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+<HTML>
+
+<TITLE>Cell Driver</TITLE>
+
+<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="mesa.css"></head>
+
+<BODY>
+
+<H1>Mesa/Gallium Cell Driver</H1>
+
+<p>
+The Mesa
+<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_%28microprocessor%29" target="_parent">Cell</a>
+driver is part of the 
+<a href="http://www.tungstengraphics.com/wiki/index.php/Gallium3D" target="_parent">Gallium3D</a>
+architecture.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a href="http://www.tungstengraphics.com/" target="_parent">Tungsten Graphics</a>
+is leading the project.
+Two phases are planned.
+First, to implement the framework for parallel rasterization using the Cell
+SPEs, including texture mapping.
+Second, to implement a full-featured OpenGL driver with support for GLSL, etc.
+The second phase is now underway.
+</p>
+
+
+<H2>Source Code</H2>
+
+<p>
+The latest Cell driver source code is on the <code>gallium-0.2</code> branch
+of the Mesa git repository.
+After you've cloned the repository, check out the branch with:
+</p>
+<pre>
+   git-checkout -b gallium-0.2 origin/gallium-0.2
+</pre>
+<p>
+To build the driver you'll need the IBM Cell SDK (version 2.1 or 3.0).
+To use the driver you'll need a Cell system, such as a PS3 running Linux,
+or the Cell Simulator (untested, though).
+</p>
+
+<p>
+If using Cell SDK 2.1, see the configs/linux-cell file for some
+special changes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To compile the code, run <code>make linux-cell</code>.
+To build in debug mode, run <code>make linux-cell-debug</code>.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To use the library, make sure <code>LD_LIBRARY_PATH</code> points the Mesa/lib/
+directory that contains <code>libGL.so</code>.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Verify that the Cell driver is being used by running <code>glxinfo</code>
+and looking for:
+<pre>
+  OpenGL renderer string: Gallium 0.2, Cell on Xlib
+</pre>
+
+
+<H2>Driver Implementation Summary</H2>
+
+<p>
+Rasterization is parallelized across the SPUs in a tiled-based manner.
+Batches of transformed triangles are sent to the SPUs (actually, pulled by from
+main memory by the SPUs).
+Each SPU loops over a set of 32x32-pixel screen tiles, rendering the triangles
+into each tile.
+Because of the limited SPU memory, framebuffer tiles are paged in/out of
+SPU local store as needed.
+Similarly, textures are tiled and brought into local store as needed.
+</p>
+
+
+<H2>Status</H2>
+
+<p>
+As of September 2008, the driver supports smooth/flat shaded triangle rendering
+with Z testing and simple texture mapping.
+Simple demos like gears run successfully.
+To test texture mapping, try progs/demos/texcyl (press right mouse button for
+rendering options).
+</p>
+<p>
+Runtime/dynamic code generation is being done for per-fragment
+operations (Z test, blend, etc) and for fragment programs (though only a
+few opcodes are implemented now).
+</p>
+<p>
+In general, however, the driver is rather slow because all vertex
+transformation is being done by an interpreter running on the PPU.
+Programs with many vertices or complex vertex shaders will run especially
+slow.
+This will be addressed in the future.
+</p>
+
+
+
+<H2>Debug Options</H2>
+
+<p>
+The CELL_DEBUG env var can be set to a comma-separated list of one or
+more of the following debug options:
+</p>
+<ul>
+<li><b>checker</b> - use a different background clear color for each SPU.
+   This lets you see which SPU is rendering which screen tiles.
+<li><b>sync</b> - wait/synchronize after each DMA transfer
+</ul>
+
+<p>
+If the GALLIUM_NOCELL env var is set, the softpipe driver will be used
+intead of the Cell driver.
+This is useful for comparison/validation.
+</p>
+
+
+
+<H2>Contributing</H2>
+
+<p>
+If you're interested in contributing to the effort, familiarize yourself
+with the code, join the <a href="lists.html">mesa3d-dev mailing list</a>,
+and describe what you'd like to do.
+</p>
+
+
+</BODY>
+</HTML>