Date: Sun, 01 Aug 1999 12:07:29 -0400 From: "Louis A. Mamakos" <louie@TransSys.COM> To: Randall Hopper <aa8vb@ipass.net> Cc: multimedia@FreeBSD.ORG, hardware@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: 3D board for XFree86 GLX - Please recommend Message-ID: <199908011607.MAA14009@whizzo.transsys.com> In-Reply-To: Your message of "Sun, 01 Aug 1999 11:37:09 EDT." <19990801113709.A2171@ipass.net> References: <19990731150024.A3979@ipass.net> <199907312213.SAA11281@whizzo.transsys.com> <19990801113709.A2171@ipass.net>
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> Louis A. Mamakos: > |> I'm looking for recommendations for a good 3D board (PCI) that has 2D > |> & 3D hardware support in the new XFree86 pre-4.0 release. I'd prefer that > |> it support 3D-in-a-window and >= 1280x1024 resolution. Voodoo3? Riva128? > |> RivaTNT? > | > |Just today I put a Matrox G400 in my FreeBSD box, and am running the > |XFree86 3.3.4 server. Seems to work well for 2D stuff. > > Slick. What's the highest resolution and color depth it sports under > XFree86? Does it support 3D in all modes? (I've got a 21-inch monitor, so > ideally I'd like > 1280x1024.) I'm running it in 1280x1024x32 right now on a 19" monitor. Note that it also support 1280x1024x24 (packed), but as usual, netscrape doesn't deal well with that sort of display. It has 32MB of memory on board and I think you can go well over 1280x1024 at 32bpp without problem. As I understand it, you begin to make some tradeoffs on how much memory is left over on the board for textures. In my case, I'm primarily concerned with how well it works in 2D mode, with 3D accelleration coming next. That's why I went with the G400 as I was unwilling to run at 16bpp as the TNT software currently requires. > Also, how does your Hauppauge WinCast TV/dbx card work with bktr/fxtv on > the G400? (DGA TV card support for my next video card is a must! :-) Yup, this seems to work just fine. There appears to be a bug when trying to switch back from 640x480 "full screen" mode. This is still an improvement over my previous configuration with the #9 Motion 771 S3-968 based board, where switching into 640x480 mode would not work that great. > |I'm also playing around right now with some GLX-based 3D in a window stuff > |with this board. The Matrox seems to be pretty well supported by the > |folks doing the Mesa-in-the-X-server work (http://glx.on.openprojects.net/) > |I wend with the G400 rather than the RivaTNT since the current GLX support > |for the TNT only works in 15/16 bits per pixel, and I really wanted a 24/32 > |bit deep display. > | > |So far, so good. Only got the X server to hang once :-) Seriously, I now > |need to make sure that I'm using the recommended version of Mesa for the > |loadable module in the X server (rather than what was laying around in > |my ports directory). But it's not doomed to be completely busted since > |I got the OpenGL screensaves in xlock to go *really* fast compared to > |software rendering. > > Great! Thanks for the feedback. I'd be interested in whatever else you > try out regarding 3D-in-window support. Also, if you give an XFree86 4.0 > prerelease a shot (3.9.15), I'd sure appreciate a Cc of your results. I've been playing around with xlock just to see the pretty screensavers zip along, as well as with vtk (/usr/ports/math/vtk) which is a visualization toolkit. Pretty much all the testing I've been doing (and all of vtk) has been in a window, rather than full-screen mode. I haven't had a chance to try the 4.0 prerelease yet, but hope to eventually get around to it. I got my G400 from the local computer-store-hole-in-the-wall for $189. Note this was for the OEM version which has the 300MHz RAMDAC and lacks the second display output. It has 32MB of SGRAM on board. louie To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hardware" in the body of the message
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