[H-GEN] Aid and Assistance Sought

[Rob Kearey]

[ Humbug *General* list - semi-serious discussions about Humbug and ]
[ Unix-related topics.  Please observe the list's charter.          ]

Frank Brand wrote:

[this is getting off-topic for general]

> > The SiS video chipsets are notororiously awful - slow and buggy. Been
> > there, done that. I know that RedHat has given up on them - they're not
> > compiled in by default anymore - you have to get the SRPM and modify the
> > spec file yourself.

> > Just get a good Matrox card and be done with it, unless your have a
> > perverse interest in crappy hardware.

> I have found the SIS 6236 (especially the ACER version of it PA50 I think it
> is) to be neither slow nor buggy when implimented properly.

Odd - I've found the opposite applies. Crivens, even the Windows drivers
are buggy and awful, at least for gaming (caveat: I'm not a hardcore
gamer; I have nought to do with the NGA mammals).

I've been following a few video development mailing lists, and the
consensus seems to be that the onboard SiS AGP stuff makes a pretty
ordinary 2D frame-buffer, with too many work-around needed to make a
neat driver. In another couple of years I daresay they'll improve.

Onboard peripherals are the scourge of those who must do long-term
maintenance, rather than setting 'em up and rolling 'em out.

> A good Matrox card might be OK but for most non-gamers is overkill and also
> most Matrox cards are in the $200 to $400 range. Personally I use TNT or TNT2
> cards with 16 or 32 Mb RAM in the price range $100 to $150. I believe that
> Riva/NVidia have demonstrated a much closer affinity to Linux than other
> chipset manufacturers. I think we need a better answer for those people who
> spend a few hundred dollars on a computer to do general purpose computing than
> recommending they go out and spend maybe $300 on a new video card.

You get what you pay for - especially in video (However, G200's are now
very competitively priced).

I'm not so sure that good drivers will come around for these SiS
beasties, Frank.

> Frank Brand

Rob K

--
* This is list (humbug) general handled by majordomo at lists.humbug.org.au .
* Postings to this list are only accepted from subscribed addresses of
* lists 'general' or 'general-post'.