Bryan J. Smith wrote:
On Tue, 2006-05-23 at 10:58 +0100, William Gallafent wrote:
Exactly! ... since one can buy a brand new (and _much_ faster than TNT2) nVIDIA card (geforce mx4000) which _is_ supported by nVIDIA's accelerated drivers, on AGP for less than UKP20 (or PCI for less than 30), then why not just do that to use xgl? Then sell the TNT2 on eBay (to a museum ;)
Agreed. Although you have to be careful on AGP voltage.
Normally, anything NV28 or newer is AGP 3.0 _only_. That's a major issue when it comes to voltage: http://thebs413.blogspot.com/2005/11/agp-agp-pro-pci-and-pci-x-voltage.html
But the NV18 (MX4000) cards are typically designed to be universally AGP 1.5/0.8V across AGP 3.0, 2.0 and even 1.0 (with rear exception) compatible.
Or, one could just install an old enough version of xorg/XFree86 that you can use an old enough version of nVIDIA's accelerated driver. Or port the UtahGLX driver to DRI!
The DRI/UtahGLX support for nVidia is pretty much NV0x only (maybe NV10/15 limitedly) and _lacks_ features for compiz last time I checked.
Those developments were based on -- and I wish more people knew this -- nVidia's *100% SOURCE CODE RELEASE WITH OPENGL/GLX ACCELERATION!* Yes, nVidia released 100% of the source code in the XFree86 3.3.x days, changing identifiers and other things to protect IP.
Unfortunately, it didn't stop the lawyers from Intel, Microsoft and others from sending cease'n desist letters. That's when nVidia decided to move the 3D code to an unified model across all OSes, with a dynamic loader.
Intel's IP is at the heart of ATI and nVidia's kernel driver. IP Intel itself won't release for its own Linux drivers, but key to the unified model. Long story.
Could you tell us the long story? :) According to this article: http://news.com.com/New+Linux+look+fuels+old+debate/2100-7344_3-6061491.html "On the flip side, Intel believes it can use open-source drivers to gain against Nvidia and ATI. The strategy parallels the chipmaker's earlier move with wireless networking support http://news.com.com/Linux+gets+Intel+help+with+Centrino/2100-7344_3-5172162...., and it has won an ally in Red Hat. "Their partnering with the open-source community is a pretty strong advantage," Stevens said. Intel has new plans for its open-source graphics driver work, though Hohndel wouldn't reveal details. "Our (graphics) drivers are open source. We are bringing out some interesting new stuff. It's not released yet," he said."