIDIA never released documentation for their GPU however BIOS Vendors were still able to use high res modes even under a nVIDIA GPU.
The GPU is a separate from the CPU, In fact as I see it, it's another CPU, all that's different is that it's made for a specific purpose which is to provide a faster way of drawing stuff on screen.
If the OP is sane, I think what he/she wants to ask is doing a "Hello World" only using GPU Instructions. Which I have no idea about.

[LieutenantHacker]

Okay, call me crazy/autistic/whatever, but the articled or wiki for OSdev seem to have holes all over the place.

You, skilled developers, tell me I need not any use of a GPU or expansion card to put stuff on the screen; articles and wikis tell me I need "device drivers" to simply do this.

While I am aware that this is cud it is geared to OS development, I find that it goes along very wrongly and has many holes in it that confuse people.

It should say exactly the facts: GPU not needed unless you want extra power/computation/hardware acceleration, and all "X"-compatible boards have built-in "X" mapping for output; GPU is just the add-on. What I still want to know then is more about this hardware that no OEM/store/manual talks about that all IBM-compatible motherboards have in greater detail.

[Combuster]

(...)

tl;dr

Now be a good OS developer and use VBE to get this entire mess over with, OK?

[LieutenantHacker]

No, VESA BIOS extensions are provided by GPUs. We are back at square one, and I'm going to have to go autistic and pedantic again until someone somewhere gives me the facts.

[Combuster]

Try this:
If you can't find a citation that's not your own that states exactly what you think, you're wrong.

Therefore, you are wrong.


And if you are asking for the autistic treatment, you can get it. But I'm sure you won't like it either. So you can either stick with VBE and forget everything you know - because it's the correct answer - or you can deal with me bothering the hell out of you.

[LieutenantHacker]

So in other words you know VESA BIOS extensions are not needed, but you're doing this solely to bother me.

You pesky fellow. I'll have to depend on other sources to help out now. Let's see if they agree with you.

I'll definitely keep sure that this debate is open until agreement is reached.

Anyways, this thread went way off track. It should perhaps continue in another one and leave this one to its purpose.

[Brynet-Inc]

It's hard for anyone to give you facts when you attempt to refute anything that doesn't align with your deluded interpretation of them.

[Combuster]

you're doing this solely to bother me

I'm always trying to teach people something. It's always what I think you need, sometimes far from what you say you need, and it's always up to you to accept that.

Which apparently, you don't.

That only means you can go have fun elsewhere. Come back whenever you feel up to it.

[LieutenantHacker]

Tell me how I am being deluded ... honestly. I am trying to align facts here. I am only refuting counterintuitive opinions presented to me, fallacies about display hardware, interchangeable terms being thrown around, and hypocrisy, dare I say it.

I am not here to start problems, but everything I keep reading just seems to be unspecific and mistated over and over again. Read my prior posts and compare them with both the linked articles I submitted and the replies from others.

I'm the one in the dark here.

Combuster, you are doing far from teaching ... you are confusing. Telling me I do not need GPUs for output and anything can be drawn on the screen without one, then telling me to use VESA BIOS extensions? Purely wrong. If me being confused by you is right, I'd be better off knowing the reality and facts and be "wrong" then.

[Combuster]

Assuming you agree with the offered help, let's start here:

VESA BIOS extensions are provided by GPUs.

VESA BIOS extensions are not needed

If you can't find a citation that's not your own that states exactly what you think, you're wrong.

[LieutenantHacker]

You have not helped much with anything, only causing frustration and driving people to the edge.

Thankfully, I'm an autodidact studying electrical engineering. You have given me the motivation from your inability to make sense to help me never give up on figuring the answers out for myself, both through software and hardware.

In other words, stop wasting your time -- you are of no help to me.

As for the citation, just read this. You should know that since you love to quote posts and claim others can't read.

Have a good life "teaching" people.

[Combuster]

And apparently, there are only two instances of "GPU" on that page. They both refer to the difference between 24bpp and 32bpp modes, and are therefore not relevant. There's only one instance of "needed" in, humorously enough, "Citation needed"

Therefore your "citation" is wrong. Try again.
And please, take some effort to cite exactly what you think you need because you're only doing yourself a disservice.

[CWood]

Well I have learned quite a bit from the first page on this thread, but since about halfway down page 2, it was completely derailed.

Motion to lock topic?

[mod] seconded