On 15 Jul 2001 20:17:07 -0500, Alan Jones wrote:
> I'm upgrading my BP6 system and I need some video card recommendations. I
> have a PB6 with dual Celeron300A/450 CPUs. I multi boot with DOS/Win3.1 ,
> Win98SE, and Linux (MD 7.0, but I plan a reinstall of MD 8.0). I don't
> care about game performance, but I do need some 3D acceleration and, I'd
> like to be able to run FlightGear (Which probably equates to game
> performance.).
Yeah, pretty much. FlightGear absolutely wants good OpenGL acceleration.
A SGI machine would be best for that I guess :o)
Linux GL drivers are more or less "in the works" both in good and bad,
there seems to be a lot happening, but there are also rough edges. At
least on my BP6 when I tried the XFree 4 direct rendering and 3D
acceleration, the thing used to lock up a lot (my BP6 was fairly stable
otherwise) - I remember reading that the DRI/3D stuff was not yet stable
on multiprocessor systems. But this is a while ago, so things might have
changed now - I should just try again.
> I'm more interested in good 2D performance, including video
> playback. I also want a TV tuner, and possibly video capture, TV out, LCD
> display, and dual monitor support.
You probably want separate cards? I know the dual monitor stuff on the
Matrox G400 works, but the other output is not that great, it is mainly
designed for running on a TV. I guess two matrox cards (if you can find
a PCI one somewhere) would be a better choice if you want real dual
screen Xinerama (possible to move windows between the two (or more)
screens).
Please note that you cannot use 3D accerelation and Xinerama at once.
You can however run the old-fashioned dualhead X with two separate
$DISPLAY's (machine:0.0 and machine:0.1).
> I was considering a G400 and a separate TV card, however I now have slot 1
> filled, and I don't know where I'd put a separate TV card. There is a
> newer G450 card that has an output for an LCD panel. I don't have an LCD
> panel yet, but I will be buying a new monitor of some type. Lately, I've
LCD panels are cool, but you can get a SONY FW-900 for the price of a
good flatpanel.. (24" Wide Trinitron 16:10 1920x1200@98Hz) :) And it is
flat too, though a CRT and thus heavy.
> been looking at the ATI Radeon All in Wonder. It is expensive, but it
> seems at have all the useful features. Are the Linux drivers for this card
> well developed, or expected to be? I'd appreciate some discussion or
There are drivers, and I heard DRI works with it, but I dont know
whether 1) everything in the card has drivers and 2) how stable the 3D
drivers are?
I have heard people say the NVidia binary-only 3D drivers are rather
good, but personally I'd like to have a driver that has source freely
available. Matrox has traditionally worked well in X. I think you should
join the flightgear mailing list, I would assume they know better what
works and what doesnt. Running GLXGears for benchmarks doesnt probably
give the whole picture :) And I havent got flightgear installed yet on
this powerbook either, (Ati r128 card) so I cannot say much about 3d
performance, though the driver seems to work fine. It is "fast" but I
dont have anything to compare it against.
Maybe someone knows if the tv-tuner on the ATI card works? I would get a
separate bttv tv card for TV tuner since I know the bttv chip based
cards work well and the driver has been around for a long time. Check
/usr/src/linux/drivers/media/video/bttv-cards.c for brands that use the
chip.
For video capture stuff, I would get a firewire card, but it makes sense
only if you have a videocamera. I dont really know much about that
stuff, so I shut my mouth now and see if someone knows better :o)
> recommendations. In particular for the BP6, what are the power
> requirements, for the various alternatives? I only have a 300W PS. I do
> have the older good MB volatage converter.
My Big Fat powersupply (450W or something crazy) blew up actually, and
the bp6 seems to run just fine with the default Enlight one that came
with the case.
I hope this was useful! :)
Tuomas
--
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| Tuomas Kuosmanen | Ximian | Art Director |
| [EMAIL PROTECTED] | www.ximian.com |
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