[H-GEN] Aid and Assistance Sought

[Frank Brand]

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

On Mon, 03 Apr 2000, you wrote:
> [ Humbug *General* list - semi-serious discussions about Humbug and ]
> [ Unix-related topics.  Please observe the list's charter.          ]
> 
> If all you want to do is get X up and running and you are not after super
> speed performance, I'd suggest getting a standard PCI S3 card.  I have had
> many a machine with these cards and they work perfectly well.  The S3 is
> apparently a little on the slow side, but I can't say that I have ever
> compared it to anything else.  You should be able to pick one of these up
> brand new for under $60, probably a lot less if you can find them second
> hand.  

S3 PCI (32/Trio/64/64v etc) are now very hard to find new. Very few video card
makers are doing much to support PCI cards now. Everyone is moving to AGP. S3
are producing the AGP 3D card but it is not supported in earlier versions of X
and I think you will need at least 3.3.6 to be able to run it.

I agree that the S3 PCI cards were detected nicely and uncomplicated but they
are very difficult to find new. They should be easily found second hand tho...I
have a couple myself sitting around. I did see a guy at the Sunday computer
markets selling Diamond Stealth 2000's new (2 Mb) for $29 but he only had a few
left. A second hand one with 2 Mb RAM might be had for around $20.


If you can afford $115 I would recommend the Riva TNT2 with 16 Mb RAM but still
you will need X version 3.3.6 I think. Why not get a later distribution it will
be a lot less in cost than a new video card.




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

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