Summary of DRI driver features |
Vendor | ATI | Intel | Matrox | 3dfx | 3DLabs | Sun | S3 | SiS | Trident | ||||||
Chip family | R200 | R100 | R128 | Mach64 | i810/815 | i830/845 | G200/400 | Voodoo3 | Voodoo5 | Gamma | FFB | Virge | SiS | Trident | |
Example Cards | Radeon 8500 FireGL 8700/8800 Radeon 9000 Radeon 9100 |
Radeon Radeon VIVO Radeon VE Radeon 7x00 |
3D Rage Fury 3D Rage Magnum XPERT 2000 XPERT 128 XPERT 99 All-in-Wonder 128 |
3D Rage Pro 3D Rage LT Pro 3D Rage XL 3D Rage Mobility XPERT 98/LCD/XL XPERT@Play/Work All-in-Wonder Pro |
i810/815 chipsets | i830/845 chipsets | Millenium G200 Millenium G400 Millenium G450 Mystique G200 |
Voodoo3 Banshee Velocity 100/200 |
Voodoo4 4500 Voodoo5 5500 |
Oxygen GMX 2000 | Creator Creator3D |
card names? | card names? | CyberBladeXP | |
Primary Authors | Tungsten Graphics | VA Linux Tungsten Graphics |
Precision Insight VA Linux |
Gareth Hughes Leif Delgass José Fonseca |
Precision Insight VA Linux |
2D/3D, others | Precision Insight VA Linux |
Precision Insight VA Linux |
Precision Insight VA Linux |
Precision Insight | Red Hat | Max Lingua | SiS | Alan Hourihane | |
Operating Systems | Linux FreeBSD |
Linux FreeBSD |
Linux FreeBSD |
Linux | Linux | Linux | Linux FreeBSD |
Linux FreeBSD |
Linux FreeBSD |
Linux | Linux | Linux | Linux | Linux | |
Architecture | x86 | YES (PCI cards require Option "ForcePCIMode") | YES (PCI cards require Option "ForcePCIMode") | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES |
Alpha | YES | YES | YES | untested | no | no | no | YES | YES | no | no | no | no | no | |
PowerPC | YES | YES | YES | YES (MMIO) | no | no | untested | untested | untested | no | no | no | no | no | |
Driver Name | r200_dri.so | radeon_dri.so | r128_dri.so | mach64_dri.so | i810_dri.so | i830_dri.so | mga_dri.so | tdfx_dri.so | tdfx_dri.so | gamma_dri.so | ffb_dri.so | s3v_dri.so | sis_dri.so | trident_dri.so | |
Kernel Module | radeon.o | radeon.o | r128.o | mach64.o | i810.o | i830.o | mga.o | tdfx.o | tdfx.o | gamma.o | ? | s3v.o | sis.o | trident_dri.o | |
2D XFree86 Driver | radeon_drv.o | radeon_drv.o | r128_drv.o | ati_drv.o, atimisc_drv.o | i810_drv.o | i810_drv.o | mga_drv.o | tdfx_drv.o | tdfx_drv.o | glint_drv.o | sunffb_drv.o | s3virge_drv.o | sis_drv.o | trident_drv.o | |
Hardware Stencil | YES (@32bpp) | YES (@32bpp) | YES (@32bpp) | no | no | YES (@32bpp) | YES (@32bpp) | no | YES (@32bpp) | no | YES (bpp?) | ? | YES (bpp?) | no | |
Hardware Alpha Channel | YES (@32bpp) | YES (@32bpp) | no | no | no | YES (@32bpp) | YES (@32bpp) | no | YES (@32bpp) | YES (@32bpp) | YES (@32bpp) | ? | YES (bpp?) | no | |
Hardware TCL | YES | YES | no | no | no | no | no | no | no | YES | no | no | no | no | |
GL_ARB_multitexture (units) | YES (2?) | YES (2?) | YES (2) | YES (2) | YES (2) | YES (2) | YES (G200:1, G400:2) | YES (2) | YES (2) | no | no | no | no | no | |
GL_ARB/SGIS_texture_border_clamp | YES | YES | no | no | no | YES | no | no | no | no | no | no | no | no | |
GL_ARB_texture_cube_map | YES* | no | no | no | no | no | no | no | no | no | no | no | no | no | |
GL_ARB/EXT_texture_env_add | YES | YES | YES | no | YES | YES | YES (G400) | YES | YES | no | no | no | no | no | |
GL_ARB/EXT_texture_env_dot3 | YES | YES | no | no | no | YES | no | no | no | no | no | no | no | no | |
GL_ARB/EXT_texture_env_combine | YES | YES | no | no | no | YES | no | no | YES | no | no | no | no | no | |
GL_ARB_texture_mirrored_repeat | YES | YES | YES | no | YES | YES | no | no | no | no | no | no | no | no | |
GL_ATI_texture_env_combine3 | YES | YES | no | no | no | no | no | no | no | no | no | no | no | no | |
GL_ATI_texture_mirror_once | YES | YES | no | no | no | no | no | no | no | no | no | no | no | no | |
GL_EXT_blend_color | YES | YES (sw) | YES (sw) | YES (sw) | YES (sw) | YES | no | no | no | no | no | no | no | no | |
GL_EXT_blend_func_separate | no | no | no | no | no | YES | no | no | no | no | no | no | no | no | |
GL_EXT_blend_logic_op | YES | YES | no | no | no | no | no | no | no | no | no | no | no | no | |
GL_EXT_blend_minmax | YES | YES (sw) | YES (sw) | YES (sw) | YES (sw) | YES | no | no | no | no | no | no | no | no | |
GL_EXT_blend_subtract | YES | YES | YES (sw) | YES (sw) | YES (sw) | YES | no | no | no | no | no | no | no | no | |
GL_EXT_fog_coord | no | no | no | no | no | YES | YES | no | no | no | no | no | no | no | |
GL_EXT_paletted_texture | no | no | no | no | no | no | no | YES | YES | no | no | no | no | no | |
GL_EXT_secondary_color | YES | YES | no | no | no | YES | YES | no | no | no | no | no | no | no | |
GL_EXT_shared_texture_palette | no | no | no | no | no | no | no | no | no | no | no | no | no | no | |
GL_EXT_stencil_wrap | YES | no | no | no | YES (sw) | YES | YES | no | YES | no | no | no | no | no | |
GL_EXT/SGIS_texture_edge_clamp | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES (G400) | no | no | no | no | no | no | no | |
GL_EXT_texture_filter_anisotropic | YES | YES | no | no | no | YES | no | no | no | no | no | no | no | no | |
GL_EXT_texture_lod_bias | YES | YES | no | no | YES | YES | no | YES | YES | no | no | no | no | no | |
GL_MESA_pack_invert | YES | no | no | no | no | no | no | no | no | no | no | no | no | no | |
GL_MESA_ycbcr_texture | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES | no | no | no | no | no | no | no | |
GL_NV_blend_square | YES | YES | no | no | no | no | no | no | no | no | no | no | no | no | |
GL_NV_texture_rectangle | YES | YES | no | no | YES | YES | no | no | no | no | no | no | no | no | |
GL_SGIS_generate_mipmap | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES | YES | no | no | no | no | no | no | no | |
GLX_MESA_swap_control | YES | YES | YES | YES | no | no | YES | no | no | no | no | no | no | no | |
GLX_MESA_swap_frame_usage | YES | YES | no | no | no | no | YES | no | no | no | no | no | no | no | |
GLX_NV_vertex_array_range | YES | no | no | no | no | no | no | no | no | no | no | no | no | no | |
GLX_SGI_video_sync | YES | YES | YES | YES | no | no | YES | no | no | no | no | no | no | no |
OpenGL Extensions enabled in all DRI drivers:
Driver-specific Notes |
The following OpenGL features are implemented in software:
The following environment variables are available. Most are for debugging purposes only.
The following OpenGL features are implemented in software:
The following environment variables are available. Most are for debugging purposes only.
For AGP cards, the AGP mode may be set to 1, 2, or 4. One is used by default. Higher AGP speeds may result in unreliable performance depending on your motherboard.
The following OpenGL features are implemented in software:
If you experience stability problems you may try setting the UseCCEFor2D option to true. This will effectively disable 2D hardware acceleration. Performance will be degraded, of course.
Both PCI and AGP cards are supported. The AGP mode may be set to 1 or 2. The driver supports 16- and 24-bit (32 bpp framebuffer) color depths, but 16-bit depth is recommended for the best performance. The maximum 3D accelerated resolution/mode may be limited by the size of on-card memory (especially for PCI cards).
The following OpenGL features are implemented in software:
3D acceleration for the i810 is only available in the 16 bit/pixel screen mode at this time. 32bpp acceleration is not supported by this hardware. Use xdpyinfo to verify that all your visuals are depth 16. Edit your XF86Config file if needed.
The i810 uses system ram for video and 3d graphics. The X server will ordinarily reserve 4mb of ram for graphics, which is too little for an effective 3d setup. To tell the driver to use a larger amount, specify a VideoRam option in the Device section of your XF86Config file. A number between 10000 and 16384 seems adequate for most requirements. If too little memory is available for DMA buffers, back and depth buffers and textures, direct rendering will be disabled.
Basically all of the i810 features which can be exposed through OpenGL 1.2 are implemented. However, the following OpenGL features are implemented in software and will be slow:
TBD
The AGP mode may be set to 1, 2, or 4. One is used by default. Higher AGP speeds may result in unreliable performance depending on your motherboard.
Compaq has funded the implementation of AGP accelerated ReadPixels and DrawPixels in this driver. With this implementation, on a G400 drawing directly from AGP memory (exported to the client), throughput of up to 1 GB/sec has been measured. Additionally Compaq's funding has produced several new extensions in Mesa, including one (packed_depth_stencil_MESA) which enables Read/DrawPixels functionality to operate directly on the packed 24/8 depth/stencil buffers of this hardware. In order to access this functionality, the application must ensure that all pixel processing operations are disabled. There are in addition a fairly complex set of rules regarding which packing/unpacking modes must be used, and which data formats are supported, and alignment constraints. See the files in lib/GL/mesa/src/drv/mga/DOCS for a summary of these. The extension definitions are included in the Mesa 3.4 source distribution.
There have been problems in the past with the MGA driver being very sluggish when the DRI is enabled (to the point of being unusable.) This is caused by the graphics card not having an interrupt assigned to it. The current DRI code will attempt to detect this condition and bail out gracefully.
The solution to the above problem is to assign an interrupt to your graphics card. This is something you must turn on in your system BIOS configuration. Please consult your system BIOS manual for instructions on how to enable an interrupt for your graphics card.
MGAHALlib.a is a binary library Matrox has provided for use under Linux to expose functionality for which they can not provide documentation. (For example TV-Out requires MacroVision be enabled on the output.) This binary library also sets the pixel/memory clocks to the optimal settings for your Matrox card.
Currently the MGAHAL library is required for the G450 to work. You can download this from the driver section on Matrox's website: www.matrox.com/mga
Here modifications to the DRI build instructions which make the mga ddx driver use the MGAHAL library:
#define UseMatroxHal YES
xc/programs/Xserver/hw/xfree86/drivers/mga/HALlib/
You can use DualHead on the G400/G450 DH cards by creating two device sections which both point to the same BusID. For most AGP devices the BusID will be "PCI:1:0:0". Configure your screen section as you would normally configure XFree86 4.x Multihead. It should be noted that currently the second head does not support direct rendering.
Software rendering will be used under any of the following conditions:
Normally, buffer swapping in double-buffered applications is synchronized to your monitor's refresh rate. This may be overridden by setting the FX_GLIDE_SWAPINTERVAL environment variable. The value of this variable indicates the maximum number of swap buffer commands can be buffered. Zero allows maximum frame rate.
On Voodoo4/5, rendering with 16-bits/texel textures is faster than using 32-bit per texel textures. The internalFormat parameter to glTexImage2D can be used to control texel size. Quake3 and other games let you control this as well.
The glTexEnv mode GL_BLEND is not directly supported by the Voodoo3 hardware. It can be accomplished with a multipass algorithm but it's not implemented at this time. Applications which use that mode, such as the Performer Town demo, may become sluggish when falling back to software rendering to render in that mode.
The Voodoo3/Banshee driver reverts to software rendering under the following conditions:
The Voodoo5 driver reverts to software rendering under the same conditions Voodoo3 with three exceptions. First, stencil operations are implemented in hardware when the screen is configured for 32 bits/pixel. Second, the GL_BLEND texture env mode is fully supported in hardware. Third, glColorMask is fully supported in hardware when the screen is configured for 32 bits/pixel.
As of January, 2001 the second VSA-100 chip on the Voodoo5 is not yet operational. Therefore, the board isn't being used to its full capacity. The second VSA-100 chip will allow Scan-Line Interleave (SLI) mode for full-screen applications and games, potentially doubling the system's fill rate. When the second VSA-100 chip is activated glGetString(GL_RENDERER) will report Voodoo5 instead of Voodoo4.
Known Problems
TBD
TBD
TBD
TBD
TBD