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PO.NET/Mono HW Accelerated Graphics with Software Fallback
 

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    <h2>Background</h2> <p>As far as I know, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Presentation_Foundation" rel="nofollow noreferrer">WPF</a> does hardware-accelerated drawing if possible, with a fallback to software rendering if the user does not have DirectX 9+. That is a very interesting idea, and I even like the idea of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XAML" rel="nofollow noreferrer">XAML</a>.</p> <p>The reason I don't like it, and why I didn't even bother learning it, is that while <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Forms" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Windows Forms</a> is a Microsoft technology, and inferior to WPF, it is cross-platform through <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mono_%28software%29" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Mono</a>, something that's not true for WPF, and probably will never be.<br> There's <a href="http://www.gnu.org/s/dotgnu/danger.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">debate</a> around whether a .NET WinForms wrapper for Linux/OS X will hit a patent brick wall in the future, but that's outside of the scope of this question.</p> <h2>Question</h2> <p>Is there any <strong>library</strong> for <strong>.NET</strong> <em>and</em> <strong>Mono</strong> that will let me use basic <strong>hardware acceleration</strong> (think alpha compositing, fast pixel manipulation, etc) with a <strong>software fallback</strong> for systems without the required GPUs/drivers?</p> <p>In short: <em>fast</em> graphics on non-ancient desktops and modern laptops, but <em>usable</em> graphics on low-end <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netbook" rel="nofollow noreferrer">netbooks</a> and similar devices. <strong>This is not for game development</strong>.</p> <h2>Further Notes</h2> <p>There are several tricks to make GDI+ faster. Set/GetPixel are much improved by <a href="http://www.bobpowell.net/lockingbits.htm" rel="nofollow noreferrer">raw pointer access</a>.<br> The pixel format used can improve rendering greatly, <a href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.drawing.imaging.pixelformat.aspx" rel="nofollow noreferrer">32bppPArgb</a> (32-bit with 8-bit Alpha and RGB values <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_compositing#Description" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Pre-multiplied by the alpha</a>).<br> There are <a href="http://www.gamedev.net/topic/467752-maximizing-gdi-speed/page__p__4082948#entry4082948" rel="nofollow noreferrer">other</a> <a href="http://stereopsis.com/doubleblend.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">tricks</a> that can get faster speeds, but managed GDI+ is still slow for some purposes.</p> <h2>Frameworks I'm Aware Of</h2> <ul> <li><a href="http://unity3d.com" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Unity3D</a> - <del>AFAIK does not support Mono.</del> Does. Shareware with free version.</li> <li><a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/taoframework/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">TAO Framework</a> - Looks a bit complicated, and does not seem to support sofware rendering.</li> <li><a href="http://www.opentk.com/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">OpenTK</a> - Active, well-developed, and better than TAO, but no software fallback either.</li> <li><a href="http://cs-sdl.sourceforge.net/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">SDL.NET</a> - Same problem as above.</li> <li><a href="http://code.google.com/p/monoxna/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">MonoXNA</a> - Same as above.</li> <li><a href="http://irrlicht.sourceforge.net/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Irrlicht</a> - "It is completely cross-platform, using D3D, OpenGL and its own software renderer".</li> <li><a href="http://www.silverlight.net/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Silverlight</a>/<a href="http://www.mono-project.com/Moonlight" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Moonlight</a> - Suggested by <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/a/8513483/124119">dthorpe</a>. Alpha quality, no support whatsoever.</li> <li><a href="http://www.mono-project.com/Mono.Cairo" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Mono.Cairo</a> - Suggested by <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/a/8513693/124119">Mark H</a>.</li> <li><a href="http://www.antigrain.com/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">AGG</a> - High quality, very efficient software rendering, implemented in C++ with an unofficial <a href="http://agg-sharp.sourceforge.net/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">C# port</a>.</li> <li><a href="http://axiom3d.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Axiom3D</a> - Ogre port. Supports Mono, open-source and seems alive. Promising.</li> </ul> <hr> <p>My current choice is <del>to try Irrlicht, but only because I see no alternative. Is there?<br> Besides, even though it seems to support software rendering, I don't know how's the state of it in it's <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/irrlichtlime/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">.NET/Mono wrapper</a>, and the support link of it is a <a href="http://irrlicht.sourceforge.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=38512" rel="nofollow noreferrer">forum post</a>.</del><br> <strong><em>none at the moment.</em></strong> </p> <p>Besides there is a further problem: I have no idea how to "abstract" around a graphics library. If further on I realize I've made the wrong choice, I won't know what to do.</p> <p>Please excuse the length of this question.</p> <hr> <p><strong>Edit:</strong> Since this question had two really constructive answers, I'll wait some days and tick the most upvoted one as the accepted answer.</p> <p>In another news, it seems OpenGL is <a href="http://www.mesa3d.org/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">implemented in software</a>, both by OS vendors as by third parties, and these implementations will be used by OpenGL frameworks in the lack of third party drivers.</p>
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