---

Accelerated-X supports new chipsets, adds support for more boards

Seen on C.O.L.A.

Accelerated-X 5.0 has recently been updated with new support for chips
or to explicitly support some boards using previously supported chips.

New:

        3Dlabs Permedia 2v (Appian Jeronimo Pro 8M 4 head board)
        

Additional support for:
        Diamond Speedstar A50 8M (SiS 6326)
        Diamond Monster Fusion PCI, Guillemot Phoenix Maxi Gamer 16MB,
                Creative 3D Blaster Banshee 16MB (3dfx Voodoo Banshee)
        Dell Inspiron 3500 (NeoMagic 256AV)

The updates are for the Multi-head, Laptop and standard desktop X
servers.  The update files are found in:

        ftp://ftp.xig.com/pub/updates/accelx/laptop/5.0
        ftp://ftp.xig.com/pub/updates/accelx/desktop/5.0/intel
        ftp://ftp.xig.com/pub/updates/accelx/multihead/5.0

In each directory an INDEX file describes all the updates available.

+++3Dlabs Permedia 2v

This is a variant of the 3Dlabs Permedia 2.  After the update has been
applied, the Permedia 2v is recognised by Plug and Play probing for
configuration, and can be configured as a generic 3Dlabs Permedia 2
based board.  Benchmarks for Accelerated-X are given below.  XFree86
does not appear to offer support for the Permedia 2v, so no benchmark
can be quoted.  Results were obtained using a Pentium II/350MHz system
with 100MHz Front Side Bus and AGP 2x sideband supported.

Accelerated-X 5.0

Board                   Depth
                        8bpp            16bpp           24bpp

AccelSTAR II            24              21              18
ELSA Synergy            24              21              17

Support for a multi-headed board from Appian has been added to
Multi-head Accelerated-X 5.0.  The Appian Jeronimo Pro board supports 4
attached displays, each with its own Permedia 2v.  The Permedia 2V will
be supported by the Accelerated-X OpenGL Tech Demo Evolution 2.

+++Diamond SpeedStar A50 8M (SiS 6326)

The SiS 6326 has been supported for many months.  This update adds
explicit support for the Diamond SpeedStar A50 8M board.  Benchmarks for
Accelerated-X are given below.  The XFree86 Project offers generic
support for the 6326, but the XFree86 X server 3.3.3.1 for the SiS 6326
does not appear to work with the Diamond SpeedStar A50.

Server                  Depth
                        8bpp            16bpp           24bpp
Accelerated-X 5.0       17              13              10

The SiS 6326 is aleady supported by the Accelerated-X OpenGL Tech Demo
Evolution 1.

+++3dfx Voodoo Banshee (Diamond Monster Fusion AGP, Guillemot Phoenix
Maxi Gamer, Creative 3D Blaster, Pace 3D Edge)

The Voodoo Banshee was recently added as a supported graphics chip. 
Initially, support was limited to the Diamond Monster Fusion AGP.  This
update adds explicit board entries for several other Voodoo Banshee
boards, slightly improves the speed on the Diamond Monster Fusion AGP
and makes the generic support likely to work on any Voodoo Banshee
implementation.  The 3dfx Voodoo Banshee is available in AGP and PCI
versions, some with (faster) SGRAM and some with (slower) SDRAM.  There
are also different speeds of memory used with the Voodoo Banshee. 
Although the Diamond Monster Fusion AGP is the fastest board currently
supported by Accelerated-X 5.0, other implementations of the Voodoo
Banshee may offer speeds lower than the Matrox G200, number two in our
benchmarks.

The benchmarks given below were extracted from a Pentium II/350MHz
system with 100MHz FSB and AGP 2x support.  There is no support for the
Voodoo Banshee from the XFree86 Project, but http://linux3d.org offers a
beta version, which will eventually be folded into XFree86 4.0.  The
author has stated in private email that the performance of his X server
should be increased by the final release of his X server.

Board                   Server                  Depth
                                                8bpp    16bpp   24bpp
Diamond Mon Fus AGP     Accelerated-X 5.0       44      38      32
                        Linux3D.org Beta        18      15      8

Guillemot Maxi Gamer    Accelerated-X 5.0       42      36      31
                        Linux3D.org Beta        17      14      7

Creative 3D Blaster     Accelerated-X 5.0       40      34      29
                        Linux3D.org Beta        Server inoperable

Resolution/refresh tested               1280x1024@85Hz          1280x1024@75Hz
                                                        1280x1024@85Hz

Support for the 3dfx Voodoo Banshee in the Accelerated-X server does not
imply that the Voodoo Banshee will be supported by future Accelerated-X
Hardware Accelerated OpenGL implementations.  3dfx Voodoo 3 based boards
are not supported by the Voodoo Banshee update.

+++Dell Inspiron 3500 (NeoMagic 256AV)

The NeoMagic 256AV has been supported for many months.  This update adds
explicit support for the implementation on the Dell Inspiron 3500.  The
benchmarks were obtained on the Dell Inspiron 3500 at full internal
screen resolution.  Hot Key switching between internal and external
displays is supported, with seperate configuration of internal and
external displays.  APM is supported with display recovery after sleep.

Server                  Depth
                        24bpp
Accelerated-X 5.0       9.5
XF86_SVGA 3.3.3.1       2.3

There is also a general Laptop Accelerated-X update to correct a problem
handling the APM daemon.

Cheers, JeremyC.
--- 
Jeremy Chatfield, Xi Graphics  mailto:jdc@xig.com  tel:+44(0)1234.710030 
 Commercial X Products: Servers, CDE, contracts and custom development
    http://www.xig.com ftp://ftp.xig.com/ mailto:majordomo@xig.com
     tel:+1.303.298.7478  fax:+1.303.298.1406  mailto:info@xig.com

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