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Date:      Wed, 01 Nov 2000 13:28:14 +0000
From:      Nick Barnes <Nick.Barnes@pobox.com>
To:        freebsd-multimedia@freebsd.org
Subject:   OpenGL with hardware acceleration
Message-ID:  <6250.973085294@raven.ravenbrook.com>

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I am buying a new desktop machine to run FreeBSD.  I want to do some
OpenGL development in my spare time.  I'd like hardware acceleration,
but I don't need the latest greatest graphics card.  What card should
I buy and what hoops do I need to jump through to use it?  Here are my
musings; please feel free to correct me.

It seems that Xi Graphics don't have a 3D X server for FreeBSD yet, so
I don't have a commercially supported option.

I should obviously use Mesa for OpenGL compatibility.

Looking on the ports collection, there doesn't seem to be Glide for
FreeBSD yet.  I don't really want to develop in Linux compatibility
mode, so I can't use linux-glide.

For hardware acceleration, I will need to use XFree86 4.0.1, with the
DRI.  Does FreeBSD 4.x ship with XFree86 4.0.1, or do I have to
replace 3.3.x myself?  Is the DRI working on FreeBSD yet?

As for cards, I guess I can budget $150 for a card.  I get the
impression that nVidia drivers are non-existent, whereas 3dfx, Matrox,
and ATI drivers are rather better (in that order?)  So maybe a 3dfx
Voodoo3 3000 16MB?  Or a Matrox Millenium G400 32MB?

I don't want to be at the bleeding edge; I don't want to have to
download a new driver once a week; I don't want to run Quake; I just
want reasonably fast OpenGL on FreeBSD.

Nick Barnes

--
FreeBSD 2.2.8-RELEASE: up 66 days, 18:03
last reboot Sat Aug 26 21:11 (lightning strike)


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