Talk:Graphics address remapping table

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On August 2017, it was proposed that this article be moved from Graphics address remapping table to Graphics aperture remapping table. The result of the discussion was not moved.

For reference:
Graphics Address Remapping Table gets 991 google hits [1]
Graphics Aperture Remapping Table gets 218 google hits [2] -- intgr 00:55, 9 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• what about WP:SOURCE?

Dear IPv6. While Wikipedia generally recommends bold editing, potentially controversial page moves should generally go through the WP:Requested moves process, which requires consensus. Also, we don't perform page moves using WP:Cut and paste.

Even if you were correct that the original acronym used the word "aperture", that does not mean the article needs to be called that. Article naming is mostly governed by WP:COMMONNAME, which states "it generally prefers to use the name that is most frequently used to refer to the subject in English-language reliable sources".

Also, your claim "Introduced by AMD for mapping of 32-bit AGP graphics cards accesses to the 64-bit memory space of the AMD64 processors" is demonstrably false: GART existed before AMD64 did. There are sources like [3] from before AMD64 was even conceived. Also considering that the Xen source uses a 3rd different acronym expansion "Graphical Aperture Remapping Table", it's not good source for making the case for your preferred naming.

Anyway, let's take a step back and give some time to look into the reliable sources and make a fair assessment. -- intgr [talk] 14:24, 22 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• • Dear IP alias, please consult WP:GNUM at leisure. If one reads the previous version of the article, one can find it talks about an IOMMU hardware, and not about a data structure in another hardware called chipset. For the data structure one can again consult the vendor instead of some university student page for his fall 2001 exam (.../class/fall2001/cmsc411/projects/...). The said vendor uses GA as an acronym for "Graphics Accelerator", and the sentence "graphic address" makes no sense. Even the disputed student project page have copied from somewhere (or have created) a picture clearly pointing to "AGP Aperture".

• Here is a much more reliable source confirming both that the "Address" version of the acronim exists, and that it describes a data structure. Please consider splitting the Intel "GART" (data) from the AMD "GART" (hardware).

  "Remapping is accomplished via a memory-based table called the Graphics Address Remapping Table (GART)..." (source: Accelerated Graphics Port Interface Specification Revision 2.0). See also Rev.3 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:8084:6A00:2580:A11:96FF:FE16:8580 (talk) 15:03, 22 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) Thankfully the AGP 2.0 and 3.0 specifications in their entirety are available on the web. AGP Interface Specification Revision 2.0, published by Intel (note, not AMD) and dated 1998 (note, before AMD64), provides this version: "Remapping is accomplished via a memory-based¹ table called the Graphics Address Remapping Table (GART)"

The AGP V3.0 Interface Specification page 38 says: "Graphics Address Re-map Table (or GART). The re-mapping region is called the AGP aperture."

But page 116 indeed sates: "AGP3.0 Master translation is accomplished through the AGP Graphics Aperture Re-mapping Table (GART)."

Page 142 has a third version: "Graphics AGP aperture Remapping Table (GART)"

So given that both specifications, and a large amount of secondary sources ([4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] and books [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] and vendors [18] [19] prefer "graphics address remapping table", I think it's fairly clear that this article title should be the primary one.

There don't seem to be that many reliable sources for the other vairant, but it appears prevalent enough to add it to the lead paragrpah as a secondary variant.

As for the claims that GART was created by AMD for the AMD64 architecture, I think those can be safely removed? -- intgr [talk] 15:42, 22 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Is "GART" a data structure, an IOMMU, a enzyme, a television series, or an acronym for any of the above? Because the creator of the article has been writing about an IOMMU from the beginning[20]. If the AGP specification is to be quoted (a link to the specification for Revision 1.0 is available under Accelerated_Graphics_Port#External_links) the whole article is a nonsense. I repeat the quote: "...memory-based table called the Graphics Address Remapping Table (GART)...". The table is a data structure residing in memory, is created by the operating system device driver, and is not a hardware. It is later used by the hardware by reading it.
  • One more document, this time calling GART a "mechanism": BIOS and Kernel Developer's Guide for AMD NPT Family 0Fh Processors

Sorry, I've been busy and haven't had time to address this.

You seem to have this weird idea that every term must exactly mean one thing, and every other term for that thing, or some other meaning of those words, is therefore incorrect. But in human language, a single word/phrase quite commonly refers to multiple related concepts. Durian the fruit and durian tree are both called "durian" — they're related but clearly different things.

It seems "GART", being acronym for "table", most directly refers to table the data structure. But ", in common usage it's also used to refer to the hardware component performing the address translation — the IOMMU — which is the consumer of the GART data structure. It's also fair to describe it as a "mechanism" for communicating and applying address mappings. And on Wikipedia we generally cover all such tightly related concepts in one article, without implying that one is correct and the others are not. -- intgr [talk] 10:16, 29 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I made a limited attempt to accommodate for all this, but clearly the article needs more work, which I don't know if I will get to. -- intgr [talk] 10:36, 29 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• When there are no other arguments left, ad hominem comes to the rescue. Can we avoid discussing the incorrect perceptions of my ideas, especially when they originate from someone who has no idea what my ideas could be? Back to the subject:
  • The discussion of GART as an acronym must be confined to Talk:GART, period. Here we are discussing whether the title must be changed from "Graphics address remapping table" to "Graphics aperture remapping table". The example with the durian fruit as a part of the durian tree is invalid. We are not discussing two meanings of the same word/phrase but two different phrases which are not yet proven to mean the same object. The acronym as an argument is invalid. Meat, meal and mouth can all be shortened to the acronym "M" but the common acronym does not make them the same. They are just the source, the product and the consumer of the product. Clearly linked indeed but not the same. In fact "Graphics aperture remapping table" could be a backronym for GART but the latter is hard to prove.
  • We are also discussing whether the "Graphics address remapping table" is an IOMMU, or not. All references to the AGP specifications are irrelevant is neither of its revisions do not specify any IOMMU's at all. They are only proving that the acronym GART has been used before. I hope that is recognised as a fact, and is not contested?
  • Depending whether the title is considered primary, or the content, one might transform the question to whether the IOMMU hardware described has been named by anyone "Graphics address remapping table" ever? I believe the answer to the latest is a solid "no", hence the proposal to rename the article to the proper name.
  • No sources have been provided so far which confirm "Graphics address remapping table" and "Graphics aperture remapping table" to be the same. Arguments like "as far as I've seen" are considered original research in Wikipedia. The unsourced "common usage" is equally invalid personal perception. The best would be to quote a source by referring to it: "The authority X states that Y is also used to refer to Z".

as mentioned in the title, does Classic Mac OS or Mac OS X support GART on the PowerPC based Macs with AGP-Interface?
Thanks for an Answer, Erik 2003:ED:F7FF:1A8D:30F7:B7B5:D443:F6A (talk) 19:09, 11 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]