From: Angus Dorbie (dorbie++at++sgi.com)
Date: 03/15/2000 14:30:19
Thomas Ruge wrote:
>
> Harry i am sorry but i can't agree with your recommendation:
>
> we tried a lot of cards with different X-servers and at the end we came back to
> nvidia's TNT2
> which seems to us the most stable graphic chip for performer.
>
> We tried out:
>
> TNT2 with old nvidia driver: works fine and fast, no breakdowns
> ( except of changing the resolution during running Performer applications
> crashs the system)
>
> TNT2 with current nvidia driver: Applications with no textures are running for
> a while,
> Applications with textures crashes the Xserver and blocks the console, only
> remote reboot possible
>
> GeForce and GeForce Quadro with old nvidia driver, doesn't crash but you can
> see only an empty window
> (concerning Performer or OpenGL applications)
>
> GeForce and GeForce Quadro with current nvidia driver, same as TNT2 with
> current nvidia driver
> If somebody has other experiences or success using the GeForce please let
> me know
>
> Permedia2 with Technology demo X-server (EV2): runs fine but slow, only
> software texturing
>
> Elsa GloriaXL with Xig's Professional Edition Server: restart of the Xserver
>
> Voodoo 3 2000 with Xfree 3.9.18: runs almost fine, but sometimes pauses for 1-2
> seconds
> has trouble with alpha blending textures ( looks like )
>
> We didn't try Metro`s X-server, may be somebody out there has experiences with
> it.
>
> To me it seems that a lot of people are experimenting with different cards and
> different X-servers and
> sometimes this is really a nerve exploding job ( I see some of you agree ... )
> and the result is
> frustrating. It should be mentioned that this is not the fault of SGI, it is
> the problem of the extremely
> heterogeneous mixture of different PC components you can choose to build up a
> system and
> unfortunately the chip manufacturer were a bit on the slow end of providing
> informations for
> GL hardware support.
> I think it makes sense to collect those informations concerning graphic cards
> and X-server
> ( Hello Allan, Hello Angus ;-) ), so that not everybody has to pass sleepless
> nights because he
I'm not sure this task is best served by SGI. Like you said the problem
is heterogeneous mix of PC hardware.
It makes no economic sense for anyone to support this kind of thing
except the respective card IHV's, and certainly makes no economic sense
for someone to investigate all this stuff and maintain a matrix of
compatibility unless they are selling you something, this isn't a static
target, it's a highly dynamic situation so to maintain this repository
of information would take significant resources. Maybe Red Hat et.al.
have sufficient interest that it would make sense.
Individual IHV's have an interest in producing useable drivers, so as
Linux grows the economic forces will mount on them to provide that,
there is already evidence of this.
What SGI can do, as Alan has pointed out is try to provide a PC solution
which we know works with OpenGL and Performer, and a quality Performer
library which will allow you to use other hardware configurations if you
get your own ducks in a row. In fact I think SGI is going beyond this
with it's OpenGL open source contribution.
That's my take on the situation.
Cheers,Angus.
-- For Performer+OpenGL tutorials http://www.dorbie.com/"In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity." --Albert Einstein
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