[H-GEN] question

[Frank Brand]

[ Humbug *General* list - semi-serious discussions about Humbug and
Unix-related topics. ]

On Mon, 01 Nov 1999, Hilton Travis wrote:

Yes Hilton I was a bit over-optimistic in my AGP speeds ...by a factor of 2.

> I don't run X on my Linux box that often, but the S3 Trio 64 that's in there
> seems to work quite well, if a little slow - only 32MB system RAM and 2MB on
> the card!  When I had a Banshee in a system and had Linux on it, it was
> quite snappy - nice!!!

Yes, a major problem for Linux with X is that when a new video card eventuates,
the Windows drivers are all available on the first day. Linux drivers generally
have to be developed later...maybe a 6 to 12 month delay. 

I think it was you, Hilton, who had trouble getting the Banshee drivers
originally and a lot of people had trouble with Intel i740 chipsets. Diamond
cards gave a lot of trouble until Diamond started to co-operate with Linux.
This is one good argument for Linux to grow its market share and address user
friendliness. If it hits the periferal and software makers severely in the hip
pocket there will be much more effort to be cooperative.

This usually means that you will get a better level of support if you opt for
not the state of the art video. I am using the TNT AGP not TNT 2 and it is
really great...in fact I went out and bought a second 16 Mb TNT card for
insurance. Anybody want one I have one available. Also you really need to
upgrade the system to get the later X releases...eg IIRC the very latest
version supports TNT 2 but earlier versions don't. If you want to get better
card support maybe you might think of purchasing Accelerated X which usually
supports a lot more cards than X.




--
Frank Brand
E-mail: fbrand at uq.net.au
Home Page: http://www.uq.net.au/~zzfbrand

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