Question

This isn’t exactly specifically a programming question (or is it?) but I was wondering:

How are graphics and sound processed from code and output by the PC?

My guess for graphics:

1. There is some reserved memory space somewhere that holds exactly enough room for a frame of graphics output for your monitor.
   IE: 800 x 600, 24 bit color mode == 800x600x3 = ~1.4MB memory space

2. Between each refresh, the program writes video data to this space. This action is completed before the monitor refresh.
   Assume a simple 2D game: the graphics data is stored in machine code as many bytes representing color values. Depending on what the program(s) being run instruct the PC, the processor reads the appropriate data and writes it to the memory space.

3. When it is time for the monitor to refresh, it reads from each memory space byte-for-byte and activates hardware depending on those values for each color element of each pixel.

All of this of course happens crazy-fast, and repeats x times a second, x being the monitor’s refresh rate. I’ve simplified my own likely-incorrect explanation by avoiding talk of double buffering, etc

Here are my questions:

a) How close is the above guess (the three steps)?

b) How could one incorporate graphics in pure C++ code? I assume the practical thing that everyone does is use a graphics library (SDL, OpenGL, etc), but, for example, how do these libraries accomplish what they do? Would manual inclusion of graphics in pure C++ code (say, a 2D spite) involve creating a two-dimensional array of bit values (or three dimensional to include multiple RGB values per pixel)? Is this how it would be done waaay back in the day?

c) Also, continuing from above, do libraries such as SDL etc that use bitmaps actual just build the bitmap/etc files into machine code of the executable and use them as though they were build in the same matter mentioned in question b above?

d) In my hypothetical step 3 above, is there any registers involved? Like, could you write some byte value to some register to output a single color of one byte on the screen? Or is it purely dedicated memory space (=RAM) + hardware interaction?

e) Finally, how is all of this done for sound? (I have no idea 🙂 )

Answer 1

a.

1. A long time ago, that was the case, but it hasn’t been for quite a while. Most hardware will still support that type of configuration, but mostly as a fall-back — it’s not how they’re really designed to work. Now most have a block of memory on the graphics card that’s also mapped to be addressable by the CPU over the PCI/AGP/PCI-E bus. The size of that block is more or less independent of what’s displayed on the screen though.

2. Again, at one time that’s how it mostly worked, but it’s mostly not the case anymore.

3. Mostly right.

b. OpenGL normally comes in a few parts — a core library that’s part of the OS, and a driver that’s supplied by the graphics chipset (or possibly card) vendor. The exact distribution of labor between the CPU and GPU varies somewhat though (between vendors, over time within products from a single vendor, etc.) SDL is built around the general idea of a simple frame-buffer like you’ve described.

c. You usually build bitmaps, textures, etc., into separate files in formats specifically for the purpose.

d. There are quite a few registers involved, though the main graphics chipset vendors (ATI/AMD and nVidia) tend to keep their register-level documentation more or less secret (though this could have changed — there’s constant pressure from open source developers for documentation, not just closed-source drivers). Most hardware has capabilities like dedicated line drawing, where you can put (for example) line parameters into specified registers, and it’ll draw the line you’ve specified. Exact details vary widely though…

e. Sorry, but this is getting long already, and sound covers a pretty large area…