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Waxed Display Server

Software Rendering Fallback

Rejected

CPU-based rendering for systems without Vulkan

Category: Architecture
Status: Rejected

Rejection Reason

Software rendering would compromise the core design goal of leveraging modern GPU capabilities. The maintenance burden would be significant, and performance would be unacceptable for a display server. Vulkan 1.2+ is a reasonable requirement in 2026.

Software Rendering Fallback

A software renderer would allow Waxed to run on older hardware or virtual machines without proper GPU support.

Why It Was Rejected

  1. Performance - Software rendering is too slow for display server workloads
  2. Complexity - Adds significant code to maintain
  3. Design Goal - Waxed is built for modern GPU features
  4. Hardware - Vulkan 1.2+ hardware is widely available in 2026

Alternatives

  • Use a different display server for legacy hardware
  • Use a virtual GPU in VMs (virtio-gpu supports Vulkan)