Return to BSD News archive
Xref: sserve comp.unix.bsd:3407 comp.unix.sysv386:22359 comp.os.linux:7273 comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware:28745 Path: sserve!manuel!munnari.oz.au!uunet!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!usenet.coe.montana.edu!warp.mhd.montana.edu!osynw From: osynw@warp.mhd.montana.edu (Nate Williams) Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd,comp.unix.sysv386,comp.os.linux,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware Subject: Summary: Good SVGA card for X Summary: cheap and fast Keywords: X386 1.2E 1.02, Diamond, ET-4000 Message-ID: <1992Aug10.053804.26449@coe.montana.edu> Date: 10 Aug 92 05:38:04 GMT Sender: usenet@coe.montana.edu (USENET News System) Followup-To: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware Organization: Summarizing the world Lines: 161 First of all, I want to thank all of you who sent me mail. I learned some things, and found out I need to know more to make a truly informed decision, but here are my results: Thanks go to: sheldon@iastate.edu jtsilla@damon.ccs.northeastern.edu (James Tsillas) rich@rice.edu (Richard Murphey) BELL2@ono.lincoln.ac.nz (S.T. Bell) broberts@waggen.twuug.com (Bill Roberts) bryan@PROCASE.COM ftkang@dal.mobil.com (F. T. Kang [Frank]) rps@arbortext.com (Ralph Seguin) dwex@mtgzy.att.com (David E Wexelblat) and a big thanks to guru@stasi.bradley.edu (Jerry Whelan) ***************************************************************** I'm still not decided on what card to buy, though it will be between the Diamond Speedstar + (probably) or the Diamond Speedstar 24. Diamond Speedstar plus PROS: 1) Supported by X386 2) Fast, and reasonable cheap 3) Timing info in the mode Database is already there. :-) CONS: 1) Not as fast as some of the newer ET-4000 cards Diamond Speedstar 24 - PROS: 1) Faster than the plus 2) Higher clock rates, and 32K colors (not that I would ever need/use them) CONS: 1) No support in X386 except 640x480 mode. Card Summary: ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ------------------------------------------------------------------- My roommate has a Cardinal VGA765. It, along with the entire VGA7xx series uses the Tseng ET4000. It's a pretty good card, made by a reputable company. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Diamond Speedstar+ is still a great deal. The Sigma Prodesigner IIgs is also a fine card but may cost a bit more. ------------------------------------------------------------------- The Diamond SpeedStar 24 does not work with X386 because they implemented a new and improved programmable frequency generator which is a good thing. .... the 24 is suppossed to be the fastest ET4000 card to date. Some of the benchmarks put it at 25% faster than the Orchid IIs. ... the Speedstar 24 does work with X. To get the higher resolutions (1024x768, etc) you have to go into that mode in dos with some type of graphics software. That programs the clocks on the card for that mode. Then you reboot (soft, not hard) and start up ... The 640x480 mode (I believe) is set when you power on the computer, so if you're happy with that mode, then you don't need this little fix first. ------------------------------------------------------------------- I have an orchid pro designer IIs, but I can't reccomend it on the basis of cost/performance. ------------------------------------------------------------------- If you arene't adverse to spending a little more ($189) you might want to consider the ATI Graphics Vantage. Fast accelerated mode, and true VGA Wonder built in. *The 8514 drivers are currently alpha testing, but they seem to work pretty well. I haven't found any bugs yet. *The Linux people are developing 8514 drivers for X386. ------------------------------------------------------------------- I have a Boca card with Tseng ET4000 chipset: It is a brilliant card and I doubt that I will upgrade again. The transfer rate of the Boca card is among the fastest that I have ever seen for a non-accelarator board (6500 cps for my machine). Its resolution and flicker-free display are really great. Also, the card's build quality is something which I have very rarely seen. The Boca card cost slightly more than the usual ET4000 cards, but it is definately worth it. [But someone else wrote] Boca no longer sells an ET4000 card. They now use something that includes a chip from NCR. The NCR stuff is not X386-compatible... ------------------------------------------------------------------- I'd expect that almost any ET4000 card would be the same speed and would say go with the cheapest one you can find... ------------------------------------------------------------------- Consensys recommended the "Orchid ProDesigner II (with 1 Meg) and the Diamond SpeedStar. They said that each their software did well with both boards. A friend here in town is running X on the Orchid board and thinks it is great. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Additional info on video cards: ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ =================================================================== 1) What exactly is Hi-Color and DAC? The HiColor RAMDAC basically extends the functionality of the SVGA card, giving you the ability to do 32768, 65536 or 16M colors in some of the lower resolutions (640x480, and sometimes 800x600). Hi-Color is a type of card which can handle 24 bit colours (16 million colours). It does not cost a great deal more than the normal svga card, but virtually no programs use this feature yet. Add that to the overhead involved in moving 24 bits for every single pixel to graphics card, and the result might not be pretty (that is: very pretty, but slow). =================================================================== 2) Why can't X386 run the higher resolution modes that the DS 24 provides? When they went to 24-bit, 16 million colors, they also needed a whole bunch of new clock rates. However, instead of just adding on an additional 8 or 16 new ones, they changed over from the old method of just providing a bunch of crystals on the board to a funky device acronymed something like PLL which is essentially a programmable frequency generator. So you tell it what Hz you want and it provides you such a signal... And thus X386 does not know how to set the correct frequency. ....they are feeling really proprietary about it and won't tell us how to progam the new and improved programmable frequency generator. =================================================================== 3) Is it true that X386 does not support the S3 chipset? X386 does not currently support the S3 911 chipset. However, there is a group of people that run Linux that are working on an S3 911 port. As S3 is very friendly about giving out programming specs for the card, one can expect that the Linux group will have a server up and running fairly soon. The X386-beta group is in contact with the Linux X386-S3 group and plans to fold the S3 911 work into the standard X386 distribution as soon as possible. Just plain good advice for X386: ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ You can always go for the cheapest with the safe knowledge that the "next generation" is just a few months away. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Tseng ET4000 is probably the safest way to go. Nate -- osynw@terra.oscs.montana.edu | A hacker w/out a home. Anyone interested work: (406) 994-5991 | in a used Sys. Admin., with alot of home: (406) 586-0579 | good hacks left?