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Received: by minnie.vk1xwt.ampr.org with NNTP id AA269 ; Sun, 31 Jan 93 14:00:32 EST Xref: sserve comp.unix.bsd:10588 comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware:42650 Path: sserve!manuel.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!spool.mu.edu!agate!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!gatech!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!moe.ksu.ksu.edu!matt.ksu.ksu.edu!news From: nan@matt.ksu.ksu.edu (Nan Zou) Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware Subject: Re: ATI Mach32 and Xfree86 or XS3? Date: 28 Jan 1993 20:49:49 -0600 Organization: Kansas State University Lines: 43 Message-ID: <1ka60dINNhp3@matt.ksu.ksu.edu> References: <1993Jan26.162704.13442@usasoc.soc.mil> <1993Jan26.220906.26671@netcom.com> <1993Jan27.052056.23103@informix.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: matt.ksu.ksu.edu johng@informix.com (John Galloway) writes: >hasty@netcom.com (Amancio Hasty Jr) writes: >>The ATI Mach32 is based upon ATI's mach32 chipset. >>for speed I suggest acquiring a 928 based card which is faster than the >>ATI MACH32 by as much as 34% overall graphics performace, even on the ISA :-) >Any info on cards that are using the 928 that are available? I have a fax here from Diamond that gives some info on their Stealth Pro card which is based on the S3 86C928. It can take a maximum of 2 MB of VRAM, resolutions of 640x480x24, 800x600x24, 1024x768x16, and 1280x1024 x8, all with 72 HZ non-interlaced refresh. They quote 35 Million Winmarks on a 66 Mhz DX2, of course this is still quite far behind their 50 Million Winmark Viper card which is based on the Weitek P9000 chip, but since the Weitek chip just appear I wouldn't expect a X server being written for it any time soon, so for now, the 928 seems like the best choice. According to Amancio Hasty, the 928 should be able to do 120K Xstones, versus the ATI Ultra Pro's 100K, this pretty much agrees with the Winmark ratio, 35M versus 28.5M for the ATI, now if there does exist a positive correlation between Xstone ratios and Winmark ratios, we can probably expect 170K Xstones from a Weitek P9000 based-card. WOW! Of course, I will never recommend anyone to buy a Diamond product, because of their use of variable clock synthesizer and refusal to disclose programming info without much money. Some Linux folks have been complaining about unneeded hassles with Diamond video cards, so I'd say stay away from them. Now if you also want to run OS/2 then the ATI seems pretty attractive, since it's register-compatible with IBM's 8514/A, you can expect at least some support in OS/2, I don't think there's much support for the S3 chips in OS/2 PM (other than standard VGA). >>Going to a local bus card will not buy you significant performance >>improvement, at least with the S3 chipsets. If I understand correctly, with smart graphics coprocessors like the S3 and ATI chips, the higher bandwidth of local bus won't help you much unless you're doing offscreen to video memory copies, in which case the local bus will gain significant advantage over an ISA bus. -- Nan