Posted by
ryuzaki0
on from the i-heart-my-flat-screen dept.
Matt sent us the story over at SGI, officially confirming that they have worked with Number Nine to release the drivers for their uber-cool flat screen 1600SW into 3.3.3.1 of XFree86. The two will also be working more closely together in the future as well.
33 comments
OT, but yeah, I think so...
by
Maledictus
·
· Score: 1
I read the article on Upside and it wouldn't surprise me at all. If you're into balance sheets and whatnot, Sgi is *ripe* for takeover. Heavily in debt and losing money. If you look at their financial reports (published on their website) you'll realize that they've been losing money ever since they bought Cray. And last quarter's results were "encouraging" only because they lost *less* money than this time last year.
Sgi as a company presents a confusing marketing strategy coupled with their blind, arrogant, attitude brought on by visible, but financially insignificant, successes in Hollywood. It's too bad, they make simply awe-inspiring boxes.
Incredible technology. Laughable financial and marketing strategies.
Does this mean future support for Linux on VMs?;-)
A coworker of mine was trying to get this to work a little while back. We tried AcceleratedX and all kinds of wacky settings, but it never seemed to work correctly. All he could get was wide text on his console. So we tried it with Win98 and the OpenGL support was super-crummy so he trashed it. (Well, handed it off to some PHB).
A coworker of mine was trying to get this to work a little while back. We tried AcceleratedX and all kinds of wacky settings, but it never seemed to work correctly.
That's odd - the Accelerated-X server (4.1.2, perhaps with an update to add RevIV-FP support, and 5.0) works fine for me on Debian 2.1, Red Hat 5.2, FreeBSD 3.1, and Solaris 7 (except for a couple of glitches).
John Carmack said in his.plan that the card that comes with this flat screen is NOT a good 3D card. So, if you want this flat screen and good OpenGL support, you have to buy SGI Visual PC or TNT2 video card which suppsedly has support for such screens.
Don't get me wrong, Its a very cool step, but IIRC it is way easier to perform a hostile reverse engineering of monitor drivers than graphics card drivers...
when will SGI's graphics subsystem be supported?
Re:graphics cards
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
He is probably referring to "mode lines"... That is: Monitor timing information.
Actually, these are drivers for the Number 9 card that you get when you buy the flatscreen for the PC.
Monitor drivers? I'm not sure what you are getting at here, but the drivers SGI is releasing will let X talk to the Number 9 card and the Number 9 card talk to the flatscreen.
--
I read the internet for the articles.
Re:graphics cards
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
The press release clearly states that the drivers include drivers for the graphics card that is delivered with the monitor.
Already supported, you know...
by
RISCy+Business
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· Score: 1
I have a #9 RevolutionIV 32M AGP 2x. Granted, I did NOT buy the Flatpanel solution bundle, but either way, the card is supported. The issue is the modelines. They're a somewhat guarded thing at SGI, I guess. The XF86 3.3.3.1 drivers for the Ticket To Ride IV chipset are quite functional, and pretty fast, even without accelleration. Whether or not #9 provided any information, I don't know, but either way, they were happy to share the Revolution3D's specs, and now these. More power to 'em. Now if only we could get S3 to come out of their hidey hole and share Savage4 specs.
-RISCy Business | Rabid System Administrator and BOFH
Re:Already supported, you know...
by
jandrese
·
· Score: 2
It's not an issue with modelines, it's and issue with the interface for the video card. The flatpanel uses a totally digitial interface (not the standard VGA style connecter) that apparently requires a slightly different driver. I'm not sure if modelines even make sense for a flatpanel, but I suspect they don't.
--
I read the internet for the articles.
Re:Already supported, you know...
by
styopa
·
· Score: 1
It is good to hear that #9 has finally decided to help out and get their Revolution IV fully functional with Linux. I was going to get one at one point but didn't see any support for it in Linux and so I tabled the idea. In fact I am about a week or two away from buying a new video card and it is nice to see even more freedom in my choice.
My guess is that they realized that it is the Linux users who build their own computer, who look for than just gaming power in a video card, which is what the Rev IV is, and are more likely to take the time to pull apart their machine to upgrade. It is a smart business move on their part to give support to Linux.
Chances are very good that S3 is going to be moving to join the bandwagon soon. With a couple big name companies like Matrox and #9 already supporting Linux, and if they have any market research they will join up soon. They are probably spending too much time working on the buyout/merger with Diamond right now to make another major move like support Linux. It is only a matter of time before they support Linux anyway, any graphics company that keeps up with their market research will realize that the Linux community spends a disproportionate amount of money upgrading their computers to the latest and greatest stuff compaired to the average Joe Shmo Windows user. To not cater to the power user is a fatal flaw for any computer periferal company like S3.
-- Disclamer - Opinion of Person
Next, we need Multi-Head Support
by
IQ
·
· Score: 1
Life is good. And when multi-head works in XF86 we can cancel our license with XI. That would be XFree86 4.0? Anyway, then life will be GRAND!
-- Adults are obsolete children. - Dr. Seuss
What about the drivers, where are they?
by
jakob
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· Score: 1
Anyone know were the drivers (well actually the X server) are? I did not find them on ftp.xfree86.org.
I've used the drivers in the current release (3.3.3.1) with the same card (with an ordinary CRT), and they are buggy.
/Jakob
Huh? Been running fine for months under XF86.
by
ansible
·
· Score: 1
I'm glad to see SGI's official blessing for XFree86, but I've been running this setup under Linux for 4 months already.
I purchased the SGI DFP Solution pack back in February. There was already support for it under XFree86 (3.3.3.1) and Xi's Accellerated X. After trying both for a while, I kept using XF86 because it seemed faster and more stable.
The only tricky part with XF86 is the modelines. I tried to figure out the proper modelines myself, but failed. I checked back at xfree.org and some kind soul had posted the correct ones. Popped them in and it works fine. 1600x1024 in glorious 32-bit. I still have problems with the console text being corrupted after exiting X, but that is a minor issue to me.
I have to agree with an earlier poster, the beta OpenGL driver for Windows isn't very good. It seems to run OK with Quake II and SiN, but Half-life crashes. And though it looks better, the software renderer runs faster on my system (PII 350MHz), so I still use that instead.
Pricey sumbitch, but man, that's pretty smooth. Nice to see SGI making good on it's promises to the community and showing the world, as usual - who makes the kickin'est graphics hardware.
Re:i thought xfree is not a kleenux ...
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Indeed.
XFree86 runs on all the BSDs (the x86 ports, anyway). It also runs on OS/2. It's even ported to Windows NT on the Interix API.
i thought xfree is not a kleenux ...
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
very nice of kleenux community to treat everything good happenning happening to 'emseves.
this is xfree86, not kleenux, morons.
but isn't SGI a near death experience?
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Didn't I read somewhere real rumors real recently about SGI being broken up and sold off? I think it was on Upside.com.
We already have near-death products like Wordperfect embracing Linux. Do we need near-death hardware vendors (i.e. the failed x86 wing of SGI) as well?
can do this as the connection to the SGI monitor is a propriatry interface (god I cant spell) this mean although it is open it is not a VESA standard like the TNT2 claims to be so you need a speail graphics card No9 it is then
VESA fudged the digital interface and it will take a while to get venders surporting it as they chose a solution wich was hard to get working while the laptop people where saying HEY look at this to all the venders so hope and prey that nVidia did the right thing and went for VESA a poor student @ bournemouth uni in the UK (a deltic so please dont moan about spelling but the content)
Re:Console text corruption
by
landtuna
·
· Score: 1
If you use the frame buffer console, then the console's fine when you leave X. Just don't Alt-Function Key switch while an X display is running.
Despite its high price, this has been tempting me to save for it ever since I saw it several months ago.
I am in the unusual situation of moving into a vintage Airstream trailer, 22 feet long. This makes flat panels look especially appealing, because even my short-depth 17" Trinitron will have trouble squeezing in anywhere that I can still work on it.
If I could hook a computer with a Free OS up to this monitor with a DVD player, I would happily jettison my 13" television, which I use mainly for movie-playback anyhow. A 17.3" widescreen would be a much nicer way to watch So I Married an Axe Murderer...
Old news, plus SGI had nothing to do with it
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Support for the Revolution IV and the SGI flat planel was added in XFree86 3.3.3.1, released in January 1999. The code was contributed by Galen Brooks of #9.
No Nine surrport before has been good
by
johnjones
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· Score: 1
all No9 cards that have gone before have had NOT very good surport in xfree or any x server to that matter
is the card any good ?
what are its features ?
oh well please tell me would you ?
cheers
john
a poor student @ bournemouth uni in the UK (a deltic so please dont moan about spelling but the content)
I WANT DVD
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Until SGI decides to support DVD for their flatscreen for either Windows or Linux (neither is supported), screw them.
It's a beatiful monitor that is tied to their video card that does crappy 3D. At the current time, it's an absolute waste of money.
Put DVD on that beautiful 16x9 ratio basically HDTV player, and I'm there, but until then screw it. It would be nice to have an HDTV tuner that would run with it as well.
I've been using my 1600 SW with Linux since Feb
by
dsfox
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· Score: 1
Got one for my birthday. Works find, but no brightness or contrast controls or power saver yet.
Re:OpenGL driver in Win98
by
landtuna
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· Score: 1
I use this card in Win98 and Linux, and the Windows driver support is terrible! I'm using their beta OpenGL driver, and it's barely functional, rendering this 3D card pretty useless for a lot of games. I wrote to #9 about it, and they said that there were no plans to update this driver.
I don't recommend this card if you ever plan to use it with Windows. (Linux works well, though.)
IO read somewhere that TNT2 based video cards will have support for flat screen monitors. TNT2 are killer 3D cards and have good drivers for Windows and Linux. Can someone confirm if they have tried this SGI flatscreen with TNT2?
Re: Console text corruption
by
Josh+Turpen
·
· Score: 1
FYI you can use setfont to fix it. It would be nice if X didn't trash the console though...
-- ---
A Jesus Fish eating a Darwin Fish only proves Darwin's point.
Slashdot Mirror
I read the article on Upside and it wouldn't surprise me at all. If you're into balance sheets and whatnot, Sgi is *ripe* for takeover. Heavily in debt and losing money. If you look at their financial reports (published on their website) you'll realize that they've been losing money ever since they bought Cray. And last quarter's results were "encouraging" only because they lost *less* money than this time last year.
;-)
Sgi as a company presents a confusing marketing strategy coupled with their blind, arrogant, attitude brought on by visible, but financially insignificant, successes in Hollywood. It's too bad, they make simply awe-inspiring boxes.
Incredible technology. Laughable financial and marketing strategies.
Does this mean future support for Linux on VMs?
Mal --
Consigned to flames of woe.
I was thinking about getting one of these, this seems to be a good step in them supporting linux a little better.
matguy
Net. Admin.
matguy(.com)
To him I say: ha!
Log
Posted by Forward The Light Brigade:
Don't get me wrong,
Its a very cool step,
but IIRC it is way easier to perform a hostile reverse engineering of monitor drivers than graphics card drivers...
when will SGI's graphics subsystem be supported?
I have a #9 RevolutionIV 32M AGP 2x. Granted, I did NOT buy the Flatpanel solution bundle, but either way, the card is supported. The issue is the modelines. They're a somewhat guarded thing at SGI, I guess. The XF86 3.3.3.1 drivers for the Ticket To Ride IV chipset are quite functional, and pretty fast, even without accelleration. Whether or not #9 provided any information, I don't know, but either way, they were happy to share the Revolution3D's specs, and now these. More power to 'em. Now if only we could get S3 to come out of their hidey hole and share Savage4 specs.
-RISCy Business | Rabid System Administrator and BOFH
your company here.
shelby != ford
Life is good. And when multi-head works in XF86 we can cancel our license with XI. That would be XFree86 4.0? Anyway, then life will be GRAND!
Adults are obsolete children. - Dr. Seuss
Anyone know were the drivers (well actually the X server) are? I did not find them on ftp.xfree86.org.
I've used the drivers in the current release (3.3.3.1) with the same card (with an ordinary CRT), and they are buggy.
/Jakob
I'm glad to see SGI's official blessing for XFree86, but I've been running this setup under Linux for 4 months already.
I purchased the SGI DFP Solution pack back in February. There was already support for it under XFree86 (3.3.3.1) and Xi's Accellerated X. After trying both for a while, I kept using XF86 because it seemed faster and more stable.
The only tricky part with XF86 is the modelines. I tried to figure out the proper modelines myself, but failed. I checked back at xfree.org and some kind soul had posted the correct ones. Popped them in and it works fine. 1600x1024 in glorious 32-bit. I still have problems with the console text being corrupted after exiting X, but that is a minor issue to me.
I have to agree with an earlier poster, the beta OpenGL driver for Windows isn't very good. It seems to run OK with Quake II and SiN, but Half-life crashes. And though it looks better, the software renderer runs faster on my system (PII 350MHz), so I still use that instead.
Pricey sumbitch, but man, that's pretty smooth. Nice to see SGI making good on it's promises to the community and showing the world, as usual - who makes the kickin'est graphics hardware.
Change the Silicon Graphics logo image already.
yay sgi!!
crap logo..but great company.
Er, oops. :)
Indeed.
XFree86 runs on all the BSDs (the x86 ports, anyway). It also runs on OS/2. It's even ported to Windows NT on the Interix API.
very nice of kleenux community to
treat everything good happenning
happening to 'emseves.
this is xfree86, not kleenux, morons.
Didn't I read somewhere real rumors real recently about SGI being broken up and sold off? I think it was on Upside.com.
We already have near-death products like Wordperfect embracing Linux. Do we need near-death hardware vendors (i.e. the failed x86 wing of SGI) as well?
can do this as the connection to the SGI monitor is a propriatry interface (god I cant spell) this mean although it is open it is not a VESA standard like the TNT2 claims to be so you need a speail graphics card No9 it is then
VESA fudged the digital interface and it will take a while to get venders surporting it as they chose a solution wich was hard to get working while the laptop people where saying HEY look at this to all the venders so hope and prey that nVidia did the right thing and went for VESA
a poor student @ bournemouth uni in the UK (a deltic so please dont moan about spelling but the content)
If you use the frame buffer console, then the console's fine when you leave X. Just don't Alt-Function Key switch while an X display is running.
Despite its high price, this has been tempting me to save for it ever since I saw it several months ago.
...
...
I am in the unusual situation of moving into a vintage Airstream trailer, 22 feet long. This makes flat panels look especially appealing, because even my short-depth 17" Trinitron will have trouble squeezing in anywhere that I can still work on it.
If I could hook a computer with a Free OS up to this monitor with a DVD player, I would happily jettison my 13" television, which I use mainly for movie-playback anyhow. A 17.3" widescreen would be a much nicer way to watch So I Married an Axe Murderer
Someday
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
Support for the Revolution IV and the SGI flat planel
was added in XFree86 3.3.3.1, released in January 1999.
The code was contributed by Galen Brooks of #9.
all No9 cards that have gone before have had NOT very good surport in xfree or any x server to that matter
is the card any good ?
what are its features ?
oh well please tell me would you ?
cheers
john
a poor student @ bournemouth uni in the UK (a deltic so please dont moan about spelling but the content)
Until SGI decides to support DVD for their flatscreen for either Windows or Linux (neither is supported), screw them.
It's a beatiful monitor that is tied to their video card that does crappy 3D. At the current time, it's an absolute waste of money.
Put DVD on that beautiful 16x9 ratio basically HDTV player, and I'm there, but until then screw it. It would be nice to have an HDTV tuner that would run with it as well.
Got one for my birthday. Works find, but no brightness or contrast controls or power saver yet.
I use this card in Win98 and Linux, and the Windows driver support is terrible! I'm using their beta OpenGL driver, and it's barely functional, rendering this 3D card pretty useless for a lot of games. I wrote to #9 about it, and they said that there were no plans to update this driver.
I don't recommend this card if you ever plan to use it with Windows. (Linux works well, though.)
IO read somewhere that TNT2 based video cards will have support for flat screen monitors. TNT2 are killer 3D cards and have good drivers for Windows and Linux. Can someone confirm if they have tried this SGI flatscreen with TNT2?
FYI you can use setfont to fix it. It would be nice if X didn't trash the console though...
--- A Jesus Fish eating a Darwin Fish only proves Darwin's point.