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Display Doctor for Linux - Preview version available 106

Posted by HeUnique from the something-good dept.
Scitechsoft has released a preview release of their Display Doctor for Linux. It now supports more cards, an SVGAlib wrapper so you can use any card with any resolution and use SVGAlib based applications (Quake, Snes9X etc..), and a universal text mode driver to switch to any text mode you want and your card can support. Evaluation version is now available - worth a shot if I may recommend.
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Display Doctor for Linux - Preview version available More

Display Doctor for Linux - Preview version available

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  • Couldn't detect SIS 5598 video (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I just spent 3 hours downloading the eval version (at 500 bps). The install routine failed because it couldn't detect my Asus Sp97-v motherboard with on board Sis 5598 video. (The Sis 5598 chipset is on the supported list.) I have RH 5.2 on the machine.

    Rick,

  • xvidtune? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    you might wanna try xvidtune. just watch out for blurriness if you go too far.

  • Tried it, found bug already. (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    card: millenium G200 8M SGRAM
    monitor, NEC Multisync P1250+

    (running glibc version, on SuSE6.0)

    i always have problem with XFree SVGA server(yes the new one) so i race out to try this product... anything that will get rid of the bright line on the right side of the screen, or anything that would tune the center correctly, anything without making my text in X look fuzzy on the right edge is good for me.

    so i installed it, ran it, it looks really nice that they have so many modes, and real professional looking tunning programs, but...

    GUESS WHAT?
    no matter what modes i selected, it flatly REFUSE to do 24 bits color depth!!! the most i get is 16 bit! for my $1300 hardware??

    so i switched back to XFree server. Problematic but at least working.
  • I downloaded the preview of SciTech to see how it would support my Matrox Millenium II PCI card. The most amazing thing was that I got 1152x864 resolution on a monitor that has a maximum resolution of 1024x768! I don't know if that was SDD, but it's really cool.
  • If this comes out for FreeBSD and the SVGAlib works flawlessly, I'm definitely going to buy it! However, I'm not going to use Linux just so I can run Display Doctor.
  • Okay, here's the thing: No, FreeBSD does not have SVGAlib natively for FreeBSD itself. However, we do have libvgl (which is definitely more primitive, but I wouldn't say coded less well). The Linux SVGAlib has been modified so it can run and interact (correct ioctl()s) with FreeBSD's syscons et al, and Quake 2 worked... but things with the mouse and keyboard were going strangely. I think I'll look at SVGAlib and add the correct ioctl() translation for it to run unmodified on FreeBSD. There's no reason FreeBSD can't have Display Doctor, as we do have native VGA/VESA support.
  • You're probably right. Noone uses console graphics. Now if GGI works right with its SVGAlib wrapper... ;)
  • Posted by matsutsu:

    Ive been searching the whole month for any X11 server that has support for S3 Trio3D. I hope this one would work. Is this a time-limited beta release, I hope not. I have tried Xi Graphics demo (at http://www.xig.com) and it worked fine with my card but its only 10-minute demo per session and expires on April 1,1999. Sigh. :(

    cheerio :)
    matsutsu
  • Posted by HenryV:

    Ya, this is REALLY pissing me off to. I sent this email to the bug report people at scitech:
    Tell me if you have similar setup.

    So far it has been impossible to install it on my system. I've seen several other people comment on the exact same problem I had on the slashdot.org fourm. Here's what i have:

    Slackware 3.6 using Libc5 libraries
    No RPM
    Matrox Mystique 220 4mb with latest bios upgrade
    P166 64mb ram


    1st problem:
    Detects glibc2 instead of libc5... fine, whatever
    I downloaded both libc5 and glibc2 versions and they give the same results, except with glibc2 it detects glibc2 and continues instead of quitting

    2nd problem:
    "./setup.sh: 0: command not found"
    After getting through the license agreements, etc it gives me this, i assume it's because of me not having RPM, so I install rpm

    3rd problem
    rpm installed, it quits with no specific error message. I try to install the rpm myself, however it gives: "cannot write //var/local/lib/rpm/packags.rpm"

    4th problem
    so i make that directory but now it doesnt detect my video card, gives me a blank
    i looked closer at the script and tired to run bin/gareport
    it gives me this error: Could not map physical memory areas
    this happens with both glibc2 and libc5

    Any solutions, i've been racking my brains out for a while with this

  • Posted by !PerfectDark!:

    Well, I expect you will start to see this more and more as companys start to try to fill the 'gaps' in linux and make a quick buck.
  • System components should be Open Sourced.

    I used display doctor several years ago to play duke nukem 3d, and it is a good product. I'm sure that scitech has nothing but good intentions, and they they're not trying to subvert linux in any way.

    but...

    I have to agree, system components should be open source. binary-only system components leave the door open for a single individual or company to exercise undue control over their users.

    I have nothing against commercial "closed source" software. I write it for a living, and I intend to do so for some time. I don't mind paying money for commercial software either. It's not about money, it's about freedom.

    TedC

  • What's your problem? I use a G100, 8 MB, AGP, in 1280x1024 @ 16bpp all day long at work, and it's really fast and I haven't had a single problem with it. Make sure you're running the very latest XFree86 X servers (I think I'm using 3.3.3.1), and it will even set the /proc/mtrr values for write-combining at the linear framebuffer base address (if your kernel supports MTRR features).
  • It's limited to 21 days. I'm not sure how, but after 21 you have to buy it or delete it. I'm not going to try it anyway -- the old beta screwed my system up badly.

  • observations on the observations (Score:3)

    by Sludge ( 1234 ) <slashdot&tossed,org> on Sunday March 21, 1999 @09:23AM (#1970622) Homepage
    The more potential software has to be good, the more we (slashdot) digs it when it's endangering our freedom.

    Commerical software, of all types, can only offer us short term success. Before Scitech came along, graphics card companies would have started to feel pressure to release their specs for xfree. Now they can just get Scitech to sign an NDA and say deal with it.

    Supporting Scitech will retard the release of new free video card information. Before we get the massive influx of people using Linux who don't know what a binary is in the next year, we should vote with boycotting this closed core software to further our open software agenda, while our votes mean more because there are fewer who would accept Scitech now than there will ever be.

    Companies that come in and want a slice of Linux had better not affect me when they change their standards to make their own distros, modify software, etc. I run a slackware (server), Debian (workstation) network in my house and I don't want to see entire agendas for the operating system development fork, however, if it must, it will be to get away from companies who want a slice of my stability, my wallet and my control so they can make capital on the unsuspecting.

    I'm worried. This is an operating system that no one wants to compromise the life of, not Duke Nukem.
    For those who don't know, Duke Nukem 3D came packaged on the CD with Scitech Display Doctor shareware. You could play with it for 30 days, then every time you booted up your computer, you had to wait and all the modeX modes were disabled.

    Sounds like a compromise for the greatest OS I've ever enjoyed.
  • I have a RivaTNT and after repeated attempts to get nvidia to even respond to email I am about to take it back and opt for a lesser product that 3dfx drivers exist for.

    It is great under X, but with no OpenGL libs, quake et al are stuck in software mode.

    Anyone else want to try talking them into giving linux 3D drivers for it?

  • Hmm... (Score:3)

    by Eric Sharkey ( 1717 ) <sharkey@lisaneric.org> on Sunday March 21, 1999 @03:15AM (#1970624)
    I don't like the smell of this thing. I've used the DOS version of this before, back when I still used DOS, but now, I feel differently.

    This kind of functionality is much to important to be non-free. I'm afraid that new applications might come out that require something like this. Why write drivers? SciTech will do it for you! Bah!

    Avoid this like the plague. Please do not let this become an established product. It could seriously damage the community.
  • For those people who already have Legacy cards from manufacturers that don't support users this could be very useful.

    However if you are buying a new machine or a new video card remember to ask about support in XFree86 and Linux. This isn't just important for actual users of Linux and FreeBSD but also for those who have any kind of thought to upgrading the OS in the future. Weather to the new version of what you already use or to some other OS.

    Remember that those cards which only worked in Windows 3.11 but not OS/2 did not get Win95 support and likewise all the NT-3.xx and Windows 95 only cards were left behind when NT-4 shipped.
  • anything that will get rid of the bright line on the right side of the screen, or anything that would tune the center correctly, anything without making my text in X look fuzzy on the right edge is good for me.

    Try using the horizontal positioning control on your monitor (every monitor I've ever seen has one) to move the picture to the left. That better? (You might need to shrink the picture a bit widthways to give yourself room to manoeuvre).

  • It's interesting that someone brought up the BeOS version. I've been running BeOS R4 and Windows 95 for a while, but last weekend, after a particularly irritating session with Windows I ripped it off my PC and put Red Hat 5.1 on instead. (This has led to a whole set of entertaining experiences I won't go into--just say that while I can appreciate how far Linux has come since the last time I ran it [I never upgraded past kernel 1.2.8 in that incarnation], I can see how far it has to go to challenge even BeOS, let alone MacOS or Windows, in ease of use for non-hackers.)

    I'm very interested in SDD for BeOS, but remain dubious of it for Linux. From a philosophical standpoint, adding a proprietary set of display drivers to a proprietary operating system isn't that big a deal (although I hope Be strikes a deal with Scitech to simply bundle SDD with the OS); the landscape changes when one of the operating system's main attractions is an open source tree. On a practical level, Be needs more driver support than Linux does, and licensing a hundred or so in one fell swoop from Scitech would go a long way toward silencing the folks who are critical of BeOS/x86 for having poor hardware support after being out a full eleven months. ;)
  • I use svgalib. I would prefer to use ggi, but
    it does not support my riva128, or my banshee,
    or my mx86251, or my at25, and it does not work
    on my Xpert98, or my cl-5446, though it claims
    to support them.

  • I'm using my Millennium with fbcon / 2.2.3 and at 1024x768 - 72Hz the text console has new life (and none of the fonts are hosed as they are with SVGATextMode). Quite nice, and it has the potential to replace svgalib for games and such. Isn't anyone out there using this?

    I just wish I could get it to work on my laptop.

  • I hear they are also working on a BeOS version of SDD. With ATI and 3dfx writing their own BeOS drivers, and Be Inc writing Nvidia drivers, BeOS will support alot of graphic cards soon. (I also heard one company is working on 3dlabs drivers. I think it's driversoft)
  • I downloaded this wonderful piece of closed software only to have it lock my SUSE 6.0 running 2.2.3 kernel. All kinds of installation problems and lockups. The install program did manage to change the symlinks to my X server, only to lockup during the rest of the install. Thus it broke my X (which I had to restore my previous symlinks). This box is rock solid, so to give Display Doctor a fair hand shake I tried it on a different SUSE box, only this one was running the 2.0.36 kernel. Same crap. After I got both boxes X running again, I deleted this non Scottish crap off my scsi drives. Perhaps others have had good luck with this software, but it really screwed things up on mine. Besides, from what I can tell there is no source code available for it, so what good is it?
  • I just don't get what this is good for. Most of the chips listed are already supported. Why would you want to move graphics functions off of the video card? Isn't that where they would be handled fastest?

    Mebbe I am missing something... but for US$39.95 it does not seem to offer anything I don't have already with XFree86.

    Hey I think this is a "first comment"!

    -Davoid-
    utidjian@remarque.org
  • Go to the Scitech Dir which it is installed in, and then run sddsetup. It has an uninstall option. PS: This program sucks major, totally screwed up with my cirrus logic card and made me reboot in order to get it functioning properly in X. Avoid it like the black plaque.

  • Bah! (Score:1)

    by NeoTron ( 6020 )
    My system -

    PC100 motherboard, AMDK6-2 3D @ 350Mhz, 128Mb ram, integrated SiS6326 video, integrated sound, 2.2.3 kernel, Debian 2.1 blah blah....

    Result after trying to install/config...

    "Hmm... why's it using rpm to install to my Debian system????"

    "Hmmm... why has my system just locked up with a blank screen?????"

    "Aaaargh! I have to use my RESET button!! What the f%$%^£!!!!"

    ----------------

    Doesn't work with my setup.

    Managed to un-hose my system.

    rm ssd*.sh
  • Looks on this page like it is just stuff that should be moderated. In other words it looks to this user like it is working as designed.

    Anyone who wants to see your first post articles can choose to see them by default. Anyone who doesn't, doesn't have to.

    Me, I don't trust the moderation... :-)

    Ben
  • I tried Display Doctor under Win95 and Win98 back when I ran them, and both times it tragically hosed things to the point where I had to reinstall the OS (big surprise, right?).

    I tried the Linux version. X still worked, but SVGAlib apps wouldn't run because of improper library links. Even after I uninstalled, the settings were still hosed. Thankfully, installing the latest SVGAlib (which I figured was long overdue anyway) fixed everything.
  • Hey, this sounds like a Great idea! I'm gonna have to take a look at the website and read up on this, but it gives the impression of being a Quickres-type program.
  • Heh.....Did a little reading, and I'm not too impressed. Guess I'll have to give it a try.
  • fbcon is really nice. My only complaint is that it can't display text with anywhere near the speed that a typical console can. When I type ls /usr/bin it takes forever to display the files. Is there anyway to speed this up? Also, are there any graphical applications that utilize fbcon yet?
  • Improved video performance.

    SVGAlib especially is lacking in support for accelerated chipsets.
  • It is scitechs own drivers, with a modified version of Xfree that runs on top, which should benefit from the acceleration of the Scitech drivers. There is also an SVGAlib layer now too.
  • No it's not stupid

    /usr/X11R6/bin/X should be a symbolic link to your actual X server, not the Xserver itself.

    All you do is ln -s (actual X server) /usr/X11R6/bin/X to fix it when you're done with Scitech.
  • What Debian should do then is make /usr/X11R6/bin/X a link to that small program rather than the small program itself, so that it's compatible with other Linux distros.
  • When is GGI going to come out of Beta?

    Also SVGAlib is a GGI target, so GGI programs could benefit from the acceleration in the Scitech thing.
  • You have to make sure that the GGI environment variables are set right, and you also need the shared SVGAlibs installed
  • Let me ask this question:

    If the XFree drivers are so great, then how come two companies, Metrolink and Xig can make money selling Xservers with better drivers?

  • Have you tried Xvidtune?

    Many systems, the default Xsetup shows up off-center, and sometimes fuzzy. You can usually use xvidtune to fix these problems.
  • they fixed the bug that would cause it to hang and reset the system bios to the defaults. I kid you not...

  • Hmm... (Score:1)

    by belbo ( 11799 )
    Definitely agreed. Very good point.

    belbo

  • What is DisplayDoctor for Linux? Is it a collection of XFree device drivers, or is it some generic SVGA VESA wrapper like the DOS version was?

    Does it have it's own interface, as implied on the webpage, or is it standard X?
    --
  • FreeBSD doesn't have SVGAlib. They have something that is equivalent to SVGAlib (libvgl?) but I don't know of any programs that support it... (which is a shame, I'd love to use zgv on freebsd)
  • 3rd problem
    rpm installed, it quits with no specific error message. I try to install the rpm myself, however it gives: "cannot write //var/local/lib/rpm/packags.rpm"

    I sometimes get this problem while trying to install an RPM as my normal user name, instead of the desired superuser (root)


    -LINUS TORVALDS, LINUX CREATOR (cnn): Because their operating systems
    (windows) really
    suck.
  • XFree86 says it should work. Though probably w/out support for more special features. My experience with that card though tells me it didn't have very many special features anyway. BeOS is where I really need extra video drivers. Why can't XFree drivers be modified for Be? I use both.

    S3 Trio3D ...................... XF86_VGA16

  • Riva 128 (Score:1)

    by Y ( 13582 )
    You and me both. I got a Riva 128 because I wanted to run 1024x768 at higher than 8 bit depth and the Riva was the only decent card within my price range. Then I found that there are no 3d drivers for linux, even though the 128 has an OpenGL ICD. I'd like to contact nvidia as well, but I think it would be more effective to find all the people who want Riva 3D drivers for linux (probably not too hard) and make a concerted effort at mailing nvidia.

    my 2 cents,
    Mike Y.
    bogart@rice.edu
  • I was hoping this would fix problems with the board-mounted ATI Rage IIc that comes with the eTower, but in the end it was actually worse than the Mach64 server that comes with XFree86-3.3.3.1.

    The setup probes your video and then tries to run XF86Setup with that server rather than the VGA16 server. Because of this I never made it through setup.

    Additionally the "uninstall" that is provided leaves XFree86 in a bit of the mess - X remains slinked to the SDD server after it's been deleted.

    I'll forward these bugs to SciTech, of course, but I'd love to hear from anybody who has made this card work with XFree86.
  • Well, considering it doesn't work on DOS/9x for me, will it now work on Linux. There are so many cards out there today, I kinda feel that Scitech are fighting a losing battle. I have a chipset that is allegedly supported, but it isn't. Hmm, we'll see ;-)

    --Remove SPAM from my address to mail me
  • While display doctor for windows is an impressive product, this could make providers of the cards that linux display doctor supports more resistant to opening up their hardware specifications- they could just point at display doctor, and say "there are your optimized drivers".

    Is any of the SciTech developed code given to XFree86, or is it all closed source?


  • He did not say that it overwrote XF86Config; he said it overwrote X, which is a symbolic link to the correct XF86_* server. Pay attention.

    Mike
    --

  • HOW? (Score:2)

    by blkwolf ( 18520 )
    The same way Accelerated X and Metro-X can. One problem with hardware like video cards is that the manufacturers don't allways release their full specs and api's for the cards at least without signing an NDA first. This leaves the XFree86 Project at a major disadvantage for alot of the newer video cards, 3D API's etc, who have to resort to reverse engineering etc just to create a drive that will run at all.

    On the other hand commercial based company's like Accel X, Metro, Sci-Tech who keep there code closed are able and I'd believe more than willing to sign NDA's with the hardware manufactures. With full access to the spec's etc for the hardware they are then able to create drivers and servers that take full advantage of the cards.

    Granted this sucks but until hardware manufactures start releasing their code, specs etc to the general public without NDA requirments, then at least in this case the open source alternatives will allways be at a major disadvantage. And until that does change I'll continue to use my accelerated-X server because I havn't personally found anything that supports my hardware better or faster.
  • Amen to that!!! Well okay, I only have a Riva128. I'm still stuck in Linux Graphics Limbo. Ugh.


    --
  • All the comments appeared normal in netscape4.5 on my windows95 box. On my linux box, however, I have to set it to -1 to see all the comments (I use netscape3 on linux ['cause I need speed rather than feature]).
  • When I look at slashdot.org without logging in, I have to set it to -1. When I look at it after logging in, I see all the posts.

    (Sorry for all the repeated posts)
  • Well this would be great if it solved my Matrox Productiva G100 Xserver headache, but I can't be sure as there is no list of certified hardware on the doctor's site.

    I already tried the drivers that were mentioned in slashdot before at Matrox User's site, but for some reason that did not work. I'm not sure if Matrox themselves have released something recently. Its all such a shame, as the productiva is quite cheap, even if unproductive without bespoke drivers!
  • Actually, the poster said he was running Debian, which means /usr/X11R6/bin/X is not a link to the appropriate X server, it is a small program that checks /etc/X11/Xserver (I think?) and runs the appropriate Xserver.

    So fixing the situation is not a case of relinking, its a case of reinstalling Xbase.
  • I have not tried this software yet - I hope that everybody who has a problem emails these people with their bug list to let them know that more than just a few people use linux. Maybe they might care enough to fix the bugs then.

  • Load of sumpin' (Score:3)

    by twdorris ( 29395 ) on Sunday March 21, 1999 @03:23PM (#1970668)
    Well, I *thought* this was going to be cool. Some Linux support from a historically DOS/Windows company. I was wrong.

    Let's see...I install their program, it hangs up the machine. I had to hit the RESET button! I've *never* had to do that under Linux. To be completely honest, I even had to look for that button on my case...I wasn't even sure I had it connected to the motherboard...

    Fine, I start the install again and this time it goes through. I run the config tool and the machine hangs again! Unbelievable! Another liberal use of the RESET button and I'm back in.

    By this time, I'm not particularly pleased with this product. The trend continues. I eventually get the stupid thing installed and I start up X. Yup, just like they promised, the behaviour was just like under Windows. I got a wavy screen and resolution support only up to 1024x768. If I wanted more, I was gonna have to edit the config file myself... Where's the benefit again? No thanks.

    Plus, when I attempt to switch into full screen mode for VMWare, the f*cking thing hangs again. I decide to pitch this software out the virtual window when I next RESET(!) and reboot. Not so simple...

    There is *no* uninstall program *or* instructions. What a piece of crap. So I manually back this thing out, update my own XF86Config file with what little they actually did do right (800x600 and 640x480 was nicer from their config file than mine), and I'm much happier as a result.

    I will give them one thing, though. Their page says their product behaves just like the DOS/Windows counterpart. Well, that it does... With all the resets and reboots, I was quickly reminded why I switched from Windows to begin with...

    ThomasD
  • I'd like to get the newer cards, but also not spend weeks trying to get both the 2d and 3d going. If someone would provide a plug and play package for that, I'd pay good money. Wait, I mean, I'd support their open source project... ;)

    d

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