On Thu, 15 Feb 2007 15:24:43 -0800, Carl Worth wrote:
> Nor does it say anything about what "cairo" really means in those
> charts, (which backend, which cairo?).
Oh, I was a little hasty there. I meant to say "which backend, which
version?". But then I just noticed that the charts linked to do say
"cairo 1.0" in one place. So, yes, it would definitely be interesting
to see how the results might change with a more recent 1.3.x snapshot
of cairo, (and even more interesting to see the actual benchmark).
> Cairo supports multiple backends, such as:
>
> image backend: an all-software backend
>
> xlib backend: draws with the XRender interface to the X server, so
> gets as much acceleration as the X server's
> implementation of the Render extension provides.
>
> glitz backend: draws with OpenGL directly, so again, lots of
> opportunity for hardware acceleration
And another backend is:
win32 backend: draws using GDI
which again, could have very different performance characteristics
than the image backend, for example, (and like the xlib and glitz
backends, can also depend quite heavily on which video card is used,
what the state of the drivers are for that card, etc.).
Meanwhile, cairo also provides PDF and PostScript backends so that
rendering code doesn't haven't to be written twice. If you can display
it on the screen with cairo, then you're basically only one line of
code away from being able to produce an equivalent PDF file, (barring
bugs of course---it's not perfect software, but what is?).
-Carl
Attachment:
pgpHXbwx73ETK.pgp
Description: PGP signature