>> But, remember that the TGA series was specifically designed to
>> allow a userspace application to mmap(2) in the registers in the
>> right ways and securely access them while still having the kernel
>> broker access to things like DMA.  Many i386 cards are not designed
>> to allow this sort of thing to work... 

...

> mind you, if one has to live in the PC world where there's a new
> graphics card design on the market every few days or so

There are some folks working on an "open" video card design.
If the NetBSD video card wizards have any ideas on what
they'd like to see in the design...

http://lists.duskglow.com/mailman/listinfo/open-graphics