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3dfx To Support Linux
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.
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
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but I predict there will be native, accelerated support(*) for Voodoo Banshee-based boards in XFree86 by this time next week.
(*)If not real support, at least a hack that will make them useable until the next release.
Every Developer is Important
The most commonly asked question that goes through
devprogram@3dfx.com (the developer program email address) comes from
independent game developers who want to work with us. They wonder if
their small team is big enough or if an early development stage game is far
along enough for us to work with them. With hundreds of 3Dfx enhanced
titles releasing a year from every major publisher, can they still talk to us
about their development? They may not be the size of Electronic Arts or
have the programming skills of id Software, but they really want to work with
3Dfx to make a great 3D game.
The answer every time is "YES!"
Electronic Arts and id Software started from somewhere. Who's to say that
independent developer isn't going to be the next big thing? I have seen a
tremendous amount of talent in design, programming, art, AI, and every
other game aspect come from independents. From lone college students
working part-time to the rogue Linux programmer who has spun off of a
large corporation. From established teams trying new things in 3D to a
virtual company of ten spread throughout the world. Every new mind brings
something to the table and the efforts of each person contributes to the
future of 3D graphics and gaming.
Maybe now we can get enhanced drivers for 3dnow! i sure hope so cause Quake2 in Linux is much slower than Quake2 in winblows with enhanced drivers. But then again my Celeron runs quake2 the same speed in both OS's
Natas
http://www.mp3.com/pedophagia
All new music made in Linux!
http://www.3dfx.com/view_io.asp?ID=111
OH YEA!!
... but 3dfx doesn't exactly stand to rub off THAT much from Linux' success. They're pretty successful as they are, and them supporting Linux will benefit Linux just as much as 3dfx. It's not like there's this HUGE Linux gaming market just waiting to be tapped and 3dfx is going to instantly make wads of cash from it. They probably just see that it's an OS with growing support and also they don't want to be upstaged by nVidia.
Now if only my MX300 had Linux drivers and Quake3 support...
Whoop-dee. They packaged glide with RPM and released the register level information on the 2D part of Banshee, which is probably another company's 2D chipset anyway. We want Voodoo register level information. They could at least release Voodoo 1 info. The only reason hardware developers don't release specs is because of the fear of cloning. Nobody is going to clone the Voodoo 1 chipset now that it's dated. Give us the specs already. Glide blows.
Maybe one of 3dfx's competitors will see the light and release specs on their hardware, hint hint. Most 3D cards are out-dated in about 6 months anyway.
Well, I guess its so long to my Diamond Viper 550.. It'll be a fine addition to my parents' Linux PC. I have to have a Voodoo 3 Religious obligations --understand, Nvidia?...
for development you need binutils :p
Where's the support for 4-D graphics cards? I'm not buying any stinking video card that doesn't support all four dimensions.
I want time-travel on my Linux video card, and I want it NOW.
can I run a 3dfx, like a monster 3d 2 with a matrox g200?
No. To get the most of 3dnow!, the app itself should be written with 3dnow enhancements. Then the drivers.
What applications support time travel? There's a Carmen Diego game with time travel, but does it run under Linux?
When will X-Windows have support for CGA cards?
think of getting a N64 == save money for the rent.
is a card that doesn't put dots all over my 256 color 640x480 X.
If you're really that masochistic, why don't you run an X server over GGI with AAlib as the target... X with 80x25 resolution should be sufficiently bad ;)
Only you can't have it. Ask you friendly nVidia developer and they'll tell you.
the nvidia xfree driver is god awfull slow.
matrox sucks chicken ass.
ftp://contrib.redhat.com/
Just get the latest binutils:
binutils-2.9.1.0.19a-2
Only thing is, this is for asm coders -
no "3DNow optimising C compiler" - Performance wise, anyway, you almost have to write in assembler. It's just a shame x86 assembler is so painful compared to 680x0, or PPC for that matter...
It's 1999 now and a lost has changed. From an Open Source perspective, 3Dfx is one of the worst allies imaginable, because they seem to be threatening people who produce free implementations of their APIs. 3Dfx has been unable to come up with a usable OpenGL driver for their cards (only a game-oriented "miniGL" subset and a buggy beta; both do 3D only full-screen). And their price/performance isn't all that great anymore either compared to the competition.
If 3Dfx reforms, drops their complaints about independent implementations of their APIs, and supports open source development of drivers for Linux, great. But I don't see that happening. I own a Banshee card, but my next card is not going to be 3Dfx.
Hell, as long as you're asking for 4D support, why not ask for it a year ago?
Don't get excited, its still binary only glide
libraries on a card that you need setuid root
programs to use. (Thats not Linux fault either -
the hardware is unsafe even with the glide
driver).
The docs are for the 2d card mode only. Yeah right
"Our car is open source but we dont document the
wheels".
Yes, it is enough. I didn't meant to say that it's not. I wish ALL video cards had good drivers for Linux out of the box.
May I point out that, at around 23 million installed Macs, there are more of them than Linux users? The place where Linux is beating the Mac platform right now is growth, and that really doesn't mean much, as all the kiddies trying to install Linux on their Wintels are what accounts for most of that. Ehh.
Lemme rephrase that. The kiddies that don't know what they're doing and will probably delete it in a few weeks are what account for that :-P Sure, there are a lot of legitimate Linux newbies, but a lot of it is just people who're just playing around. Or has been from my experience. Of course, some servers pop up using Linux, but I imagine most of them are just run by previous Linux users. Another thing you might want to take into account is how many people per box. Ehh.
Go Daryll!
Support for travel along the, hhm, what letter of the alphabet is after z? ;p ok, support for the {-axis was in Linux YEARS ago. Thats part of the problem: its retroactive.
I used X11R4 with BSD/386 years ago on a cga system. It worked ok, but I had to make the fonts myself. It actually wasn't bad, 640x200 is a bit thick though.
ATI has been known to use Brooktree chips which have full programming specs on the web, at least for their PCI chips... :) :) :)
Which is why Brooktree-based TV cards are the most popular under Linux/*BSD AFAIK... and they're very nice at that.
(Now only if they did MPEG compression, they would be _perfect_...
Matrox cards have traditionally also had very good DACs (video quality), and are very good 2D boards. :) )
(OEM Millenium I boards with wimpy 170Mhz DACs aside, that is
Count me as one more who chose Banshee over TNT for exactly that reason...
-posting anonymously because I forgot who I am
maybe *u*x is better.
Linux, Unix, HP UX.
But what about Solaris, AIX, BSD
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)...
Bill - aka taniwha
--
Leave others their otherness. -- Aratak
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).
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.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
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.
F0 07 C7 C8
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.
--
"Reactionaries must be deprived of the right to voice their opinions; only the people have that right." - Mao
And my mouse cursor is an X! And there's no icons! Help!
--
"Reactionaries must be deprived of the right to voice their opinions; only the people have that right." - Mao
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.....
Do not read this
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!!!!
support gun control: take guns from cops
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.
Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology
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
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon? :P)
(If you can't figure out how to E-Mail me, Don't.
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
History has the relation to truth that theology has to religion-i.e. none to speak of. - Lazarus Long
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
History has the relation to truth that theology has to religion-i.e. none to speak of. - Lazarus Long
>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?
Has it ever occurred to you that God might be a committee?
--- Jubal Harshaw
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.
"...Beer..."
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)
iSKUNK!
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.
Another non-functioning site was "uncertainty.microsoft.com."
The purpose of that site was not known.
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.