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 =====BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE===== 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 -- This article has been digitally signed by the moderator, using PGP. http://www.iki.fi/mjr/cola-public-key.asc has PGP key for validating signature. Send submissions for comp.os.linux.announce to: linux-announce@news.ornl.gov PLEASE remember a short description of the software and the LOCATION. 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