🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1993Jan26.162704.13442@usasoc.soc.mil>, ted@usasoc.soc.mil (Mr. Ted Nolan) writes...
>
>run 386BSD and X on.  I've seen a few advertisements for the ATI Mach32
>video card.  It seems this is a local bus card that can do 1024x1280 in
>256 color mode.  Does anyone know if this has an S3 or ET4000 chipset?
>Can you run X on it?

bad news
	No it isn't an S3 or ET4000 chip, it is their own mach32 accelerator chip.

good news
	however it does emulate ibm 8514 graphics device and generic unix drivers
	for this standard should work, so x-windows is possible.

bad news
	Then again with 8514 drivers you aren't accessing the mach32 acclerator
	at all so you are paying a big price for performance you won't use.
	Also I believe the 8514 emulation is 1024x768x256 .  If you want to
	use the 1280x1024x256 modes or any of the other hi-colour or true-colour
	modes your going to have to come up with your own driver as ATI is 
	having enough problems delivering working drivers for MSDOS and windows
	let alone OS/2 and unix.	

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
If you're a horse, and someone gets on you, and falls off, and then gets right
back on you, I think you should buck him off right away.
                                         Deep Thoughts -- By Jack Handey
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

So are there any 928 S3 adapters with an EISA bus interface and (here's the
catch) with OS/2 drivers?

Any info is appreciated...

Oh, another question - do the newer S3 cards have faster DOS & VGA speed or
are they still notoriously slow?  If they're still slow, will it be possible
for me to continue using my Orchid PDiis card for VGA and use the S3 for
SVGA?

Thanks
-- 
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 Al Dhir                      			   Technical Consulting Staff
 Internet: adhir@cygnus.umd.edu	  	 University of Maryland, College Park
 Bitnet:   adhir%cygnus.umd.edu@Interbit      (301) 405-1500 * (301) 405-3014

Ok, now I am very confused.  I bought a machine from
Zenon which is ok except for the fact that I cannot
get the SB to work in it (its a 50 mHz machine), and
I have Memory Parity Errors.  Now then, I was flipping
through the computer shopper and my eyes came to rest
on 'The Hard Edge' which talks about technical information.

On page 780 of the January 1993 edition it says that
VESA's specification for its local bus interface 
defines a bus speed no greater than 40mHz.  
Then WHY does Zenon sell 486/DX50's claming to have
3 VLB slots in them?  I would very much appreciate
it if someone could quickly take the time to mail me
sorting out the details of VESA's VLB specifications,
and why Zenon can be justified in advertising a 486/DX50
(not Dx2 50) with 3 local bus slots.  I have one sitting
on my desk, hehe, and Im beginning to think...... hmm,
maybe THIS is why I'm having some of the problems I
am experiencing (which include the strange 'Memory
Parity Error').

Basically, if you could email me explaining
a) VESAs VLB specifications and limitations
b) why Zenon is advertising a DX50 with 3
    VLB slots when VESA supposedly said the
    limit (bus speed) is 40 mHz
c) what is the cause, and the solution for
   a Memory Parity Error.

Please send comments, suggestions, or thoughts to:
tictac@wam.umd.edu

In article <1993Jan26.220906.26671@netcom.com> hasty@netcom.com (Amancio Hasty Jr) writes:
>>
>The ATI Mach32 is based upon ATI's mach32 chipset.
>for speed I suggest acquiring a 928 based card which is faster than the
>ATI MACH32 by as much as 34% overall graphics performace, even on the ISA :-)

Any info on cards that are using the 928 that are available?
>
>Going to a local bus card will not buy you significant performance improvement,
>at least with the S3 chipsets.

Why?  It was my understanding that the local bus was specifically intended
for things like video cards that are twiddling bytes back and forth with the
cpu, as opposed to massive memory transfers.
	-jrg

-- 
internet    jrg@galloway.sj.ca.us  John R. Galloway, Jr  795 Beaver Creek Way
internet    johng@informix.com     CEO...receptionist    San Jose, CA   95133
applelink   D3413                  Galloway Research     (408) 259-2490

In article <1993Jan26.220906.26671@netcom.com> hasty@netcom.com (Amancio Hasty Jr) writes:
>In article <1993Jan26.162704.13442@usasoc.soc.mil> ted@usasoc.soc.mil (Mr. Ted Nolan) writes:
>>Hello folks,
>>
>>I'm plugging along in my quest to spec out a nice 486 system to get and
>>run 386BSD and X on.  I've seen a few advertisements for the ATI Mach32
>>video card.  It seems this is a local bus card that can do 1024x1280 in
>>256 color mode.  Does anyone know if this has an S3 or ET4000 chipset?
>>Can you run X on it?
>>
>The ATI Mach32 is based upon ATI's mach32 chipset.
>for speed I suggest acquiring a 928 based card which is faster than the
>ATI MACH32 by as much as 34% overall graphics performace, even on the ISA :-)
>
>Going to a local bus card will not buy you significant performance improvement,
>at least with the S3 chipsets.
>
>Hope this helps,
>Amancio Hasty
>P.S. as for the resolution it can handle 1024x1280 with 256 colors.

Amacio: several articles back, you said you were about to get an 805-S3
board (localbus) running, and that the only chips supported by the
released code were the 801-S3 and below.

Is your "no significant performance improvement" statement based on you
experience with the 805-S3?

Do you have the 805-S3 code ready to go yet?

Is it still your recommendation that one get an 801-S3 until the 805-S3
code is ready?


					Terry Lambert
					terry@icarus.weber.edu
					terry_lambert@novell.com
---
Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present
or previous employers.
-- 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                        "I have an 8 user poetic license" - me
 Get the 386bsd FAQ from agate.berkeley.edu:/pub/386BSD/386bsd-0.1/unofficial
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In article <1993Jan27.230901.25714@fcom.cc.utah.edu> terry@cs.weber.edu (A Wizard of Earth C) writes:
>In article <1993Jan26.220906.26671@netcom.com> hasty@netcom.com (Amancio Hasty Jr) writes:
>>In article <1993Jan26.162704.13442@usasoc.soc.mil> ted@usasoc.soc.mil (Mr. Ted Nolan) writes:
>>>Hello folks,
>>>

>Do you have the 805-S3 code ready to go yet?
>
>Is it still your recommendation that one get an 801-S3 until the 805-S3
>code is ready?
>

I haved had an S3 805 Vesa Local Bus card for about a month. My Actix
Engine32 S3 801 is faster than my S3 805 card, period.

About the 805, in my opinion the S3 805 has a hardware bug which prevents
the Vesa Local bus 805 cards from switching into Linear Mode. Without this
feature the 805 are usesless because it is one of the main reasons for buying
an 805 card. This is an issue that VGA manufacturers will have to address
with S3 corp. For instance, S3 corp, sent me an example of how to implement
Linear both  sources  and binary for DOS. Well, the nice example for the
805 froze my system. I tried their sample code with my 801 card and it
works, so at least I know the code works. If we don't use linear mode
writing or reading pixels is 10x times slower than the linear mode 
implementation. The comparison here is against doing data transfers via
data_transfer register in the S3 (For those who know the S3 architecture)

Linear Mode is a way to access the cache available in the 801 for doing 
byte reads or to post write to a FIFO.



There is also the issue of DRAM vs. VRAM. At high refresh rates the 801
will suffer in its performance. For instance, expect a 20% drop in
performance from going from 45Mhz interlace to 75Mhz .

The 928 cards are just around the corner about 3 weeks away, according
to Actix. The 928 are VRAM based and faster than the 801. As for XS3,
it should be easy to provide support for the 928. I have the 928 databook.
Projected xstones rating for the S3 928 (ISA card version) is around
120k+ xstones, for XS3.

The good news are that with my experimental X server here, I have been able to
generate 102K stones, at 1024x768 45Mhz interlace :-)

system: Orchid SuperBoard 486/50Mhz 256k k 8MB, 
vga card: Actix GraphicEngine32 (S3 801 ISA card).

Around 60Mhz it probably generates around 90k xstones.

If you ask me if performance is what you want I would go with the S3 928.
As for the ATI Ultra Pro, it has been reported that it generates about
100k xstones. As for the et4000, the fastest number that I have heard
is 16k xstones for a local bus et4000 card.

Can't wait till the 928 gets here because we will be faster than the 
sun workstation ipx/gx at high refresh values and probably faster than
most workstations under $10000 :-)


For those interested in getting info about S3 chipsets,
S3 corp Tel: 408-980-5400.

Enjoy,
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

news@csi.compuserve.com (Usenet News) writes:

>In article <1993Jan26.162704.13442@usasoc.soc.mil> ted@usasoc.soc.mil (Mr. Ted Nolan) writes:
>>Hello folks,
>>
>>I'm plugging along in my quest to spec out a nice 486 system to get and
>>run 386BSD and X on.  I've seen a few advertisements for the ATI Mach32
>>video card.  It seems this is a local bus card that can do 1024x1280 in
>>256 color mode.  Does anyone know if this has an S3 or ET4000 chipset?
>>Can you run X on it?
>>

>Ted,

>The Mach32 IS the "chipset".  It serves the same functions as the S3 although
>considerably faster.  I'm hoping someone will post an X driver for the Mach32
>so I can justify getting an ATI Ultra Plus (This is an unabashed hint to all
>386BSD System programmers with ATI Ultra Plus's)

>-Rell
	The following are xbench results on the same hardware for
	both Xfree and Kevin Martin's X8514 on linux -- I don't know
	if there's an X8514 version for 386BSD.


==================================
Gateway 2000 4DX2-66V, 8Mb
ATI Ultra Pro, 68MHz, local bus
Xfree1.1, no tcp
Linux0.99.1, 1024x768
==================================
TOTAL    193536 lineStones
TOTAL     22459 fillStones
TOTAL     10049 blitStones
TOTAL   4052466 arcStones
TOTAL    212437 textStones
TOTAL     24836 complexStones
TOTAL     31045 xStones

==================================
Gateway 2000 4DX2-66V, 8Mb
ATI Ultra Pro, 62MHz, local bus
X8514, no tcp
Linux0.99.1, 1024x768
==================================
TOTAL    185822 lineStones
TOTAL     55528 fillStones
TOTAL     36191 blitStones
TOTAL   5236912 arcStones
TOTAL    134406 textStones
TOTAL     92614 complexStones
TOTAL     79209 xStones

dave
-- 

| Dave Warner            | e-mail: dmw@csn.org |
| 151 Sky Trail Road     | USWest: 443-9589    |
| Boulder, CO 80302      |    FAX: 443-6791    |

johng@informix.com (John Galloway) writes:
>hasty@netcom.com (Amancio Hasty Jr) writes:

>>The ATI Mach32 is based upon ATI's mach32 chipset.
>>for speed I suggest acquiring a 928 based card which is faster than the
>>ATI MACH32 by as much as 34% overall graphics performace, even on the ISA :-)

>Any info on cards that are using the 928 that are available?

I have a fax here from Diamond that gives some info on their Stealth Pro
card which is based on the S3 86C928.  It can take a maximum of 2 MB of
VRAM, resolutions of 640x480x24, 800x600x24, 1024x768x16, and 1280x1024
x8, all with 72 HZ non-interlaced refresh.  They quote 35 Million 
Winmarks on a 66 Mhz DX2, of course this is still quite far behind their
50 Million Winmark Viper card which is based on the Weitek P9000 chip,
but since the Weitek chip just appear I wouldn't expect a X server
being written for it any time soon, so for now, the 928 seems like the
best choice.  According to Amancio Hasty, the 928 should be able to do 
120K Xstones, versus the ATI Ultra Pro's 100K, this pretty much agrees 
with the Winmark ratio, 35M versus 28.5M for the ATI, now if there does
exist a positive correlation between Xstone ratios and Winmark ratios,
we can probably expect 170K Xstones from a Weitek P9000 based-card. WOW!

Of course, I will never recommend anyone to buy a Diamond product,
because of their use of variable clock synthesizer and refusal to
disclose programming info without much money.  Some Linux folks have
been complaining about unneeded hassles with Diamond video cards, so I'd
say stay away from them.

Now if you also want to run OS/2 then the ATI seems pretty attractive,
since it's register-compatible with IBM's 8514/A, you can expect at
least some support in OS/2, I don't think there's much support for the
S3 chips in OS/2 PM (other than standard VGA).

>>Going to a local bus card will not buy you significant performance 
>>improvement, at least with the S3 chipsets.

If I understand correctly, with smart graphics coprocessors like the S3
and ATI chips, the higher bandwidth of local bus won't help you much
unless you're doing offscreen to video memory copies, in which case the
local bus will gain significant advantage over an ISA bus.

-- Nan