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Xabre Graphics Card Reviewed
Daniel Rutter writes: "Graphics cards using the SIS Xabre chipset don't seem to have quite made it to the retail market in most of the world yet, but they're on sale now here in Australia. I've checked out Triplex's shiny XabrePRO card. It's weird. Not just because it's silver, in typical Triplex fashion. It's also got weird drivers. Not bad drivers. Just... weird. And it makes a weird noise. Seriously." Check out those screenshots, and wonder.
I hate to say but at least 85% of the people here are viewing this site from Windows. More of us have XWindows-based boxen to play with that the readers of other sites but we don't usaully consider buying expensive (consumer) graphics cards for them because no one will make any games for them to begin with. So I for one, knowing this chipset was brand new, did not expect it.
Black holes are where the Matrix raised SIGFPE
Just because something is weird doen't make it bad. The way linux works is still 'weird' to me (sorry, but I just haven't had the time to sit down and tool around with it), yet I'm sure many people here would say that linux is not bad, and I don't think it is either.
Except most of the "weirdness" is the control panel UI. Describing that as weird (and it is, just look at it!) is somewhat less important. Who cares? How often are you gonna be in there?
It's the noise I'd worry about.
The masthead says "news for nerds", not "news for GNU nerds". I don't buy Windows-only hardware either, but the editors clearly agree it has a place here. It's more important for me to see "this vendor supports their products and provides complete documentation for third-party drivers" than details about any particular driver that happens to exist right now.
The drivers that were written for the 300 were okay when they shipped them, but they opted to discontinue support for whatever reason (and they've been kind of broken since then...) and haven't released any drivers for the 315 or for the Xabre that I know of. They tend to NOT give out 3D programming info, even to their NDAed partners, so that avenue for driver support has been pretty much a dead-end so far. (I plan on pestering them again to see if things have lightened up or maybe that I've been talking to the wrong people there...)
There's every reason for someone to not expect them to provide Linux support with this display chipset.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
But, you're missing the OTHER game we play.
You spend hours tweaking out Doom III just so on your so-new-the-surface-mount-is-still-wet video card. It looks good.
Your buds come over and their jaws hit the floor. They run out and buy the game.
It doesn't look as good on their box at home.
They buy a new monitor. Still doesn't look as good.
They get the new card, drop a month's pay doing it. Still doesn't look as good.
They swallow their pride, and come crawling for help. You kick back, read Pitr's copy of "Evil Geniuses for Dummies" and leisurely decide how to respond.
And that's the best game of all...