Date: Wed, 18 Feb 1998 12:28:43 -0500 From: Norman C Rice <nrice@emu.sourcee.com> To: Atipa <freebsd@atipa.com> Cc: neswold@fnal.gov, Capriotti <capriotti@geocities.com>, hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: S3 Virge/DX video card Message-ID: <19980218122843.00677@emu.sourcee.com> In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.3.91.980218091955.28712A-100000@dot.ishiboo.com>; from Atipa on Wed, Feb 18, 1998 at 09:39:10AM -0700 References: <19980218105333.09607@emu.sourcee.com> <Pine.BSF.3.91.980218091955.28712A-100000@dot.ishiboo.com>
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On Wed, Feb 18, 1998 at 09:39:10AM -0700, Atipa wrote:
>
> Lots of cards are using EDO DRAM that do not have font corruption. I have
> font corruption on one machine w/ a S3 ViRGE (older one), using either
> AcceleratedX or XFree86. Win95 has no problem whatsoever. Maybe 95
> doesn't do any font caching...
>
> In 16bpp 1024x768, you are only using 1024x768x16/8 = 1.57MB of video
> RAM. The remaining half meg (or 2.5 MB for 4MB cards) or so goes to font
> caching and backing store. This is where we all get punched.
...and this is where the difference between the two technologies is going
to be most apparent. I am not stating that EDO cannot be used, just that
it does not perform as well as true video RAM -- data access time in all
modes; not just the modes that the marketing folks want to push, i.e.,
fast extended data out page mode. Obviously, if the data access time
requirements are slow enough, then most any RAM will work -- but when you
start to push technology, you can get less than stellar performance.
--
Regards,
Norman C. Rice, Jr.
>
> One thing that helped me (a bit) was to:
> # for i in /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc/*.gz; do
> > gunzip $i
> > compress `echo $i | awk -F. '{print $1}'`
> > done
> # mkfontdir /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc
>
> The newer XFree uses gzipped fonts, and I have had more luck with normal
> or uncompressed fonts.
>
> There is also a way to turn off font caching, but I can't remember how. My
> machine w/ the problem runs mainly as a server, so I gave up on trying to
> fix it rather quickly.
>
> Kevin
>
> On Wed, 18 Feb 1998, Norman C Rice wrote:
>
> > On Wed, Feb 18, 1998 at 09:30:23AM -0600, Richard M. Neswold wrote:
> > > On Wed, 18 Feb 1998, Capriotti wrote:
> > >
> > > > I'm havin problems to make a brandless S3 Virge/DX 4MB EDORAM card to work
> > ^^^^^^
> > This could be the source of the corruption you're seeing -- the EDO ICs
> > just do *not* perform as well as real video RAM, but they're cheaper and
> > that's probably why they're used on a ``brandless'' card.
> > --
> > Regards,
> > Norman C. Rice, Jr.
> >
> > > > with X.
> > > >
> > > > Anyone out there w/ the same problem ? Any solution ?
> > >
> > > I had problems using the S3V server; there was constant video corruption and
> > > the fonts in the virtual terminals were blasted beyond recognition.
> > > According to the XFree86 documentation, the SVGA server has better support
> > > for the ViRGE chips than the S3V server. It also mentions that future
> > > versions of the S3V server will incorporate the code from the SVGA server.
> > >
> > > Anyways, I now use the SVGA server. It recognizes the ViRGE/DX chip and
> > > performs very well. One bad point: I can't get 32/24 bpp to work without
> > > some video corruption -- but 16 bpp works fine...
> > >
> > > Rich
> > >
> > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > > Richard Neswold, Accelerator Div./Controls Dept | neswold@fnal.gov
> > > Fermilab, PO Box 500, MS 347, Batavia, IL 60510 | voice (630) 840-3454
> > > 'finger neswold@aduxb.fnal.gov' for PGP key | fax (630) 840-3093
> > >
> > >
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> >
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> >
>
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