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Re: [ossig] XFree86 4.3 is out and has 3D accel for radeon!
I don't know the details about this, but I know Maya,
the high end graphics app was recently ported to Linux
(previously only NT, IRIX). Graphics card vendors
make a lot of money from their very high end workstation
cards (I think) so it makes sense that they are all
well represented on Linux.
Seems like the recent trend is for a company who
are struggling to keep market share whilst keeping
their costs down, to do the
'split out an open source version thing':
Sun (StarOffice -> OpenOffice)
Netscape (Netscape -> Mozilla)
RealNetworks (RealPlayer -> Helix DNA)
NVidia are certainly struggling to keep market share
at the moment. They were Goliath for 2 years,
now they are playing catchup.
Imran
--
Imran William Smith
Project Manager, Open Source Development,
Mimos Berhad, Malaysia
Asian Open Source Centre : http://www.asiaosc.org
Mimos open source : http://opensource.mimos.my
Mukhsein Johari wrote:
Hello all,
This is an interesting development. Previously, nVidia made available 3D accel drivers for xfree but is was closed source - downloadable only from their website (tried Unreal T 2003 with this driver, very nice!). Not too long after that, ATI also made their driver available for linux and now FreeBSD too.
Question is, is this xfree 4.3 driver a _different_ driver from the ATI? It states, on xfree86.org that the radeon driver's 3D accel includes TCL acceleration. If this driver is open source then this bodes well indeed for the future of open source unix 3D workstations and gaming stations.
Apparently, there is also 3D acceleration work for SiS chips but it has not been done for Mesa 4.x and hence has been disabled for xfree86 4.3. Pity but it means that it may well be done at some point in the future, since the SiS Xabre (aka sis330) is a pretty decent chip for the price. (according to tom's hardware better than geforce4 mx440).
Interesting times ahead indeed.
Regards,
Mukhsein Johari
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