Performer/Linux and Nvidia-TNT boards

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From: Daniel F Johnston (dan.johnston++at++nrc.ca)
Date: 01/14/2000 05:01:25


Enough is enough!
I have sent several days and had only partial success so it is time to
ask the experts and get the problem solved.

First: I have installed the base XFree86, Mesa, Lesstif and
Performer and have everything working - all demos,
perfly town, etc. It works but is slow (truck.pfb spins
at 0.7 fps with textures).

I am trying to use an Nvidia TNT video board to speed up the
OpenGL/Performer on this (my first) Linux box. There seems to be
three options for this speed up. I have had partial success only
with option 2 so far.

1. From the Nvidia site you can follow the 'drivers' path to
get a bunch of files that replace XFree86. These files have
names like XFree86-3.3.3.1-49riva.i386.rpm. My Mandrake
package (RedHat 6.0) came with XFree86 version 3.3.5,
but I removed these files, installed the 6 Nvidiapackages and
did a re-boot. I didn't have any success - ie no speed up
of the graphics. I sometimes had an un-usable Xserver, an
other times a working system with no speed-up. Note: this
may be a problem with my learning curve. Perhaps I should
re-visit this option and check all links, etc. For example,
do I have to also remove mesa if I install all these nvidia
packages?

2. From the Nvidia site you follow the drivers-developers
path to get a few files like nvidia-X-GLX-335-i386-dyn.tar.gz
Un pack this one and you get a few library files. Run the
rivi-install and set a link from /usr/X11R6/lib/libGL.so.1... (the
new library) to /usr/lib/libGL.so.3... and you can speed up
Performer a lot! Demo file esprit.flt spins at 20fps with textures
instead of 0.6. BUT... town doesn't work because perfly complains
about a problem with a "--" in the command line options. And,
truck.pfb will cause the Xserver to hang solid - reboot (from
a remote login) is required.

3. The latest XFree86 beta is a 'Pre version 4' snapshot called
3.9.17. If you get all these files you are supposed to have a
bunch of /usr/X11R6/lib and /bin and /whatever that will support
a number of video boards including the TNT. I have not tried
this yet.

SO...
Which option listed above - or another one - should give the
best results? What did I do wrong? Do you have specific
instructions on what to do to get it right?

Your help is appreciated as always! Thanks!

--
      ___|__    |
      /  |  \   ||\      Daniel (Dan) Johnston
     /___|___\  || \     Dan.Johnston++at++nrc.ca
    _____|____  ||  \    National Research Council of Canada, London, ON
    |    |    | ||   \   Integrated Manufacturing Technologies Institute
\___|    |    | ||____\  Tel: (519) 430-7081   Fax: (519) 430-7090
 \_o_\___|____|_|______\_    Inst: http://www.nrc.ca/imti
  \                o /    These opinions are my own! Not those of NRC.
   \________________/    Virtual Reality:
                        http://www.nrc.ca/imti/vetc/home.html
 More Tall Ships - Fewer Computers!


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