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The following table shows the benefits of a GPE display driver.
| Benefit | Description |
|---|---|
| Software support for all rendering functions | After you write the hardware-specific code to initialize the display driver, you have a functional driver. With this functional driver, you can then implement and test elements of hardware acceleration one element at a time. |
| Reduced development work | If you develop a display driver from the beginning, you may be able to create a display driver that performs marginally better than a GPE version of the same driver. However, you must perform a significant amount of development work to duplicate the functionality that GPE provides. GPE reduces the time required to develop a display driver because you do not need to write code to provide this basic functionality. |
| Support for Microsoft® ClearType® display technology | For more information about ClearType, see ClearType. |
| Support for the GradientFill function | Not applicable. |
The following table shows the limitations of a GPE display driver.
| Limitation | Description |
|---|---|
| Hardware must support a flat-frame buffer | The display hardware must have a single block of contiguous memory. |
| Block image transfer (blit) overhead | There is overhead associated with each blit. With fast hardware that performs many blits, the cumulative effect of this overhead may be significant. |
See Also
How to Decide Whether to Use GPE in a Display Driver | Display Drivers | Display Driver Development Concepts | GPE Base Classes
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