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Chapter 3: Miscellaneous Topics

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(home) Thread-Safing

For HP-UX release 10.30 and later, Hewlett-Packard's 3D graphics APIs are supported in multi-threaded applications (using POSIX threads). However, these libraries are thread-restricted and can be accessed only from a single dedicated thread of a multi-threaded program. This documentation is not a tutorial on threads programming or multiprocessing application issues. For more, and general, information about the use of POSIX threads, consult the HP-UX documentation set. Further restrictions on use of these APIs in multi-threaded programs are:


(home) HP CDE and HP VUE

Hewlett-Packard is in the process of a transition to a standard user environment. Two user environments were shipped with HP-UX 10.20: HP VUE and HP CDE (Common Desktop Environment). Starting with HP-UX 10.20, HP CDE was be the default user environment, and although HP VUE was still be available with HP-UX 10.20, but is not be available in HP-UX 10.20 releases. See the Common Desktop Environment User's Guide for more information on HP CDE.

From a 3D graphics point of view, the change in user environments should have no effect.


(home) Shared Memory Usage

Graphics processes use shared memory to access data pertaining to the display device and the X11 resources created by the server (for example, color maps, cursors, etc.). The X11 server initiates an independent process called the Graphics Resource Manager (GRM) to manage these resources among graphics processes. One problem encountered with GRM shared memory is that it may not be large enough to run some applications.

HP PEX, Starbase, and HP-PHIGS use GRM shared memory for VM double-buffering. If your application is running on a low-end graphics system (for example, an HP 710 or 712), you set the environment variable HP_VM_DOUBLE_BUFFER (or SB_710_VM_DB), and you have several large double-buffered windows open simultaneously, then your application could use up available GRM shared memory. If you encounter a dbuffer_switch error message while using VM double-buffering, you may have encountered this problem.

You can prevent this problem by changing with Shared Memory size through HP-UX's SAM (System Administration Manager) program.


(home) Reference Documentation

You may find the following documentation helpful when using HP graphics products:


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