From owner-freebsd-multimedia  Mon Feb 16 13:18:50 1998
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Message-ID: <19980216211424.40399@mi.uni-koeln.de>
Date: Mon, 16 Feb 1998 21:14:24 +0100
From: Stefan Esser <se@FreeBSD.ORG>
To: multimedia@FreeBSD.ORG
Cc: Stefan Esser <se@FreeBSD.ORG>
Subject: Re: Cyrix MediaGX
References: <199802151116.GAA16723@hda.hda.com>
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In-Reply-To: <199802151116.GAA16723@hda.hda.com>; from Peter Dufault on Sun, Feb 15, 1998 at 06:16:33AM -0500
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On 1998-02-15 06:16 -0500, Peter Dufault <dufault@hda.com> wrote:
> I'm looking to update six 8MB 486DX2-66 systems collecting data to
> something with a bit more oomph. I bought one of the Cyrix MediaGX
> moetherboards mainly for price - a 180Mhz motherboard with everything
> and 32MB memory was about $280.00.
> 
> FreeBSD installs OK and it works fine for the intended use.
> 
> Though I didn't buy it for multimedia, xfree86 doesn't support it
> other than 640x480 VGA16 (I'll try Poul's recent changes to get
> 800x600).

AFAIK, the MediaGX is a higher integrated version of the
Cyrix 5x86, i.e. an i486 class chip, which was sold some
two years ago in 100 and 120MHz versions (supposed to be
about as fast as the AMD 5x86/133, another "super" 486).

Not that a 486 is something bad (I'm still using an ASUS
SP3G with AMD5x86/133 myself :), but sometimes the MediaGX
is taken for a Pentium class chip, which it isn't (well, 
it may be as fast as a P5-75, perhaps even as a P5-90).

> Before I buy five more does anyone want to comment on the MediaGX
> - quality of the architecture, design wins in low end systems, ease
> of working with Cyrix, possible future support under xfree, etc.

The MediaGX seems to be targeted at the absolute low end
multimedia market. Software solutions for sound/modem are
claimed to be possible because of certain architectural
features.

> I did a bit of websearching and other than support under that Linux
> "gg?" project I couldn't find out much.  Those hits implied typical
> non-disclosure nonsense waived for Linux.  I found no pointers
> to full technical docs at Cyrix, and Xinside doesn't currently
> support it either.

I'd be surprised if there was much support. BTW: The Compaq
Presario 2210 is a desktop system based on the Cyrix MediaGX.
Maybe a Web search for that system yields information about 
that processor as a by-product :)

Regards, STefan

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