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Date:      Tue, 29 Aug 2000 14:43:53 +0200 (CEST)
From:      Marc van Woerkom <marc.vanwoerkom@science-factory.com>
To:        jesse@mail.CS.Uni-Magdeburg.De
Cc:        marc.vanwoerkom@science-factory.com, freebsd-multimedia@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: Hardware accelerated OpenGL using XFree on FreeBSD
Message-ID:  <20000829124353.BBAC41E5B@nil.science-factory.com>
In-Reply-To: <0vr9795ktc.fsf@cs.uni-magdeburg.de> (message from Roland Jesse on 28 Aug 2000 19:58:55 %2B0200)
References:  <0vu2c9wk0t.fsf@cs.uni-magdeburg.de> <20000828160446.A4195199B@nil.science-factory.com> <0vr9795ktc.fsf@cs.uni-magdeburg.de>

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> > 3dfx carss, Matrox G200/G400 and nvidia cards are supported 
> > more or less well. Driver qualitity is also different for
> > XFree86 3.3.x series and 4.x series.
> 
> I assume 4.x does not perform worse than 3.x does.

The problem is the change in driver architecture.

Example:
Matrox card's have a very nice driver for 3.3.x that can't be 
just plugged into XF 4.x without modification.

So far I have not heard someone putting the hw driver into
the new architecture. (A question to the utah glx list
could clearify that)


> > And game playing is the driving force behind present consumer cards.
> 
> Very true and very sad. BTW: <http://www.freebsd.org/~3d/>; seems to
> address the same audience. *}

Uhm, I am the culprit for that page. :-)

The actual focus on games is due to time restrictions on my part.
Games are the most catchy demos for a general audience.

We have such a good Linux emulation and the differences under
the hood of XFree86 are not that distant. 
I really hated it that Linux was perceived as that great 
gaming/multimedia platform and FreeBSD not.
So it was a must to crank out some demos quickly that show that 
if it runs under Linux it will run under FreeBSD with few
modifications too.
BTW I was very happy to read the recent Loki/BSDI press release 
that supports my opinion.

The 3d page is far away from the 3d portal I hoped to realize there.

I sit on a huge pile of half finished ideas, links and 
snippets I never found time to put up there.
It is also a bit problematic that I have only access to nvidia cards. 
So I depend on feedback from Matrox, 3dfx etc users.
And that feedback is rare.

On the other hand it was better than nothing. 
Last year it was a rather esoteric topic among BSD users, now
many people seem to poke at that stuff.

I hope the situation will improve now as hobby and job align again.
I need to do a lot of 3d vizualization of DNA and protein
structures under the XFree86/nvidia combo in the near future,
so I am likely to be challenged by the same problems like you
do. (The VTK 2nd edition manual lies here on my desk too.. :)

If you have some 3d related information that you want to publish 
on that web page I will integrate it.

Serious stuff is as welcome, as fun one.

After all most BSD users know that BSD is a superb working horse
for serious tasks. 
What needs a bit of propaganda is that it is also a nice multimedia 
system. 


> Well, the question stands whether a GeForce would give recognizably
> more than the current TNT2. The machine is not used for games but just
> some VTK development.
> 
> > How does the Win32 version of your card's drivers and the Win32
> > version of VTK look in comparison?
> 
> Dunno as I don't have Win32 on the machine. 

That would have given some hints, if your driver was a bottleneck.
I can offer you to run a VTK test app on the K7-700/GeForce here.

Regards,
Marc



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