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New X servers (ATI Rage & SiS) 54

Posted by HeUnique from the from-SuSe dept.
SuSE has released new X servers for the Rage based cards, as well as for SiS. It looks like it was too late to be included on the XFree86 V3.3.5, but its good to see SuSE doing lots of efforts to write those drivers for those chipsets.
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New X servers (ATI Rage & SiS) More

New X servers (ATI Rage & SiS)

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  • Maybe you should write SuSE. Don't you get supoort with the CD?
  • Anyone find the source? rhat 5.2 (and possibly slack 4) doesn't like the binaries.

    Index from ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/SuSE-Linux/suse_update/X/:

    XBF X Binary Free Servers (Sources not available)
    XFCom XFree86 Compliant X Servers (Sources available)


    thanks,
    tactic
  • The 3D stuff still runs best on my Voodoo2, but the drivers for the nVidia are getting there and hopefully XF86 4.0 will be ready by the time.

    In contrast to the Matrox G200/G400 driver, where there is quite a lot of development activity from the free software community, the RIVA driver came from nvidia and (to my best knowledge) has not been polished by anyone else yet.

    In fact I am not sure if anyone from the free scene has understood the disclosed RIVA specs up to point yet, that it can be decided if those specs are complete enough to come up with driver improvements.

  • Re:I feel your pain. (Score:3)

    by HeUnique ( 187 ) <hetz-home AT cobol2java DOT com> on Tuesday September 14, 1999 @12:56AM (#1683735) Homepage
    Well, not to worry, GLX to the rescue :)

    Seriously, someone from the GLX Dev. team has came up with an idea - why not support ATI in 3D? everyone knows that ATI are not the best in 3D, but there are LOTS of users who have ATI graphics cards, and more users with systems with built in ATI chips who cannot afford to switch.

    To make long story short - ATI has agreed to give the technical documents to the GLX team, and now there are few guys who hack their way with the info. Ofcourse - if you can help - PLEASE do so..

    Offtopic (I cannot resist but to say it), looks like GLX drivers for Matrox WILL kick windows driver's ass hard! (once the AGP module will be ok and the XFree86 4.0 will be out)
  • I'd be happy to take Accell-X off your hands, as it has run faster, more stable, and supports TTF now out the box. Accelerated-X has the driver that pushes my card and monitor the best. Regards

  • Okay, this is a question I've been meaning to ask for a while. I'm quite unhappy with my 4meg Mach64 agp card. I'm tired of being stuck at 1024x768.

    What would you recommend as a good 2d graphics card under Linux with Xfree? I'm not too terribly interested in 3d support, but it would be okay. A little while back I helped a guy install rh6.0 on a box that had a Diamond Viper 550, I couldn't get the 3d stuff to work (q2 or q3), but the 2d was sweet, and I figure 3d will get worked out in the next few months.

    Suggestions for cards (agp)?
  • Where should the hardware driver/renderer come from?

    I have not checked, but am pretty sure that it is 2d accelerated only, like their former servers. However it might have all the proper hooks for a GLX module and associated hardware renderer, but I doubt that they provide one.

  • Yeah, that's a really good point - you are right. I was more confirming that the nVidia stuff _works_ pretty well than trying to deliver any judgement on the overall suitability vs anything else. I have no direct experience with the Matrox stuff but a friend has a G200 and swears by it.

  • Believe me, I tried. What I ordered was a 440LX board with just an open AGP slot. They were short on these and sent me a BX board with the onboard crap chip. I was pissed, called right away and got no satisfaction. They pointed me to their terms that said they could substitute for equal or greater _value_ as long as they notified me (they did send me an e-mail the same day it shipped).

    Bastards. I learned my lesson. Machines I've built since then I've ordered from more reputable suppliers and usually get individual components separate rather than a kit.

    As it turns out, I kind of ended up on the better side of this anyway, since they shipped a 100mzh board, the memory was upgraded pc100 as well and I ended up using the board in a different machine anyway. The board actually had AT and ATX connectors and fit nicely into my old 386 tower. I got a new powersupply and ended up getting a 450Mhz OEM PII at a swap meet and a nice 14gig HD and ended up turning this into a server anyway.
  • A little while back I helped a guy install rh6.0 on a box that had a Diamond Viper 550, I couldn't get the 3d stuff to work (q2 or q3), but the 2d was sweet, and I figure 3d will get worked out in the next few months.

    My Diamond Viper 500 (TNT chipset) works fine with the glx.on.openprojects.net [openprojects.net] RIVA driver on my FreeBSD system. (The glx stuff is pretty much portable between Linux and FreeBSD)

    So I am surprised that you had no luck. Try again!

  • There is a utility that comes with XFree (can't remember the name offhand) that IMNSHO works better than XConfigurator. It'll start up the vga16 server with a configuration GUI and allow you to configure the hell out of X and test your config before saving.

    That's XF86Setup. Work well ... most of the time ! (crashed on me once or twice)
  • That is a big list, but his card isn't actually there. He has a Rage Pro, and that is a little different. It doesn't use the Rage128 Chipset, and, as far as I know, the Rage Pro was already supported, but I don't know what he means by ATI Rage Pro Turbo. Maybe I just thought it was supported because it's listed as a Mach64.
  • Recently-obsoleted 3d cards are cheap. Go for a 3dfx or RIVA TNT card, or maybe a Matrox card. I think the Viper is a Riva TNT or TNT2 card. I am in the same boat for ram (4mb).

    BTW - My video card is a 4mb riva128 and I drive it at 1280x1024x16 - which I find very likeable. If I want 32bpp I drive it 1152x900 which is also nice. You have to generate the modelines but there is a web page here [inria.fr] that makes this a little easier. After generating the modelines, I used xvidtune to fine tune them so I could maximize the painted region on screen.
  • I have that card in my system.. 8 mb, agp 2x, it's a nice decent card for 2D, and a good first step for, say, a Voodoo2. Thanks to the XSuSE people for doing this, else my X would be really sucky. From reading docs, it seems that the VGA16 server won't work with it at all so without this I was screwed. Oh and for all you people wanting hardware vendors to cooperate (which includes myself), SiS mentions Linux [sis.com.tw] and I think even helped developed or gave specs to SuSE and XFree86. So buy more SiS stuff :)
  • Can you please sen a copy of your XF86Setup file ? I am too new to know whats going in there ;) Thanx
  • After having thrown up my hands in disgust at having to use VGA16 and finally going out and buying a RIVA TNT card, my Rage Fury is back where it belongs - in my box's AGP port. :)

    One or two bogons though - not in the Rage128 driver itself, but in the XF86Setup code that SuSE suggest that you download to set it up.

    The XF86Setup tool on SuSE's FTP site did NOT like me when I tried to tell it I had a Natural Keyboard with a British keyboard layout. "Segmentation fault (core dumped)" was its view on the matter. (Good old CTRL-ALT-BS.) So in the end I had to edit XF86Config by hand, which was a little irritating, but then again I guess it serves me right for being lazy ;)

    Secondly, the same XF86Setup tool has a _real_ problem with Intellimice(sic) - on saving configuration and re-entering using old config as the default, the mouse settings had reverted to PS/2.

    Thirdly, I'm rather confused as to why SuSE insist on their web page that you should effectively replace the SVGA server with the Rage128 one. Symlinking X always worked for me, though I guess this one's for XF86Setup/xf86config users as there's currently no 'Rage128' option in the menus of either of them (not even the SuSE downloadable version of XF86Setup, oddly, which makes me wonder exactly why they suggest you should download it).

    The fourth problem I had was trying to locate where my XF86Config file had gone, since I'd only recently migrated from *BSD to RH6.0 and expected to find it in /etc.... silly me :)

    But to cut a long story short, it works (though you may have to jump one or two hoops to get it working, YMMV, maybe I was just having a bad day) and it's great. Go SuSE. I might have to add their distro to the collection.

    I noticed one post earlier about dual-heading ATI cards in Win98 - I tried this with my PCI RIVA TNT card, and it wouldn't have it. (Blackscreen, just for variety.) I've heard since that ATI cards, and I quote, "don't play well with others". Does anyone have a take on this?

    --
    This isn't the post you're looking for. Move along.
  • Now I have a Diamond VooDoo Banshee. I've been trying to compile xfree 3.3.5 to get banshee support, but i keep getting errors about not having a doc dir. I though X could compile without the docs? My other question is how should I configure X once I get it installed? I usually use rh's setup utility to launhc XConfigurator, but I wonder if that program will be properly updated to support my new card?

  • actually, there are instructions [www.suse.de] on SuSE's site on configuring their XFCom servers. The link also includes links to tarballs and .rpm's of said servers..

    have fun :)

  • grabbed the Rage128 server last night, dropped it in (RedHat 5.2 system at one point in time), did a couple of lib hacks, and away it went.

    nice, fast, happy.

    Nice suprise from the crew at SuSE. I've been waiting for a server for my Rage Fury for months.

    Thanks :)

  • I have used a few linux systems with different video cards. Running both XFree and Accel-X I am assuming you are under a budget and given that I would reccomend you look into going for the Matrox G200 (G400 if you can afford it) or some of the old Mellinium II cards. The Viper550 and some of the old NumberNine cards (FX 531) seems to do a great job for 2d at 1024x786. I am running Mandrake with SiS 6326 so i cant wait to get the new server to get some improvement! i dont recommend this card unless you are on a real tight budget. well thats my $.02
    Check out some of the benchmarks at XIG AGP card Benchmarks [xig.com]
  • Ignored? What's the GLX-dev team working on, then, chopped liver? G200 is far from forgotten and the G400's a rocker- under Linux, we're going to be faster than Windows with the G400.

  • commercial==good (Score:4)

    by Suydam ( 881 ) on Monday September 13, 1999 @11:56PM (#1683755) Homepage
    This (and other X drivers) is a great example of why Linux needs both commercial companies (SuSE, RedHat...maybe Caldera) and altruistic folks.

    There have been several X drivers in the past few years that we would have never gotten (or at least had to wait a long time for) if it weren't for the money-makers.

    That said, it's nice to see SuSE continue to release their stuff back to the community. They should be applauded for their efforts.

  • These servers are based on source code from XFree86-servers, but enhance and extend these
    Uh oh...

    No, I'm being unfair. But it was an unfortunate choice of words.
  • I happen to be the not-so-proud owner of a Alton motherboard with an on-board Sis video chip. (bought a barebones kit last year and they swapped for an 'equivalent' board :( ). Now maybe I can get decent video (I've been limping along with VGA16 for months).

  • Don't get me wrong.. this is good and all...

    But I just bought Accelerated-X so that I could get support for my ATI Expert 128 card for $99. That was just 2 weeks ago. And now my card is supported.

    Oh well, hopefully XFree86 will run well on that card. I was planning on switching to XFree again once the card was supported, I just didn't think it would be that soon.

    It'll be nice being able to use the fullscreen function of MpegTV (It's designed to work with XFree only)

  • Re:great (Score:2)

    by Tet ( 2721 )
    bought a barebones kit last year and they swapped for an 'equivalent' board :(

    So why didn't you send it back and get a refund? If it came with a different video chip to the one you ordered, then they are not equivalent for your purposes, and you're entitled to a refund. The fact that your average Windows user wouldn't notice the difference is irrelevant.

  • Does this include the GLX support? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    If it does, then q3test should work wonderfully with it.
  • The annoucement actually lists the following cards as supported:
    • ATI Rage Fury
    • ATI Rage Magnum
    • ATI Xpert99
    • ATI Xpert128
    • ATI Xpert2000
    • ATI All-in-Wonder 128
    • SiS 86c201
    • SiS 86c202, SiS 86c205
    • SiS 5597
    • SiS 5598
    • SiS 6326 AGP
    • SiS 530/620
    • SiS 540/630
    • SiS 300


  • Does anyone have any suggestions as to how I could go about installing this on my Slackware 4 system? Honestly, I haven't gotten Xfree to work at all since I got my Rage128. I've been waiting for this day... Links are fine also. Thanks in advance.
  • Who knows, though- it might get there.
  • Accelerated X is nice (and speedy - compared to XFree 3.X)

    But:
    1. XFree86 4.0 (which hopefully comes soon) got some great results (as far as I know - the Matrox G200 & G400 is FASTER then Accelerated X 5.0)

    2. in Accelerated X - you don't get DGA support. So bye bye for full-screen VMWare, Full screen MPEG-TV etc..
  • I've got a Mach64 based Rage Pro Turbo also. Oh well, guess I'll live.

    I really wish I could have 3D support, though.


  • There is only support for Rage128 based cards. It's not nice to get ones hopes up by announcing "support for Rage cards" when there isn't one. I myself have Ati rage pro turbo -type of card, and I still have to use Accelerated X to get a decent support for it. (Yes, I know it works with Xfrees mach64 servers, but they are sloooow...)
    --
  • All of the ATI boards listed are based on the 128 bit chip. I was also quite disappointed as a result of the misleading link. I would be quite happy, however, if someone could show me that ATI Rage II+ is supported...
  • Right, I can second that. I was using a STB Velocity 128 wich is the nVidia Riva 128 - works great. The older Diamond viper is the TNT while the new Viper 770 is the TNT2, both work very well under X (I have my wife's machine running the TNT PCI on an AMD K6-2 300 and I'm using the TNT2 AGP on a PII-333 - both are great).

    The 3D stuff still runs best on my Voodoo2, but the drivers for the nVidia are getting there and hopefully XF86 4.0 will be ready by the time Quake 3 is out. :-)


  • I suppose it can't hurt Suse that one of the top
    dogs on the Xfree86 project happens to work for
    them. IMHO one of the best ways for companies to
    support Linux.


    Simon
  • I bought my Rage Fury card in January and have been running my system with 2 video cards ever since... Just to dual-boot to Win98 ;)

    I was tempted to go to Accelerated X, but I knew that someone, somewhere, would come up with a fix for the Rage 128 chipset. Just gotta give the folks a bit of time.

    The Rage128 server works beautifully.

    I might go buy a copy of SuSE just to support their efforts!!
  • Here's my suggestion:
    - Config your machine to use the Mach64 server. Don't test anything, just configure it.
    - Delete XF86_Mach64 and rename XFCom_Rage128 to XF86_Mach64.
    - You might have to edit XF86Setup. I did. (newbie? Yikes)
    - Give it a try.

    I could always send a copy of my XF86Setup file.
  • 3D accel support's not as easy as it looks.

    It took about a half dozen people (some of the best and brightest out there) something like 4-6 months of work to achieve what we've done so far with the G200/G400 driver for GLX- and we're not done yet... (Note: I've been a lurker on the list for the development team- I have done no coding for the GLX project...YET.). When it officially ships as a GLX driver, I honestly think it will make Linux look good.

    (As for the ATI 3D support... Well, be looking for it soon... How soon? Depends... :-)

  • Cool (Score:1)

    by British ( 51765 )
    I can't tell you how many problems I had with X and my onboard SiS 5597(?) video card. Even with the supplied drivers I tried 2 weeks ago, it absolutely would not work. Guess I should try it again.


    Of course, with my old ATI Rage 2 meg card, it had no problems in X whatsoever. Guess I shouldn't have bought that ATI Xpert 98. heh
  • I bought my Rage Fury card in January and have been running my system with 2 video cards ever since...

    Do you mean you've been running two at once, or one in Linux and one in Windoze? Windows98 generally runs dual displays pretty well, but they seem to fuck up when the primary card is an ATI Rage Fury. It works when I run my 2mg hunk-a-junk video as primary, but that wastes about 30mg of video ram. They don't know why it doesn't work. Their tech support can't help. Something about an inferior operating system...

    With the new Rage Fury drivers, I'm hoping to beat the snot out of the windows display, after figuring out the workings of X's Dual Display Support. Anyone have Multiple Display Support working in X, and want to share the wealth?

    Give me a Fury X server, and I can move the world.
  • With the new Rage Fury drivers, I'm hoping to beat the snot out of the windows display, after figuring out the workings of X's Dual Display Support. Anyone have Multiple Display Support working in X, and want to share the wealth?

    Xfree86 currently dosen't support multiple monitor setups. For that you'd need Accelerated-X (multi-headed), Metro-X, or you could try XFree86 3.9.X.

    4.0 Should support multiple monitors, and I'm assuming the ATI Rage drivers will be incorporated into the mainstream Xfree86 by the time 4.0 is released.
  • Never fails... I go and try to be "helpful" and I end up being "helpful" to one of the people that's working hard to make everyone else's day. :->

    Guess it's a consequence of trying to be an advocate with this stuff- there's so many of us coders and engineers working to make a difference, it's sometimes hard to keep up with everyone.

    Anyhow, I've little doubt that the SGI implementation of the GLX layer will be the one we're bolting the driver to- but that means we're likely to be going even faster than we are now (since some of the indirection we're laboring with goes away...).
  • Heh, X and dual-displays don't like me. I tried, I failed. So I put my Rage Fury in the AGP slot, and a Rage Pro in a PCI slot. Windows supported both cards, but when I'd boot Linux, I'd go in the BIOS and select the PCI card as primary display adapter. X would configure the PCI card as :0 and all would work well.

    The only pain was switching my monitor cable back and forth from the PCI card to the AGP card, but those days are over thanks to SuSE!
  • Sorry, couldn't resist replying that way. :-) Like you wrote:

    it's sometimes hard to keep up with everyone

    The present pace is amazing. I wonder how other people keep up. They must be more effective or be folks with a lot of free time. Last days I used for tests with XFree86 3.3.5 and thus have now a big pile of unread mails from the various lists that are significant for this topic.

    Anyhow, I've little doubt that the SGI implementation of the GLX layer

    That is what most people expect. I am glad we have an existing alternative with the free GLX. Even if it ends up thrown away, it gave us so much opportunity to learn.

  • It took about a half dozen people (some of the best and brightest out there) something like 4-6 months of work to achieve what we've done so far with the G200/G400 driver for GLX- and we're not done yet... (Note: I've been a lurker on the list for the development team- I have done no coding for the GLX project...YET.).

    I know. (Note: I submit patches occasionally and maintain the FreeBSD port [freebsd.org], cf the FAQ [openprojects.net]) :-)

    When it officially ships as a GLX driver, I honestly think it will make Linux look good.

    I am quite sure the Matrox and eventually the nvidia hardware device driver will stay, the rest (like the GLX implemention) might be replaced by sources from SGI. We might eventually have to wait until XFree86 4, before Precision Insight puts all cards on the table and evaluation starts. When I remember correctly, they announced support for a whole bunch of cards, but were not willing to reveal which ones.

    In fact SuSE does some 3d work too. Their scheme for MLX looks quite sophisticated (look here [www.suse.de]) but I don't know what is going on there right now. MLX was announced together with support for GLINT and Permedia chips.

    Alas the only ones I noticed being active lately were the openprojects GLX group and the PI folks. That is why I said I doubt that the new SuSE drivers feature 3d.

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