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Hardware

3dfx To Support Linux 68

Posted by CmdrTaco from the isn't-that-nifty dept.
Steve Gibson sent us to the first of many stories that proclaim that 3dfx will be supporting Linux. Specs and links are available now from 3dfx.com.
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3dfx To Support Linux More

3dfx To Support Linux

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  • What is this crap? 3dfx isn't even giving out the full specifications, you are still stuck with their shitty binary only glide drivers.

    Matrox on the other hand has made COMPLETE specifications available for all their major chipsets. I even submitted this story to slashdot the other day but evidently they didnt feel the need to post it. Yet when someone releases binary only drivers they do post it. Seems a little fishy to me.
  • Wtf does 3dfx have to do with games?

    They need to quit trying to save glide, its dead, live with it. Release specs and let someone write a real GL driver for it.
  • Wow. They release 2D specs for the Banshee. Matrox released full specs on the G200 a week ago, including 3D. I know which manufacturer I will be buying from.
  • So register as a developer. It takes a few days, but anyone can do it.
  • I think I know what card I'll be demanding when I eventually get a new computer. Hmmm, actually, as my 486 has 3 pci slots in it (asus mobo)...
  • I'm all for releasing specs, but unfortunately 3dfx hasn't made the announcement I'd hoped they would make. 3Dfx released the 2D specs for their Voodoo Banshee card, but nothing else. While this is good - and it allows X support - it's not what I, and most other people want, which is 3D specs. GLX + Mesa + Precision Insight have the ability to get 'Real' (as in, not just 3dfx, and Open Source) OpenGL support onto Linux, but 3Dfx still thinks that it will benefit them to keep their information propreitary. Thanks but no thanks.

    I am happy however, that Matrox has released their full G200 specs. (yes, including 3D). This means that Linux has a chance of getting an OpenGL ICD (ok, just checked, a non-beta ICD ;) for the G200 before Windows has one ;)

    Does anyone have any information about Riva and the (3d) TNT specs? That's the card I really want, but I am desperate not to buy a card which has no specs (eg, not Free Software friendly).

  • I was right. See here [atitech.ca] for ATI's stance on *nix and releasing specs in general.
    ATI's 3D Register Specifications are considered proprietary and confidential, and as such have NOT been made available to 3rd party
    software developers.

    3D acceleration support is currently limited to those drivers which are written by ATI to operate in Windows 98, Windows 95 and Windows NT.

    At this time, ATI has no intention of writing 3D Accelerated drivers for any UNIX Environment. We also have no intention of releasing the proprietary information required to implement a 3D driver.

    That's basically the gist of it. "Screw you. We own this card and we're not giving you information on it. Go to hell."
  • Unless you really screwed up, you'll get a password. I did (many months ago). Funny, though, my userid is "guest" :)

    I now have the specs. All 574 pages of em'. Too bad I don't know any C.
  • Well, hoo-ray for 3dfx. Nice to see someone officially supporting linux for once. In other news, Matrox finally has some G200 specs, available on their site. I just downloaded all 574 pages of them and I'll definitely be trying to cram some rudimentary G200 support into Mesa the next chance I get.
  • I read a while back that Matrox was working on a G300 with twin TMUs.

    Anyone know the details?

    TedC

  • This is probably true. From a hardware point of view this is some what of a risk for 3dfx, now people will know the internals of the drivers as well as how they work (if they are GPL'd). Fine by me, anyways.
  • Are you talking about the SNI MX300i series?

    I would really love to see Linux support for these
    boxes (i.e. Intel multibus + the strange IO they
    are using). Sure, MX300 are not the fastest
    machines (although they do run with Pentium
    processors), but they have proved to be really
    reliable (they even have 2 power supplies in case
    one fails).

    -- Jochen
  • No no no. Not time travel, 4 spatial dimensions.

    I want a card that can render 2 million tesseracts per second dammit!

    Actually, this could probably be done.


    --
  • And my mouse cursor is an X! And there's no icons! Help!


    --
  • What risk? I got the impression that 3dfx will release the 2d specs to the banshee, I saw no mention of 3d specs....

    Well, I least now I can consider the banshee as a candidate fo my new box.

    And please, don't mention beowolf cluster in this thread.....
  • Matrox released the *full* specs a week ago ... fantastic! AFAIK, the Millennium is still the best card to use in XFree86; and even that is slower than in windows unfortunately (I'm talking strictly about graphics speed). All that Gnome eye candy is a little hard on my old Millennium.

    Maybe the new driver for the G200 / full Open GL support will be ready for Xfree 4.0 and true type built in as well! This is going to be a great year for LINUX!!!!
  • yeah 3dfx only games. And if it was trult open source-yippee it still means 3dfx only games.
    That's why if MS went open source it could really hurt other OS's. Open sourcing is powerful and can be used for good and evil
  • Well, you can run the Infocom game "Trinity" under Linux with infozip, but that will run without any video card at all if you have a nice terminal.
  • I would personally love to see X on a nice Hercules. I saw an EGA video projector the other day, too, but I don't know of any EGA X server.

  • It's your turn now, Nvidia... please?
  • Anyone out there ever tried having a voodoo2 and a TNT card in the same system? i currently have a TNT, and was thinking of getting a VooDoo2 for things like UltraHLE and other progs that only support Glide/3DFX. oh, and i'm intrested in hearuing about sucess stories/lack of them on any OS, as i run win98lite(98 sans IE), linux, and BeOS.
  • Shall I be the first to say it's about time? Although I think 3DFX is doing this just to jump on the Linux bandwagon, and not necessarily for the consumer. They want to cash in on the growing Linux success. Still, it took them long enough.

    Accipiter
  • I have a VooDoo2 and STB Velocity 4400 in my box. The reason for this was to make BeOS happy (Didn't like my old Diamond Stealth 64 card. A sad parting in my life). This seems to make Linux, BeOS and Windoze95 happy. My problem is that I now no longer have the spare time to play games. Oh well.

    Joshua Pearson
  • If you do this too often our universe as we know it will come to an end. Plus, what if Bill Gates got ahold of such a device and prevented the birth of Linus? Life would suck. Guess I'd be using FreeBSD.

    Joshua Pearson
  • >I am happy however, that Matrox has released their full G200 specs. (yes, including 3D). This means that Linux has a chance of getting an OpenGL ICD (ok, just checked, a non-beta ICD ;) for the G200 before Windows has one ;)

    Where/when was this??? URL?
  • The last message I saw from NVIDIA on that subject was "NO FSCKing WAY!!". :-(

    I don't have a reference handy as to where I saw it but if noone else posts one I'll do some digging..

    If you read the review on tomshardware you'll se that he suspects that vodo3 is just a better banshee so it'll hopefully be at worst 'trivial' to support that too :-/

    If they'd release full specs I'd by one, 'they' are any maker of fast 3d cards ;-)
    (the G200 isn't 'fast enough' today, considering the cards due 'real-soon-now')

    Has it ever occurred to you that God might be a committee?
  • Linux has XFree86, Mesa, and now SGI's GLX. This sets the stage for Linux as a very affordable and accesible workstation for 3D applications. But,we need more dirvers to exploit all the high-performance cards available for PCs. To get that we need specs released. 3dfx needs to remember that Riva, ATI, and Matrox do their own thing as far as 3D and they don't have to hoard their code/specs. If they don't want to commit resources to developing drivers for linux, then let someone who wants to do so. This applies to all companies. It allows them to expand their user-base and promote their products as well as getting bug-fixes and better performance in the long run through an open driver development scheme.

    Maybe I am just ranting here, but I hate that my Linux box kicks so much ass for everything I do, yet I still have to throw my STB/Riva TNT card in my Windows box to play games. it aint right.

    not that all i do is play games...i write code too...and i drink beer...you know, the important stuff.
  • I think they give everyone the same user id. To bad you have to wait about 2 weeks for them to get back to you.

    I think the registration is more marketing related than security related.
  • Matrox can die, for all I care. As an owner of a Millenium G200, I have to say that Matrox's compelete inability to write an OpenGL driver for Windows was sad but excusable. Lying about how it would be ready "in two weeks" when it took 4 months to get out an alpha was just wrong, though. And I don't see Matrox doing anything for Linux either.
  • Ack, I'm confused! I vowed never to buy another Matrox product again, after the Windows OpenGL fiasco and the fact that my G200 died 3 weeks after I got it. But if they support 3d in Linux and no one else does, what do I do? Which priciples do I like best?!
  • I hope you're not looking to use XFree under CGA... cyan background, white xterms...... it'd be just like (dare I say it?) OpenLook!

    Heh. All kidding aside (yes, we all know CGA is much nicer than that) the time for such a driver is long past, IMHO. Really, are there any CGA-equipped machines out there that can handle XFree86 to begin with?

    (The one 486+CGA I know of is console-only. X? Not a chance)
  • (the G200 isn't 'fast enough' today, considering the cards due 'real-soon-now')


    Huh? You're suffering from future envy... I hate to break the news to you, but the moment the Voodoo3 comes out, you'll be saying it's "not fast enough considering cards due real soon now."
    Right now, the G200 is (by all reviews I can find) the fastest commercial 2d card ever made, and the fact that for $150 you can get a 16MB AGP card capable of 1920x1200 at 32bit color in 3D is just amazing!


    As for 3d? Yeah, it may not be equal to a Voodoo2, but in my opinion, it LOOKS better, and for what I do, who cares if you get 120fps in 640x480 when you can get a better looking rendering (32bit color), at 45fps (still faster than a human can process) at 1280x1024.


    I assume you aren't going to buy a P3 (or K63) because you're waiting for the IA64? (or K8, because of course the K7 would be too slow considering that the IA64 is coming out soon...)
    Unless something is coming out within days, don't even consider it when buying parts, otherwise you'll never buy anything. My current computer was the absolute fastest/best components money could buy when I got it, I paid $2500 for it one year ago, and now you can get identical statistics (in fact, you can even get the $1000 in upgrades I've added) for $1000 now.

  • Who cares WHY they're doing? They're doing it!
  • Go 3DGX!
  • 3Dfx has been "supporting" Linux for quite a long time. They've only allowed a single individual access to the Glide source code, and he's been working alone for the past two years or so. What I'd really like to see is in-house developement of drivers or at least better support for Daryll who's been busting his ass trying to get the Banshee drivers out. The Banshees have been out for a long time, but Daryll is just now getting the Alpha Xservers out...all because his personal time is limited to developement of the drivers.

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