Date: Fri, 04 Feb 2000 22:34:04 +1000 From: Stephen McKay <syssgm@detir.qld.gov.au> To: Chris Dillon <cdillon@wolves.k12.mo.us> Cc: Stephen McKay <syssgm@detir.qld.gov.au>, freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org, Haikal Saadh <wyldephyre2@yahoo.com> Subject: Re: Choice of display cards under freebsd. Message-ID: <200002041234.WAA43156@nymph.detir.qld.gov.au> In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.4.20.0002030931070.38707-100000@mail.wolves.k12.mo.us> from Chris Dillon at "Thu, 03 Feb 2000 09:47:24 -0600" References: <Pine.BSF.4.20.0002030931070.38707-100000@mail.wolves.k12.mo.us>
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On Thursday, 3rd February 2000, Chris Dillon wrote: >My point was more that the 3DFX cards can't even do what their peers >can, which is 32-bit color-depth and Z-buffering. We're pretty close to agreement on most things. Even this. But my point is that these other features aren't always useful. To my mind, the only real failing of current 3dfx cards is the limited maximum texture size. AGP is a crock, hardware transform and lighting is ahead of its proper time (ie it's all hype without sufficient fill rate), and 32 bit colour ain't useful. Maybe 32 bit Z-buffering is useful, but I don't see the clipping problems you see *except* when a 32 bit card does pretty much the same thing (thinking Unreal and Half Life here). >If you take the Matrox G400 MAX as an example, it performs nearly as >well in 32-bit modes as it does in 16-bit, so 32-bit doesn't have to >mean a significant performance hit when your hardware is designed >correctly (plenty of memory bandwidth). When 32 bit is a zero cost option, I'll be converted. Check back in a year. >> I recommend a cheap Voodoo2... >Right, but I've also had limited luck getting my VooDoo2 to work under >FreeBSD. It does work, but I just can't get the gamma correct >(everything is too dark), and the mouse is totally erratic (a >linuxulator config problem on my part, I know). I guess I also >haven't cared enough to actually get it working correctly. :-) Well, OK, I admit I got a Weendoze box for gaming because so few games work with anything else. But soon, I'll have another go at gaming with FreeBSD. Last time I dabbled, it was with one of the early Quake3 tests and it worked fine on the Voodoo2 and the Linuxulator. Maybe my monitor is naturally brighter. Despite the limitations, a cheap Voodoo2 will be easier to get working for Linuxulator games than any other card, and will do OK until proper OpenGL support arrives for better cards. Stephen. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hardware" in the body of the message
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