From: doolitt@cebaf4.cebaf.gov (Larry Doolittle) Subject: Re: Diamond is out...who is in? Date: Fri, 2 Jul 1993 19:12:10 GMT
>I want a card that supports 24-bit color (for windoze) and is FAST.
>Hopefully all of this in the $500 max range. Also I want something
>that works well (i.e. with out kludges like for diamond cards) with
>XFree 1.3.
My understanding is that *no* chipsets are truly accelerated
as of XFree86 1.3, but *most* that can be, will be as of
2.0. If you want something *fast* and *now*, you have to
go with XS3-0.4, and then the two possible (modern) chipsets
are S3-'801 (805 for local bus variants), and '928.
Local bus is only for recent VL-BUS motherboards. If all
you are doing is upgrading video card, you want an ISA card.
STB reports their tests give VL-BUS a 25% edge in speed
with the 801/805 sibling chips. Ballpark price figures
are $150-$250 for '801/'805 boards and $250-$500 for '928 boards.
If you want my personal recommendation, try STB PowerGraph.
The PowerGraph VL-24 is the local bus version, and the
X-24 (or is it XL-24?) is the ISA version. Both come in
at about $200, have programmable oscillators (with unix
control software available as stbvl24.tar.z on sunsite.unc.edu),
and can do 24-bit color under windoze. I have the VL-24 and
like it a lot! I get 1024x768x8 NI at 70Hz.
- Larry Doolittle doolittle@cebaf.gov