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Re: Matrox G450 comments?



On Tuesday 04 September 2001 12:10 am, Volker Schlecht wrote:
> * Sean Morgan <macinslak@mac.com> [010904 00:00]:
> > mga.o is open source, mga_hal.o is not though, and you will need that to
> > use it with XFree86 (for DRI anyway, I'm pretty sure you can get 2d only
> > still).
>
> With Xfree 4.1.0 this is no longer the case. You still need the
> proprietary module for some special candy, but the free module runs
> just fine here on its own, including stuff like DRI and DualHead.
>
> regards,
> Volker

I'll back that up too - I've put a G450 32MB in the new Athlon 1.4 system 
I've just set up and with a recent sid I get 1600x1200x24(32)bpp with DRI and 
I haven't had to download anything from Matrox.  glxgears runs at 396-399 fps 
(when I haven't got setiathome running - between 358-363 fps with 1 client 
niced to 20).  Heh! just tried superquadrics + setiathome + glxgears = 
310-320 fps.  Adding lament brought it down to between 120 and 190 fps, 
mostly around 150 fps.

Works very well with the non open source 3d package I use (which is the main 
thing for me).

I specifically went for a G450 32MB because I was pleased with the G400 16MB 
I have in another system - due of the lack of ram it'll only do 1600x1200 DRI 
in 16bpp - falls back to s/w rendering at 24(32).  Lower resolutions are ok 
in 24(32)bpp.

I still get the

(II) Loading sub module "mga_hal"
(II) LoadModule: "mga_hal"
(WW) Warning, couldn't open module mga_hal
(II) UnloadModule: "mga_hal"
(EE) MGA: Failed to load module "mga_hal" (module does not exist, 0)
(II) MGA(0): Matrox HAL module not found - using builtin mode setup instead

error in XFree86.0.log but they don't appear to stop DRI.

One thing to watch out for though is upgrading your kernel or Xfree86 - 
version mismatches are quite common, in my experience, so keep the .debs for 
your current versions once you've got it running in case a subsequent upgrade 
upgrade breaks it.

I've got to say that I feel quite supportive of Matrox for open sourcing the 
basic driver and permitting a solution that almost (version mismatches are 
the only real glitch and I'm running unstable so I should expect problems 
anyway) works out of the box.

LeeE



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