[Open-graphics] CPU on graphics card]

[Nicholas S-A]

> To be practical, both cost and power wise, this solution would have  
> to be based on an embedded chip.
>
> AMD Geode processors can be used to make a graphics card. They  
> support MMX and 3D-NOW.  AMD states that they fully support Linux  
> on these.
>
> http://www.amd.com/us-en/ConnectivitySolutions/ProductInformation/ 
> 0,,50_2330_9863,00.html
>
> The GX or LX would be a single chip solution. It would be  
> inexpensive, but I don't know how fast it would be.  They have the  
> advantage of having hardware VGA.  The LX is a bit faster than the GX.

You do *not* want to use the Geode, LX or GX, for video processing  
except in a very specialized app.
There is actually a discussion on devel at laptop.org right now talking  
about using OpenGL (read Mesa)
on the LX they use for the XO. It has nowhere near the needed  
processing power to run that - I assume
any other OpenGL implementations would be as limited, and would not  
compete with even 7200-era
cards. A possibility could be the Xscale and intel 2700:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_2700G
which supports OpenGL ES.

Also, this information might be useful to us:
The 2700G performs Inverse Zig-Zag, Inverse Discrete Cosine  
Transform, and Motion Compensation to speed up MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4  
and WMV video decoding. The accelerator can decode MPEG-1, 2 and WMV  
at 720x480 (DVD Resolution) and MPEG-4 at 640x480, both at over 30  
frames per second.

These all run at 75 Mhz - It is likely that we will be able to decode  
slightly better than this if we implement
those features. Given the R&D intel must have put into this chip,  
that is probably where 99% of the CPU
power goes.