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List:       linux-elitists
Subject:    [linux-elitists] 3D acceleration, was Heise covers Greg K-H
From:       "D. Joe Anderson" <deejoe () raccoon ! com>
Date:       2005-11-08 15:26:26
Message-ID: 20051108152626.GD500 () etrumeus ! com
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On Tue, Nov 08, 2005 at 02:55:25PM +0100, Eugen Leitl wrote:
> On Mon, Nov 07, 2005 at 02:19:45PM -0800, Don Marti wrote:
> 
> > Are Intel graphics teh sux0rz?  I want stable, I do
> > almost all 2D, and I don't play high-end games -- but
> > I won't taint the kernel and I don't want the system
> > to choke on the occasional OpenGL data viz thingy.
> 
> Sounds like a case for Matrox. It seems that recently
> their attitude towards 3d drivers has changed, though:
> http://www.linux.com/article.pl?sid=05/09/26/2034229

    On the other hand, if you're buying a Matrox card for its 3D
    rendering capabilities, you've been badly misinformed. 
    Matrox has never been a top contender for 3D rendering
    performance -- its main focus for the G series has always
    been high-quality 2D graphics on multiple displays.

Grrrr.  The thing that cheeses me about this sort of claim is
the assumption that I need bleeding-edge 3D acceleration.  I
don't.  Macromolecular crystallography just doesn't advance at
the same rate as does 3D graphics hardware--oftentimes,
yesterday's card, provided it has *some* 3D acceleration--is
good enough for showing a classful of students the current state
of even the largest structures, like this recent iteration of
the ribosome structure:

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/310/5749/793

The trick, though, is that yesterday's chipsets with
free-software support aren't often available in quantity, new,
through channels I'm allowed to use (eg, not eBay), on cards
that work with the interfaces available on today's mainboards.

Free is a feature.  Please, Mr. Reviewer Man, don't assume that
because I want 3D acceleration that that is the only feature I
care about.  I may be badly misinformed, but it doesn't seem
you're in a postion to help correct that.

-- 
D. Joe




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