Linear Memory-Space Segments

A linear memory-space segment is the classical type of segment that display hardware uses. The linear memory-space segment conforms to the following model:

• Virtualizes video memory located on the graphics adapter.

• Is accessed directly by the GPU (that is, without redirection through page mapping).

• Is managed linearly in a one-dimensional address space.

The driver sets the Flags member of the DXGK_SEGMENTDESCRIPTOR structure to 0 to specify a linear memory-space segment. However, the driver can set the following bit-field flags to indicate additional segment support:

• CpuVisible to indicate that the segment is CPU-accessible.

• UseBanking to indicate that the segment is divided into banks.

The following figure shows a visual representation of a linear memory-space segment.