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For the prefix, see exa.

In computing, in the X Window System, in the X.Org Server, EXA is a graphics acceleration architecture to make the XRender extension more usable, with only minor changes needed to adapt XFree86 video drivers written to use XAA (the XFree86 Acceleration Architecture). It was designed by Zack Rusin, announced at LinuxTag 2005^[1] and first released with X.Org Server version 6.9/7.0.

EXA is designed to replace XAA ^[2], which does not accelerate many 2D operations heavily used in current applications, and in particular was considered not to do enough in accelerating XRender. EXA is considered a stopgap measure to improve X.Org Server performance before the server is moved entirely to OpenGL.

EXA was adapted from KAA, the KDrive Acceleration Architecture, from the experimental Freedesktop.org Xserver. Per the initial mailing list announcement^[3], the goals are:

1. Properly accelerate XRender;
2. Be as simple as possible.

Many XAA drivers had EXA support added for X11R6.9/7.0 and support continues to be added to more drivers. Making this transition as easy as possible was an important design consideration.^[4]

According to the XorgGlossary,^[5] EXA is an "acceleration architecture with no well-defined acronym." Dot.kde.org called it "Eyecandy Acceleration Architecture".^[6] The driver modification guide^[4] calls it "EXcellent Architecture or Ex-kaa aXeleration Architecture or whatever."

1. ^ Acceleration Architecture (initial LinuxTag presentation by Zack Rusin)
2. ^ Summer coding (Zack Rusin blog entry, 3 June 2005)
3. ^ New acceleration architecture (announcement on Xorg mailing list, Zack Rusin, 25 June 2005)
4. ^ ^{a b} Adding EXA support to your X.Org video driver (Jesse Barnes)
5. ^ http://wiki.x.org/wiki/XorgGlossary
6. ^ New Acceleration Architecture for X.org (dot.kde.org, 28 June 2005)

• ExaStatus (X.Org)
• Freedesktop.org