The graphics machine

CNA snapshot 3b43bd86 · Deep Dives › The graphics machine · source links pinned to 3b43bd86

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Evidence basis: source-verified at the pinned commit. Claims on this page were checked by reading the CNA source at commit 3b43bd86; unless a sentence says otherwise, nothing here was built or executed.

The renderer-independent graphics layer: GraphicsDevice, SpriteBatch, textures and render targets, state objects, stock effects, shaders, vertex streams and the capability model.

Pages in this group

GraphicsDevice: the shared device contract — Exact device-level behaviour of CNA's GraphicsDevice: construction and windows, bound state objects, viewport and scissor, Clear and Present, bindings, draw calls, readback and extensions.
Device reset, disposal, adapters and format queries — Order and failure boundaries of GraphicsDevice::Reset, the manager's hooks, device-loss status, resource registration and disposal, plus CNA's adapter, format and profile queries.
SpriteBatch: state, lifecycle and error semantics — Exact shared SpriteBatch contract in CNA: Begin defaults, when states reach the device and what End leaves behind, Immediate exclusivity, exceptions, Draw overloads, sub-pixel destinations and texture lifetime.
SpriteBatch sorting, flushing and renderer batching — How CNA's SpriteBatch flushes and sorts (XNA's unstable quicksort, reproduced), what each renderer kind does with the sprite stream, the viewport-local projection and the Direct3D 9 half-pixel offset.
SpriteFont and DrawString text layout — Exact text layout in CNA: SpriteFont tables and default character, per-glyph advance and the XNA first-glyph rule, MeasureString, UTF-8 decoding, whole-string flips, rotation and sub-pixel glyphs.
Surface formats: profile gates, renderer verdicts and format usage — How CNA decides whether a texture, cube, volume or render target may use a SurfaceFormat: per-resource profile tables, the renderer verdict, draw-time rules and usage masks.
Texture data transfer: SetData, GetData, mip levels and streams — Exact SetData and GetData semantics for Texture2D, TextureCube and Texture3D: transfer windows, the CPU shadow, mip levels, compressed blocks, readback and FromStream.
Render targets: usage, cube faces, resolve and readback — RenderTarget2D and RenderTargetCube semantics at the pinned snapshot: construction, binding rules, RenderTargetUsage, cube faces, resolve and mip generation, readback, disposal and lost content.
Vertex and index buffers: CPU shadows, SetDataOptions and layouts — How CNA vertex and index buffers store, upload and read data, what SetDataOptions does on each renderer family, and how vertex layouts reach a renderer by stride and by declaration.
Graphics resource lifetime: tracking, copies, moves and disposal — Which graphics resources a CNA GraphicsDevice tracks, how copies and moves of each resource type behave, what disposal unbinds, and which resources report lost content.
State objects: identity, binding and what reaches the renderer — BlendState, DepthStencilState, RasterizerState and SamplerState in CNA: shared identity, XNA's freeze-on-bind rule, what each renderer hook receives, profile checks and per-family support.
Effect object model: techniques, passes, parameters and the draw packet — What a CNA Effect contains in its stock, compiled and ShaderEffect forms: collections, pass application, Clone and Dispose, stock parameter tables versus XNA, EffectParameter storage and GpuDrawParams.
The XNA stock effects: exact semantics, worked uses and verification history — BasicEffect, AlphaTestEffect, DualTextureEffect, EnvironmentMapEffect and SkinnedEffect in CNA: defaults, formulas, ordering traps, per-vertex versus per-pixel lighting, worked uses and the defect patterns behind the current code.
Four shader routes: stock semantics, D3D9 stock sources, compiled effects and ShaderEffect — How CNA answers XNA's .fx: renderer-owned stock effects, DIRECTX9's recompiled Microsoft sources, compiled Effect Framework bytecode on qualified renderers, and the renderer-specific ShaderEffect contract.
Compiled XNA effects: admission, reflection, passes and renderer runtimes — What happens to Direct3D 9 Effect Framework bytecode in CNA: admission order and preflight bounds, the reflected object graph, parameter upload, pass-state publication, cloning, the XNB EffectReader and per-renderer translation.
Vertex declarations, bindings and stream composition — From C++ vertex values to the renderer boundary: stream layouts, VertexDeclaration rules and profile limits, index widths, dynamic updates, VertexBufferBinding, semantic composition, the minimum-offset fold and draw validation order.
Capability answers, interface defaults and draw evidence — What a GraphicsCapability answer asks and guarantees in CNA: the 17 contract questions, renderer versus device polarity, known report mismatches, the unsupported-3D policy, four interface-default failure shapes and portable draw claims.