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Xi Announces Hardware Accelerated 3D X Server
Thanks to Jeremy Chatfield for poking me about Xig [?] 's recent press release regarding them being the first to market a commercial hardware-accelerated 3D X
server. They will be showing at Comdex, next week, and shipping in December. Support for cards looks nice as well, with over 30 cards supported,from companies like 3Dlabs, ATI, Evans & Sutherland, Diamond, S3 and Matrox.
Does anyone know if this server will support games such as Q3test, specificaly on a TNT?
No support for Voodoo 3???
I have a feeling that there is probably a good-ish reason for this. Anyone know what it is?
After reading the mini flame war awhile back that involved Xi, I say let them keep their closed source X server. The disparaging comments and ads that the principles of Xi made about Xfree where horrible. So I say let this product wither on the vine or rot on the tree as Eve should have done with the fabled apple. I don't hold this opinion lightly. I am dying to get good accelerated 3D support for Linux. It is the last thing that my win32 box is required for. As soon as Xfree 4.0 is out, or a commercial server is availble from a decent company (like Precision Insight or Metro Link) I am there.
As an example, I'm currently playing with xmms. The deb file comes with an OpenGL plugin that runs quite slowly. However, if it could actually use the 3d acceleration of my voodoo 3 then it would run like the wind. I have a feeling that 3dFX cards don't actually support in-window 3d rendering, but other cards do, and they could be accelerated.
How about 3d modelling? This sort of thing really requires an accelerated X server.
I would really like to know when I will be able to run Quake3 (with a Hercules Dynamite TNT2 Ultra) as fast on Linux as on Win98
I can't even remember what it was I came here to get away from - Bob Dylan
Regardless, what functionality could pros need which isn't in the entertainment edition? Don't they realize OpenGL is OpenGL, and that to restrict the hardware based on what amounts to not paying as much for drivers is somewhat asinine? If the professional edition means having better/faster emulation for what the card doesn't support in hardware, that's fine, but if it means crippling the hardware, that's outrageous. Then again, $100 is a bit outrageous for a video card driver, too. :P
I'm just going to wait for XFree 4.0. It'll be out soon enough; in the meantime, Mesa's software renderer is enough for me. (Yes, it's slow, but that just helps me optimize my code even better. :)
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"'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.
"'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.
Quine "quine?
3Dfx cards can do in-window rendering, just it's not supported in any X server as yet. Hopefully XFree 4 will have a good driver that can do this, tho.
Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"
If you take closer glance at the list of cards they support so far, you'll notice that only a few of current chipsets are supported. I'm sure the list will increase rapidly, and eagerly await support f.ex. the GeForce 256 chipsets. ...So I could buy one. :)
If, and only if, you get the AX 5.0 with it, otherwise, it's a bit much, I'd love to be able to upgrade AX5.0 with these driver, but If I have to pay $99, then I start paying too much. I already paid the obligatory $99 for the server so I could go to 1600x1200 on my rage128, (long before SuSE came up with their driver), if ATI Lets developers get their hands on the 3d programming specs, I may end up back at XFree86, and use the GPL Rage128 OpenGL drivers. (I can see why they're doing this though, specs are hard to get when you will probably end up publishing the source, kinda makes an NDA useless, XiG doesn't have that problem)
Stupid is as stupid dies.
Yes, they're the first to release a commercial hardware OpenGL-capable X server for Linux. nVidia released an alpha-quality free OpenGL-capable X server quite some time ago, Matrox released the specs for one... I can't help but wonder if Xi has taken the various design documents put on the web by the various parties developing the free servers and used them to try to undercut them, beating them to market and trying to make a first impression.
As I've said elsewhere in this thread, I'm waiting for XFree 4.0. I know they can deliver, and will put out something which will hopefully work much better, and will certainly be freer. I'd be willing to accept a slightly slower OpenGL performance if it meant not having to spend $100 for a video card driver. So far the various clued-in vendors seem to be supporting the XFree efforts, in the meantime.
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"'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.
"'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.
Quine "quine?
Basically, this amounts to "only professionals need multiple GL contexts, and so you need to pay 2.5x as much to get multiple GL contexts." I find this somewhat outrageous, myself. They also make a big deal about features which are standard parts of OpenGL and which, as I already stated, are basically just parts of a graphics card driver which are only being enabled for people willing to pay more.
Also, 64 MB RAM for an X server? That's just beyond ridiculous. (That's for both the entertainment and pro versions.)
None of the feature lists say anything about GLX (network-transparent OpenGL), either. XFree can do GLX now.
Oh, another thing: they are a bit incomplete, at best, when saying what cards they support. The only nVidia chipset they seem to support is the TNT2 - they don't have any listed support for the TNT, or the Riva 128 series. They also don't have any listed supported Matrox cards. For their sake I hope they just forgot to complete their supported cards list.
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"'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.
"'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.
Quine "quine?
My advice: Don't buy this GL server. Wait for XFree 4. Just because they're first to market doesn't mean they're the best; personally, I can't stand the thought of supporting any company which resorts to Microsoftian tactics to try to put themselves above the rest of the Linux world.
Speaking of Microsoftian tactics, they even have separate versions of their CDE for executives and developers each on desktop and laptop computers! Four different versions "optimized" to the supposedly different needs of different users, rather than having a single product which can be tuned to the needs of the individual! Pathetic.
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"'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.
"'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.
Quine "quine?
I ran XIG's acceleratedX for about 3 months because I thought it would be "accelerated" and thus faster than Xfree. After having AX crash fairly regularly, and not provide me with a signifigant speed increase, I've gone back to XFree. XFree actually feels a little faster. I'm not sure if that's because it actually is, or if I feel better knowing that the free, open product is more stable than the closed product that claims to be more stable... BTW, this was true on my FireGL 1000, Imagine 128e, and TNT-based card.
Why do they bother? Because they have a good product. They support more cards than XFree86 does overall (last I checked atleast).
Not everything in your happy little linux world needs to be free for it to be good. A Free X server can't support as much hardware as a commercial one, because the commercial one will pay companies to write drivers or for specs, XFree86 can't afford to do this.
Don't forget that we have an open source project that works right now. Accelerated GLX for XFree86 3.3.5 supports Matrox G200 and G400 as well as Riva TNT2 cards. Support for Rage Pro chipsets is on the way, too. So you might want to consider contributing some code to the project rather than shelling out for the new Xi server...
F0 07 C7 C8
A lot of people are saying the same thing: "wait for XFree 4.0". I've been hearing it for over a year. So, the question is: when?
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If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.
"the first to market a commercial hardware-accelerated 3D X server." Pardon my ignorance but haven't SGI been doing that for a decade?
-- SIGFPE
I really don't like it when people complain about microsoft on technical merits (esp since i think they make quite decent software & hardware most of the time), but it's a different matter when you all abuse the hell out of programmers who just want to make a living. They aren't as big as Microsoft, so they can't survive bashing like this.
I can't help but feel really sorry for relatively small companies who try to make a living, but then get bashed around by a community which really should either support them or shutup.
BTW XFree is more unstable, and yes, I do believe it is one of the most unstable aspects of Linux (since it's so important too). XFree + Netscape 4.x == RUN, argh RUN!!
interesting they give your post about another (possibly better) site a 0 so must people won't see it, god i'm so tired of lame ass slashdot
Anonymous Coward's always start with a score of 0
As the signal to noise ratio of AC's is fairly low, it makes sense to penalize AC's initially so that people can filter them out.
people shouldn't have to tailor make their PC's to use an OS...if I bought a new gfx card, I don't want to downgrade to something less powerful just to use XFree86.
Folks, I come from a Windows background, and 5.0 versions of many proprietary software products crash and burn more often then prerelease stuff from OSS coders! Being a commercial product does not make something better or more stable. Heck, the mighty Windows 2000(TM) RC2 crashed spectacularly on me the other day! Took everything down with it, too, just because the Windows Explorer crashed. So in conclusion, stop complaining about OSS stuff, Enlightenment, etc. If you love commercial stuff so much, please stop running an OSS operating system, and switch to something more "stable" and "reliable" like Windows. I'm sure when you contact Microsoft requesting a bug fix, they'll be very responsive, too! *Snicker*
--"A man's Palm is his best friend."
--"A man's Palm is his best friend."
(IIIx, that is...hehehe)
That's a nice bit of rhetoric and perhaps FUD. However, the fact remains that you are still spending a non-trivial amount of money to ensure compatibility. In most instances you can ensure that compatibility with the same cost just by replacing hardware.
This also eliminates any future need for you to deal with the extra complexity of dealing with XiG again for any future version of your Linux distribution.
Furthermore, there is little likelihood that you will have to downgrade to something less powerful just to use Xfree. The vendors that are supporting Linux now are the top tier. If anything, you would be bending over backwards with XiG just to use something inferior like an ATI product.
AccelX doesn't even support the TNT correctly... the *FASTEST* refresh rate I can get with my TNT and my Optiquest V95 (19") is not what I asked for in the config. I asked for 1600x1200 @ 75, witch my hardware is capable of with XFree86. Now, I get 1600x1200 @ 66.7 even if my /etc/Xaccel.ini look like this...
[SCREEN]
Board = "nvidia/tnt-16.xqa";
Monitor = "viewsonic/v95.vda";
Depth = 24;
EnergyStar = YES;
SoftwareCursor = YES;
Desktop = 1600x1200;
[RESOLUTIONS]
1600x1200@75;
Thats pretty bad for a 100$ piece of software!
The reply I got from their techsupport was : Yes.... we know, your'e not the only one to complain. We will check that out for future releases.
WOW what a serious compagnie!
So guess what... XFree is what I use! =))
Unix is user friendly... it just chooses it's friends selectively!!
Thanks for this link. It seems like a cool site.
Be insightful. If you can't be insightful, be informative.
If you can't be informative, use my name
"something inferior like an ATI product."
Funny, really it is. Actually, everyone I know who has an ATI board is more than happy with it. Never has problems, etc. And I'm not talking about costs, yes the X server costs more...I have no reason nor need to buy AccelX, but the fact remains, that it's somethign you shoudln't have to do.
>Blender/GIMP offer the 3d tools for the GNU generation.
Blender isn't GNU. And gimp isn't 3d.
>SGI may have invented OpenGL, but Linux perfected it!
The only thing linux has perfected is idiotic
statments like yours.
Commercial software gives people someone to rightfully bitch to if it doesn't work.
As a rather unsatisfied Xig customer, let me address this comment. Yes, you can "rightfully bitch" to Xig if you aren't happy with their product. I hope it makes you happy to do so, because it won't do much else--the only satisfaction I have ever gotten from Xig about some serious failures of their servers is "Hmm. We may have a fix for that coming up. Watch our ftp site for the next patch, which should be out sometime in the future."
And that's when they're being pleasant. The normal tone of their tech support is rather more caustic ... I'd have to rate it as "grudging". Like they were doing me a favor by fixing their own mistakes. Jeremy Chatfield especially seems to have a chip on his shoulder.
I am now using AccelX 4.1 with my Matrox Millenium II. It has all the latest patches, and it still biffs one or two characters on every page. It's a transient failure--if I repaint the page, different letters are blotted out. Probably why they haven't fixed it yet. So why don't I use XFree? Because the latest version I've tried (3.3.1--old now, admittedly) had even more serious problems. I'd drop AccelX in a heartbeat if those were fixed. Hmm ... maybe I should download the latest and try again!
I've been using XFree 3.9.16 with an unfinished Voodoo3 driver. Not only is it faster than 3.3.5 but its more stable. I haven't had it crash ever.
XFree86 is just over a meg and you can load font renderers and drivers as you need to. Plus xinerama is something no one else is supporting. I'm using enlightenment and its working great.
It has been statistically shown that helmets increase the risk of head injury.
I've been using AccelX on and off for years now, since before Caldera bundled it with their first product. And here's my analysis of the company, to add a data point to help folks make an informed decision.
Pros:
Cons:
On the other hand, I've never actually gotten a MetroX server to even work, so I cannot even compare their product to the others.
I hope this helps folks in their quest for knowledge.
Some times these baby linux weenies get 'right on my tit' (to use a turn of phase common in Yorkshire, England. So a little history lesson is in order for those of narrow vision posessed of flame throwers. The port of X11 to X86 unix that XFree86 is based on was contributed by one Thomas Roell. It supported only the Tseng series chip. 3000 I think. Mr. Roell is boss of XiG. So please don't toast his company, because he provided the first free X servers on Intel UNIX. You owe the lad a debt if you use XFree86. And if you want to look at the XiG product, then you can get a trial license. If you don't like it, ditch it -- but dont flame unless you have tried it. Caveat Emptor. n.
Isn't Xinside the one who started all this DRI stuff for XFree?
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
I assume that you are serious about that statement, which allows me to put you down with a clean consience. First. Windows has better HW acceleration that ANY OS on intel. Beats BeOS too (but the graphics card makers don't speed a huge amount of time tweeking alternative OS code now do the? Look for BeOS to whoop some HW accellerated ass since I think they will code a few good drivers instead of nVidia family and you have 50% or more of the market right there.) But I digress. SGI just plain has better hardware. I doubt even the new nVida GPU will stand up to one of those infinate reality monster cards in SGIs. Second, Blender is crap. It has the most confusing interface (what hotkeys only!) and crappy layout of any 3D renderer I have worked wiht. (MAX, Truespace, Pixel3D, etc.) When compared to MAX or Truespace it gets its ass kicked. Second, GIMP is still nowhere near photoshop, and the buttons aren't in color. Third, well you could render titanic on BSD or anything that doesn't crash every few minutes. If you are talking about modleing, that was done on Windows NT workstations running Alphas. Lastly, linux doesn't even have a full open GL library, how could it have prefected it? (Mesa is not fully GL complient, not only officialy, it lacks some features in 1.2) Addendum. Even this xIG thing is only GL 1.1.1, the world has moved on to 1.2 if you hadn't noticed!
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
If he had an account then he wouldn't be able to astroturf.
That certainly wasn't the point of my post. I'll admit, many pre-release apps are buggy, but hey, they're pre-release. And this does include many apps being developed for Gnome, etc. But as for other major pre-release software (such as Enlightenment)... I find E far more stable than Windows. And Gnome itself is pretty stable as well. Add to that the fact that this is free software (free as in both freedom, AND beer), and I think you have a great combination. I guess it all depends on the software you try, and the developers themselves. You have to expect that pre-releases will be buggy - and if they aren't (as in many cases), then more power to those developers.
--"A man's Palm is his best friend."
--"A man's Palm is his best friend."
(IIIx, that is...hehehe)
Did anybody else notice that a link off the main page mentions anti-aliased fonts as a feature in the "professional" version of the 3D X. It did mention that it was based on hardware compatibility. Does anyone know which of the 30 cards is considered compatible with anti-aliased fonts?
---jeff
Sure it isn't so nice from them, but that's what all commercial compagnies do..
Is that a good reason not to buy their products even if they are good?
Okay, I tried the AX5 demo and I'm using Xfree86 3.3.5 and both suck on my Diamond G460, especially in 24bit mode, but hey, a lot of people are using it happily on their laptops etc..
I take it you're also against others, like 4front's OSS, VMware etc.. Well I tell you this, I rather have payware, than waiting and waiting for things that are suppose to happen.. I would love to get my hands on a commercial product like a DVD player (MpegTV?), with the Cinemaster engine or like VaroDVD running under Linux.( yes I tried Nist, nice, but why don't we have a better MPEG2 player yet? I thought MPEG2 already exist for quite some time, anyway..)
Let me tell you about my travails with Xig and GLX. Our research group just bought Xi's ~$300 package that promises to allow us to run on an SGI, display on Linux. (Which I couldn't get XFree to do). Well, imagine our surprise when we fire up this expensive boondoggle, and find that we are getting the same error!
Needless to say, I fired off a pretty scathing email to their tech support, to which I got a "we are forwarding this to our head programmer." Somewhere along the way, his reply got lost, but when I finally got it, it was basically a very techincal, "It is the application's fault for not doing OpenGL right."
Well, this maybe true, and I am tracking it down. But I have my doubts about this explaination. It is too convienent... It is like they know I don't have time to fiddle with this...
BTW, I promise to post a nice little ditty about Xig if this all eventually turns out to be the application's fault. But ofr now, I am pissed.
The only 3dfx cards that support in a window rendering are the Voodoo Rush, Voodoo Banshee, and Voodoo 3 series cards.
Voodoo 1 and Voodoo 2 use a pass-through trick to send their video signals to the monitor, therefore only being able to display in fullscreen mode.
Look at the card list supported in Xi Graphics 3D Accelerated-X and you'll see big name workstation OpenGL cards that previously have not been able to run under Linux. Look at the "Professional" edition of the product and you'll see, "Ability to run multiple windowed 3D renderings", etc. Their main draw is going to be people who can't wait for 3D support from XFree86 and need *real* OpenGL 1.1.1 compliance, not this Mesa 3.0 GL-clone, and also people who will want better support for their expensive workstation graphics cards than what's available elsewhere. :)
I've noticed a huge influx of ACs lately who don't seem to understand the concept of a default score. I've gotten into quite a few flamewars recently because people were wondering why my crap posts are "moderated up" when really they start at 2, due to my high karma.
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"'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.
"'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.
Quine "quine?
Using OpenGL to do rendering is more common than you'd think. Also, there's more to rendering than doing the final render - it's nice to have a preview of the image too, and even if it's at lower quality, it's better to wait 10 seconds for a high-quality OpenGL render than 10 minutes for a low-quality raytrace.
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"'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.
"'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.
Quine "quine?
For the most part, it's automatic. Quake3 will be pretty much automatic, for example, since it's linked against OpenGL correctly (i.e. dynamically against libGL). Quake2 is kinda borked in how it's linked to OpenGL, and so can only work with fxmesa unless you do a lot of serious tweaking. I'm not sure how Quake1 is. Since most Linux programs are distributed in source form, on average all you have to do is recompile, and at worst you'll just have to fire off an email to the maintainers of the program to properly link their binary dynamically against libGL (and ones improperly dynamically linked to libMesaGL, which has been deprecated, can be coerced into working with libGL anyway by just symlinking libMesaGL to libGL).
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"'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.
"'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.
Quine "quine?
My opinion (and this is, of course, just opinion) is somewhat the opposite... I find KDE/Qt to be much better, in many respects, than CDE/Motif. Qt is much more streamlined, efficient, and modern, and KDE is, as a result much faster. KDE is also much more flexible and configurable, and easier to use (IMO). It also looks much nicer, and if you don't like the look of it, you can change it easily.
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"'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.
"'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.
Quine "quine?
http://www.rarcoa.com/~thebard/X11-perf-news.epl has some decent benchmarks ... perhaps later on some XiG benchmarks and MetroX will be worked in there, but who knows.
This is particularly funny: Hm. I suppose I HAVE been living in the stone age, with my GLX-supported, 1600x1200x32-bit@85Hz Matrox G200 and Gnome. What I need is MOTIF! And a sharp stick in my eye! Because I'm just not using a Complete Graphical OS!
Well THANK GOD they support Slackware! It uses a DIFFERENT KERNEL after all, and we want to be sure the MS BOB gets ported to it! I love these people! I kiss them!
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
Easy solution: unless you really think your post deserves that +1 for some reason, check that "No Score +1 Bonus" widget right below this textarea, like I'm doing now.
Gates' Law: Every 18 months, the speed of software halves.
I didn't see any qualification in the trailer as to what this was the first hardware 3D X server for.
Hardware accelerated 3D integrated with X has been around for a looooong time - Tektronix, SGI, etc.
As for current standards, OpenGL in X has been supported for 2-3 years by SGI, HP, Sun and countless others.
Are we in danger of becoming as introspective as the boys in Redmond....
I wonder whatever happened to the days that an automatic +1 was a mark of pride, a reward. Come on, seriously now, does any post inherently deserve a higher initial score?
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"'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.
"'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.
Quine "quine?
To the question: Why bother?
With X and in general, "supported" and "unsupported" isn't as simple as it sounds. It's the EXTENT of support that is relevant, as well as the speed of the X server. It's very likely that even a fine peice of software like XFree86 4.0 may lack some features high-end CAD users want. Not all video cards may be taken fully advantage of, and some 3d features could be missing. Sad but true: some of the proprieatary chipsets are not well supported by free software projects because the hardware makers require non-disclosure agreements to procure spec.
When it comes down to it, there is room for Xi competing with XFree86. Let's home XFree86 4 does pull through as the established powerful 3d X server, as we all prefer the free to the non-free software.
To free software!
However... Have you considered the cost of, say, a PlayStation 2 as compared to a CD/DVD drive + a 3D accelerator card + TV output convertor + sound card? Granted the PS2 will not be a good "computer" (integer performance is weak), but it seems to be a wonderful "peripherials package" for one.
Given that a PS2 has plenty of I/O connectors (FireWire is especially interesting), it should be possible to run a (3D accelerated!) X-windows server "game" on it, and access that from the linux box. Likewise it should be possible to access the DVD and sound capabilities from the Linux box as if they were a local device, given appropriate servers running on the PS2 and "device drivers" or clients on the Linux box.
And, best of all, one could still play games and DVDs on the PS2. The combination would be just the thing for finally getting rid of Windows out of my house...
i've seen this talked about earlier but never saw a straight answer. Will Accel-X or even xfree4.0 support window'd rendering for the voodoo banshee/voodoo3?
It was never a mark of pride or a reward. From the start, it was designed to save moderation points by automatically bumping up posts whose posters had a good history of making worthwhile posts that people reading at 2 would want to read. However, because high-karma-wielders wanted to sometimes make posts that weren't worthwhile of positive moderation, Rob added that little checkbox. Karma isn't something to show off or compare: it serves a purpose, and really doesn't mean anything beyond that. High karma isn't a sign of worth; all it means is that you post what moderators like. I've made many posts which I feel were moderated too highly. Someone who reads at 2 shouldn't have to wade through offtopic one-liners made by high-karma people displaying their mark of pride.
Gates' Law: Every 18 months, the speed of software halves.