What are some of the resources that must be managed in a multipiped system?
Since there is only one physical graphics hardware termination point – usually the visual display – that is the largest single resource that must be managed by a multipipe system. It must be able to coordinate and control the physical access to the graphics hardware by each pipe, and, it must be able to do so in a way that shields each pipe from the knowledge that other pipes even exist in the system. That implies that the pipe manager must have a quickly accessible record of the state of the graphics hardware as it was when it relinquished control to the next pipe, and that it must be able to restore that state before returning control to a previously running pipe. Other resources include certain shared resources such as common texture maps and fonts. An application must not be allowed to alter these common resources if they are currently being shared, so any attempt to do so must be handled by the pipe manager..
