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From: Jeremy Chatfield <xig@dircon.co.uk>
Subject: COMMERCIAL: Accelerated-X new support, laptops, graphics chips, Multihead
Date: Sun, 24 Jan 1999 01:42:30 GMT
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Xi Graphics has recently provided updates adding support for new
laptops, new multihead boards and graphics boards or correcting problems
in previous support. Updates may be applied to any Accelerated-X 4.1.2
Server on supported operating systems (BSD/OS, FreeBSD, INTERACTIVE,
Linux, Open Server, Solaris/x86).
Accelerated-X (AX) for Intel processors
URL ftp://ftp.xig.com/pub/updates/accelx/desktop/4.1.2/intel
D4102.028 Number 9 Revolution IV FPD + SGI 1600SW FPD
D4102.027 ATI update
D4102.026 Matrox Millennium G200 PCI/SDRAM
Accelerated-X (PX) for Alpha processors (Red Hat 5.2)
URL ftp://ftp.xig.com/pub/updates/accelx/desktop/4.1.2/alpha-processor
P4102.001 Matrox Millennium G200 PCI/SDRAM
Accelerated-X Laptop (LX) for Intel processors
URL ftp://ftp.xig.com/pub/updates/accelx/laptop/4.1.2
L4102.021 Toshiba Satellite Pro 490XCDT (S3 ViRGE MX)
L4102.020 Cyrix MediaGX Laptop Mobo
L4102.019 IBM ThinkPad 770X (Trident Cyber 9397 DVD)
Accelerated-X Multi-head (MX) for Intel processors
URL ftp://ftp.xig.com/pub/updates/accelx/multihead/4.1.2
M4102.008 Colorgraphics Predator 2/4 AGP (S3 Savage3D)
M4102.007 Matrox Quad Productiva G100 board
Each update has a gzipped tarchive and a text file describing the update
and the update procedure. The INDEX file in each product directory
lists all updates and pre-requisite updates. A summary of each update
is given below.
Benchmarks are available from the Xi Graphics web site at
http://www.xig.com . Comparitive benchmarks with XFree86 3.3.3.1 may be
available if the chipset is supported. Generally, using the Xmark'93
benchmark shows that 24bpp speeds are at least 40% and up to 400%
greater than those of XFree86 3.3.3.1 and in 8bpp are at least 30% and
up to 150% greater than XFree86. Most humans find a 10% speed change is
barely visible in sequential testing and that a 20% speed difference is
clearly visible. No hardware acceleration is possible for pixmap
display, so tests and environments relying on pixmap pushing are
unlikely to show speed differences. Accelerated-X does not use specific
hardware accelerations on specific chipsets for reliability reasons, so
comparison of individual results may show some tests in which
Accelerated-X is slower; we do sacrifice even greater speed for the sake
of improved reliability and correctness.
Accelerated-X Servers pass X Protocol Conformance Tests in all color
depths on all tested boards, as measured by the freely available X Test
Suite when corrected for an arc drawing test error in the free test
suite. None of the tested XFree86 Servers passed in all color depths on
any tested board. All Accelerated-X Servers executed the X Test Suite
and x11perf benchmarks without requiring a reboot or causing a system
failure. Some XFree86 Servers caused problems requiring reboot during
conformance or benchmark testing in one or more color depths; the web
site is annotated with more detail.
Accelerated-X offers true overlay support (concurrent 24bpp image plane
and 8bpp overlay plane) on suitable hardware, hardware gamma color
correction on all capable chips and features such as Velvet Mouse, hot
key internal/external display switching are also offered, as well as
more visuals, more pixmap formats, etc. 24bpp packed pixel support is
offered on all capable hardware and is implemented to avoid the problems
associated with XFree86 24bpp packed operations.
======
D4102.028 - SGI1600SW + Number 9 Revolution IV FPD
This adds support for a variant of the Number 9 Revolution IV display
adapter with Flat Panel Display digital interface connector for the SGI
1600SW 1600x1024 flat panel display. This update explicitly supports
the AGP version of the board; the PCI version is still under QA test.
Benchmarks, measured on a Pentium II/266MHz, AGP, 1600x1024:
8bpp 16bpp 24bpp
Xaccel 24.7 21.3 15.3
Benchmarks on a Pentium II/350Mhz, AGP, 1600x1024:
Xaccel 30.1 25.7 17.5
XF86_I128 3.3.3.1 18.5 15.3 11.8
======
D4102.027 - ATI update
This is a general update for ATI graphics chips experiencing text
restore problems on Server termination or VT switching.
======
D4102.026 - Matrox Millennium G200 PCI/SDRAM
A PCI version of the Matrox G200 is now available, using SDRAM rather
than the faster SGRAM. We have benchmarked the PCI board with two bus
speeds and also compared with the AGP/SGRAM version. The benchmarks for
the AGP board were gathered using an earlier update (update D4102.019)
so the comparison is with the XFree86 Server available at that time. If
there is sufficient interest we can repeat these tests with the current
revs of both Servers on AGP. The numbers should be adequate to provide
a feel for what is happening between PCI/SDRAM and AGP/SGRAM and between
233MHz with an AGP 66Mhz bus and 350MHz with the 100MHz bus speed.
Making this a little more complex is the MTRR setting; the 233MHz system
enabled MTRR for the PCI card tests and disabled it for the AGP tests...
Which is why the 233/PCI test result is faster than the 233/AGP test
result in 8bpp and 16bpp.
Benchmark, Pentium II/350:
8bpp 16bpp 24bpp
Xaccel, PCI/SDRAM 38.5 29.4 25.7
Xaccel, AGP/SGRAM 42.1 31.4 29.4
XFCom_Matrox 3.3.2, AGP/SGRAM 30.0 23.9 20.4
Benchmark, Pentium II/233:
Xaccel, PCI/SDRAM 33.5 26.1 21.9
XF86_SVGA 3.3.3.1, PCI/SDRAM 22.9 18.5 14.9
Xaccel, AGP/SGRAM 31.9 24.0 22.5
XFCom_Matrox 3.3.2, AGP/SGRAM 22.0 18.0 15.6
======
P4102.001 - Alpha processor, Matrox Millennium G200 PCI/SDRAM
This is the first update for Accelerated-X on the Alpha processor,
adding support for the Matrox G200 PCI.
Benchmark, Alpha/366MHz:
Xaccel 28.1 21.8 19.9
Xmetro 4.2 3.5 3.7
We were unable to find a precompiled XFree86 Server for the Millennium
G200 for Alpha.
======
L4102.021 - Toshiba Satellite Pro 490XCDT (S3 ViRGE MX)
Explicit support added for this laptop model.
Benchmark, Pentium II/266, PCI:
1024x768 1024x768 800x600
8bpp 16bpp 24bpp
Xaccel 19.2 14.4 12.4
XF86_SVGA 3.3.3.1 7.2 4.7 2.4
======
L4102.020 - Cyrix MediaGX Laptop motherboard
This is newly available support for the Cyrix MediaGX for the Laptop
Accelerated-X Server. Note that the chipset does not support 24bpp
operation, so no benchmark is available.
Benchmark, Cyrix 233 MMX-S, 2.5MB RAM:
1024x768 800x600
8bpp 16bpp
Xaccel 6.8 4.8
We could not identify an XFree86 Server for this chipset.
======
L4102.019 - IBM ThinkPad 770X (Trident Cyber 9397 DVD)
This laptop uses a variant of the Trident Cyber 9397, the 9397 DVD.
This update adds support for this chip version and explicit support for
the IBM ThinkPad 770X. Because we were time constrained to return the
loaned system to a customer we were unable to collect benchmark
results. We could not identify an XFree86 Server for this machine,
because the 9397 DVD fails when driven as a 9397.
======
M4102.008 - Colorgraphics Predator 2/4 AGP (S3 Savage3D)
A new multihead board (2 or 4 heads per board, up to 8 heads supported
by Accelerated-X Multihead) from Colorgraphics using the S3 Savage3D
chipset. The benchmark is obtained from a single screen only. Xi
Graphics is not aware of any benchmark for concurrent multihead testing.
Benchmark, Pentium II/266, AGP:
8bpp 16bpp 24bpp
Xaccel 24.3 19.0 14.7
======
M4102.007 - Matrox Productiva G100, quad
This is a single board multihead solution from Matrox with four G100
chips. Accelerated-X supports one or two boards for up to eight
heads. The benchmark speed on a single head is similar to that of the
previously announced single head G100 support.
Benchmark, Pentium II/266, PCI:
8bpp 16bpp 24bpp
Xaccel 29.2 23.7 18.4
Benchmark, single head G100, Pentium II/350, PCI:
Xaccel 34.2 25.5 21.6
======
Cheers, JeremyC.
--
Jeremy Chatfield, Xi Graphics mailto:jdc@xig.com tel:+44(0)1234.710030
Commercial X Products: Servers, CDE, contracts and custom development
http://www.xig.com ftp://ftp.xig.com/ mailto:majordomo@xig.com
tel:+1.303.298.7478 fax:+1.303.298.1406 mailto:info@xig.com
--
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