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The original graphics driver design for Windows CE was created to provide a fairly uniform GDI implementation across a wide variety of simple hardware with a minimal memory footprint. The new targets for Windows CE include more sophisticated hardware and applications that support a wide variety of high-performance features.
The display driver model is augmented to include DirectDraw. This extends the current implementation to support new hardware and provides applications with the graphical power and flexibility they require.
Similarity to DDI for Windows CE
Minimal divergence from the original design of DDI for Windows CE is very important. Additionally, it is important that GPE be extended to make supporting DirectDraw much easier.
Similarity to the Desktop
Similarity between this and the desktop designs is desirable to allow device driver developers to utilize their knowledge of desktop Windows systems.
Divergence from the Desktop
While a degree of similarity between this and the desktop designs is desirable, there are two situations that are different:
- 32-Bit Versus 16-bit. Windows CE is an exclusively 32-bit operating system, and thus cannot support the 16-bit functionality of DirectDraw. This functionality can be removed without any notable drawbacks.
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Driver Initialization. The DDI for Windows CE specification
has combined the display driver, port, and miniport into a single
device-specific display driver with a new set of initialization
routines. This is different from the desktop Windows DDHAL
architecture, so a different mechanism of DDHAL initialization is
required.
Last updated on Tuesday, July 13, 2004