Re: XFree86 and ATI accel.
On Tue, Jun 22, 1999 at 09:08:38PM -0700, bigj wrote:
> Maybe someone can explain the differences b/w the different X servers (i.e
> Xpmac vs XF68_FBDev) and what is needed to get stable accelerated X
> support?
> urls will be welcomed as well.
>
Hello, ...
XF86_FBDev is an X server that will work on every framebuffer device
unnaccelerated, and have acceleration for chips that are supported,
currently åti mach64, imstt, permedia2 and ncr77c32 chips.
The problem is that the OF framebuffer device don't set the accel
flag, so the X server don't know what acceleration to use. You have to
use the atyfb framebuffer deveice to solve this for mach64 chips.
The problem with the new G3, seems to be that the atyfb don't set the
accel flag correctly, once that is done (trivial, but you have to know
the model of the chip) It should eb accelerated automatically by the
Accelerated X server (debian package, or future 3.3.4 X server).
The Xpmac is a server that speaks to the hardware directly. it don't
use the framebuffer device, and thus don't has the benefits of it (see
http://www.cs.kuleuven.ac.be/~geert/Console/ for more info). It is
also only useful for macintosh hardware, and will not take benefit of
changes made on other architectures.
XF86_FBDev is the solution officially supported by debian/ppc.
Also notice the future XFree4.0 will obsolete all this, since it will
have only one Xserver, with loadable modules to support specific
chipsets.
Friendly,
Sven LUTHER
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