Hi Jeff!

Thus quoth Jeff Dunlop to IVAN TODOROSKI:
 IT>>   OS/2 itself is to blame for giving that driver higher priority
 IT>> than it   deserves. It boosts PM drawing beyond Foreground Server,
 IT>> delta 31   priority, higher than the program actually requesting it

 JD> I though Denis said that the video driver runs at a different ring
 JD> or priority. I would expect device drivers to get special
 JD> treatment, which doesn't necessarily mean that PM is being given a
 JD> boost.

Hey guys, back to the basics:

First of all, *threads* have a property called priority assigned by the
kernel and get appropriate boosts - not *code*.

Second, display drivers and printer drivers aren't drivers in the OS/2
sense. Both are presentation drivers, mere DLLs called by the GRE subsystem
(graphics engine) of the PM (presentation manager), and thus run in the
execution context of the calling process. Special provisions of GRE give
presentation drivers the opportunity to run in ring 2 thereby giving access
to the graphics hardware ports in IO space; this decision is up to the
presentation driver on call level. If the video hardware isn't mapped into
the IO address space but the memory address space, there must be an
accompanying real OS/2 driver executing in ring 0.

bye, Dani

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