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Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.questions Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!network.ucsd.edu!swrinde!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!olivea!apple.com!netcomsv!netcom.com!hasty From: hasty@netcom.com (Amancio Hasty Jr) Subject: Re: S3 video cards supported by XS3? Message-ID: <hastyCA1Bx3.DxH@netcom.com> Organization: Netcom Online Communications Services (408-241-9760 login: guest) References: <CA119w.CIC@csn.org> Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1993 04:46:15 GMT Lines: 141 In article <CA119w.CIC@csn.org> millert@teal.csn.org (Todd Miller) writes: >Hi all, I'm about to put together a 486 EISA VESA local bus machine and I'm >wondering if there is some one that can point me to a list of S3-based local bus >video cards that XS3 supports. I dug around but can't seem to find the info >I need. > Here is an old posting and hopefully soon I will be getting a premetheus S3 928 (ISA card). The purpose of this posting is to explain the different kinds of S3 chipsets In chronological order of availability, the current S3 chipsets: 1 8C911 1MB VRAM based card ISA/EISA/Local Bus 2 8C924 1MB VRAM based card ISA/EISA/Local Bus 3 8C801 2MB DRAM based card ISA 4 8C805 2MB DRAM based card EISA/Local Bus 5 8C928 4MB VRAM based card The Actix Graphic Ultra (S3 928) support can supports upto 2MB of VRAM. The GraphicsEngine32 Series 8C801 with 1MB of memory specifications are: Resolution Number of colors Refresh rate in MHz 640x480 16.7 Million 60 640x480 65,536 60 640x480 32,768 60 640x480 256 72 800x600 65,536 60 800x600 32,768 60 800x600 256 72 1024x768 256 72 With 2 MB of memory: 1024x768 65,536 43.5(i) 1280x1024 256 60 The fastest chipset is an S3 928, then an 801 and last the 911 or 924. Due to a bug in 386bsd the linear mode access functionality for the S3 805 does not work. Bill Jolitz promised to fix mmap for his release of 386bsd 0.2. The 805 card's bus speed runs at 16Mhz not at 33Mhz. If you try to run them at full local bus speed the graphic engine will lock up. (Assuming that you have a 486/33 or 486/50). The version number of the S3 928 chip is 93133 (yy/week/day) if you buy an S3 928 based card which has an earlier version and try to use XS3 you are on your OWN!!!! For 2MB of operation for resolutions like 1152x900 or 1280x1024 the S3 928 card is highly recomended due to its higher performance. Currently, we don't support it but with a bit more luck we will provided it. The S3 801 is recommended for resolutions of 1024x768 and at clock rates no higher than 65Mhz. If you try to use higher clock values your performance will suffer. Yes, the card will work but it will not be as fast as lets say a sparc 2 workstation. You can expect around 102k xstones on an ISA S3 801 with a fast 486DX2 66Mhz and XS3. XS3 is known to work with just about all S3 801, 911/924 ISA/EISA/VLB. Notable exception is of course Diamond. XS3 is known to work with the following S3 928 cards: o ELSA Winner 1000 VLB o Actix Ultra o #9 GXE VLB and ISA The 386bsd release for the S3 928 is XS3.mmio available at sunvis.rtpnc.epa.gove:/pub/386bsd/incoming ***DO NOT RUN this server with any other chipset for it will not work *** So far the optimal cpu configuration, is a 486DX2 66Mhz VLB Somehow we have to sort out the fastest 486DX2 66Mhz, and this is outside my scope. Here is what David Greeman <davidg@implode.rain.com> has to say about his 486DX 66Mhz VLB, XS3 with his #9 S3 928 VLB running under 386bsd :-) ------------------------------------------------------------------- I spent the evening looking into the problem of not being able to compile the ibm8514 code with the optimizer. Following are the diff's to fix this problem. With -O -finline-functions -fstrength-reduce -fomit-frame-pointer and -m486, performance in some areas is dramatically improved. The pixel test in x11perf, for instance, improves by 40% to 540000 pixels/second. The xbench results with optimization look like this: AHJ> resolution 1024x768 at 65Mhz TOTAL 512796 lineStones TOTAL 74884 fillStones TOTAL 53293 blitStones TOTAL 7701944 arcStones TOTAL 194218 textStones TOTAL 147973 complexStones TOTAL 118630 xStones In this benchmark, it looks like arcStones benefited the most. <stuff deleted> -DG ------------------------------------------------------------------- I have measured a sparc 10 with a gx at around 100k xstones running openwindows 3.0 . Would love to hear what are the numbers for an S3 X server running on a fast pentium. Do expect higher numbers in the future... Amancio Hasty -- This message brought to you by the letters X and S and the number 3 Amancio Hasty | Home: (415) 495-3046 | ftp-site depository of all my work: e-mail hasty@netcom.com | sunvis.rtpnc.epa.gov:/pub/386bsd/incoming