[plug] Video Card

[Russell Keith-Magee]

> >Any body now a 4mb PCI Matrox MGA Millenium Video Card performs
> under linux
> >and if it has hardware acceleration???
>
> As far as performance goes, it isn't too flash, but that's what
> you have to
> expect from a 4 meg card.  Yeah, it has harware acceleration provided by
> XFree, this card's quite well supported, so the drivers should be
> decent. As
> far as the desktop's concerned, this should be quite a good card, with 4
> meg, pumping out 1024x768 at 32 bit colour is no problem and is
> the assumed
> norm. Don't expect blazingly fast 3D performance, but it should be quite
> decent in terms of desktop usage and watching mpegs etc.

This might require some clarification to remove confusion.

The Matrox Millenium video card is supported by XFree (quite well, IMHO).

It does have hardware accelleration.

It does NOT have 3D accelleration.

When "they" say hardware accellerated, they mean the driver uses some of the
cards onboard operations, rather than relying upon raw pixel blitting.
Matrox cards are noted for very good, high quality 2D performance. However,
even with Windows drivers, their 3D performance is comparitively ordinary.

Also, keep in mind the age of the card; I bought a Matrox Millenium for my
PC in 1994 (or was it 95...). At that stage, 3D video cards a la Nvidia
wasn't even a blip on the horizon.

So, you won't be using your Matrox to gibfest your friends under Quake 3.
Thats not to say that you cant use 3D; XFree will resort to software mode 3D
if there is no 3D hardware, but you wouldn't want to play Quake 3 in
software mode (can you say sub 5fps?).

Russ %-)

********************************************
Russell Keith-Magee
Software Engineer
Calytrix Technologies
Unit 9, EIR Building, Technology Park
PO Box 1173, BENTLEY 6982, Western Australia