Talk:Framebuffer

What exactly is a frame buffer?
Isn't there more than one meaning for the word "frame buffer" or "framebuffer"?

Every graphics card has a framebuffer, which is how it used to scan through the video memory and refresh the analog screen, by scanning through it and again and again drawing the lines on the screen at the given refresh rate.

And then there is the framebuffer console (fbcon), which is a framebuffer for the (text) console of Linux itself. It is how Linux "draw" the screen – it is an additional layer between the console and the graphics driver. Yes?

And then we have framebuffer graphics drivers, which are some sort of very simply methods of drawing (unaccelerated) graphics onto the screen. Such drivers mostly use a standardized yet simple as-well interface like VESA or the EFI framebuffer GOP or UGA modes.

And then we have a "real" graphics driver, accelerated and all, with OpenGL/Vulkan support, and it may internally use a framebuffer as well, to organize the picture which it wants to be drawn on the screen. Once this framebuffer gets transferred (or "selected", e.g. by pointer to the memory region) to the VRAM, its then displayed, but double- and triple-buffering means that not all of the framebuffer is displayed at all times (simultaneously).

Aren't those cases four different kinds of framebuffers? Or at least framebuffers at entirely different levels?

Which of the above it this article for?

Luttztfz (talk) 12:50, 24 January 2022 (UTC)