3 ms·

But before the code gets to the GPU it has to be compiled and that's the job of the GPU drivers which are know to crash often. Video card drivers are the proble

by nkassis 15y ago

But before the code gets to the GPU it has to be compiled and that's the job of the GPU drivers which are know to crash often. Video card drivers are the problem. If you can manage to make them crash in a predictable way then you have a way to crash the machine and I guess reboot the box on windows. Who would have thought that a small program to do graphics manipulation could be used to reboot a box? I mean something is wrong here on many levels. My WebGL app has frozen a few machines in the past with random bugs that I haven't figured out yet. I tell my users to be careful but I know someone out there knows how to do it predictably. But you know what, it's about time Nvidia/ATI/Intel/others pull their own weight and fix the damn issues with their drivers. If it can be done with WebGL it can be done with native applications. Flash Molehill probably too.

Locke1689 15y ago
I'd be more worried that the drivers run in kernel mode and this could actually allow a new class of root-level arbitrary code execution vulnerabilities.
- nkassis 15y ago
  That's definitively an issue. Is there a way around graphic drivers in the kernel? Userspace graphics drivers could be interesting if they were possible.
  - CodeMage 15y ago
    Isn't that what microkernels are all about? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microkernel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microkernel
  - gvb 15y ago
    User space drivers are possible, the problem is efficiency nosedives. The premise of microkernels[1] is that the kernel itself is "trivially" small and everything else runs as a userspace task. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microkernel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microkernel
  - wmf 15y ago
    AFAIK both Windows (WDDM) and Linux (DRI) use userspace drivers. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Display_Driver_Model http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Display_Driver_Model
    - Locke1689 15y ago
      You're definitely correct about Windows (it was something I was excited about in Vista), but I'm not sure about Linux. Looking at the Nvidia GLX drivers for my Linux machine, it still seems like quite a hefty kernel module. I can't really examine it, though, because it's not open source.
      - simcop2387 15y ago
        Actually the part of it that runs in kernel mode does have it's source visible. It's part of the standard packaging provided by NVIDIA so that it can work on many different kernel versions. For the most part their driver is also userspace and the kernel driver exposes a communications pathway to the userspace. That's not to say I know how robust that pathway is, but they have separated things somewhat. The open source drivers also follow this kind of model where the kernel modules handle hardware access and memory management but not a whole lot more. Mesa (and Gallium 3D) all work in userspace to handle compiling things to the native formats of the cards.
DenisM 15y ago
>it's about time Nvidia/ATI/Intel/others pull their own weight and fix the damn issues with their drivers It's been about time for 15 years, and they still haven't. Video card drivers are #1 reason for windows crashes. Microsoft put a lot of pressure on these companies (and Microsoft knows pressure) and it still didn't help.

by nkassis 15y ago

Locke1689 15y ago

I'd be more worried that the drivers run in kernel mode and this could actually allow a new class of root-level arbitrary code execution vulnerabilities.

nkassis 15y ago
That's definitively an issue. Is there a way around graphic drivers in the kernel? Userspace graphics drivers could be interesting if they were possible.
- CodeMage 15y ago
  Isn't that what microkernels are all about? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microkernel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microkernel
- gvb 15y ago
  User space drivers are possible, the problem is efficiency nosedives. The premise of microkernels[1] is that the kernel itself is "trivially" small and everything else runs as a userspace task. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microkernel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microkernel
- wmf 15y ago
  AFAIK both Windows (WDDM) and Linux (DRI) use userspace drivers. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Display_Driver_Model http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Display_Driver_Model
  - Locke1689 15y ago
    You're definitely correct about Windows (it was something I was excited about in Vista), but I'm not sure about Linux. Looking at the Nvidia GLX drivers for my Linux machine, it still seems like quite a hefty kernel module. I can't really examine it, though, because it's not open source.
    - simcop2387 15y ago
      Actually the part of it that runs in kernel mode does have it's source visible. It's part of the standard packaging provided by NVIDIA so that it can work on many different kernel versions. For the most part their driver is also userspace and the kernel driver exposes a communications pathway to the userspace. That's not to say I know how robust that pathway is, but they have separated things somewhat. The open source drivers also follow this kind of model where the kernel modules handle hardware access and memory management but not a whole lot more. Mesa (and Gallium 3D) all work in userspace to handle compiling things to the native formats of the cards.

DenisM 15y ago

>it's about time Nvidia/ATI/Intel/others pull their own weight and fix the damn issues with their drivers It's been about time for 15 years, and they still haven't. Video card drivers are #1 reason for windows crashes. Microsoft put a lot of pressure on these companies (and Microsoft knows pressure) and it still didn't help.