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smeets_marc
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PostPosted: Thu Oct 23, 2003 9:50 am    Post subject: xinerama with pci possible? Reply with quote

Before I blowup some hardware or so I want to ask you if any of you have some experience with xinerama in a Ultra60 (or equivilant) with a pci vga card.
Sun's PCI just works as a regular PCI bus, so it should not be any problem...right?
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ciaranm
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PostPosted: Thu Oct 23, 2003 1:00 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Xinerama works. I've used a c3d + onboard on a u10.

However...

You can't use most regular PCI VGA cards on sun boxen for several reasons:
* OBP only supports a few ATI Rage Pro cards. Anything else is a no-go.
* XFree doesn't support many cards on network byte order boxes.
* Most cards are initialized via the PC BIOS, which Sun kit doesn't use. If XFree doesn't have a BIOS-less mode for the card it's a no-go.

Your best bet is to use an onboard card + a UPA card. That should work, so long as the UPA is your boot display.
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smeets_marc
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 29, 2003 3:29 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I don't understand why OBP needs to know the extra card (I'm not a Sun expert btw). Afterall, it is X11 that needs to initialise the card. It is X11 that needs to have a driver for the card.

On a re gular x86 system, Linux doesn't care about what BIOS can/can't. Linux figures it all out by himself. Why not on sparc?
As far as I know, Linux also doesn't care about a BIOS on a VGA card.

My ultra60 is already equipped with a creator3d on upa (I geuss it's upa since it is not onboard). It has a second slot for a extra creator3d card (or other upa I geuss). That would not be a no go?
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ciaranm
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 29, 2003 4:31 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

smeets_marc wrote:
I don't understand why OBP needs to know the extra card (I'm not a Sun expert btw). Afterall, it is X11 that needs to initialise the card. It is X11 that needs to have a driver for the card.


In theory, it doesn't, so long as you only want to use X on the card (you won't get framebuffer console working on it without OBP).

smeets_marc wrote:
On a re gular x86 system, Linux doesn't care about what BIOS can/can't. Linux figures it all out by himself. Why not on sparc?
As far as I know, Linux also doesn't care about a BIOS on a VGA card.


Most PCI cards still need BIOS calls to initialise them. If the BIOS is unusable then X has to have replacement initialisation code. Only a few drivers supply this, most just use the card's BIOS instead.

smeets_marc wrote:
My ultra60 is already equipped with a creator3d on upa (I geuss it's upa since it is not onboard). It has a second slot for a extra creator3d card (or other upa I geuss). That would not be a no go?


I've never seen anyone try this, but it could well work if you can find a second c3d anywhere...
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smeets_marc
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PostPosted: Fri Oct 31, 2003 8:27 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

ciaranm wrote:

smeets_marc wrote:
My ultra60 is already equipped with a creator3d on upa (I geuss it's upa since it is not onboard). It has a second slot for a extra creator3d card (or other upa I geuss). That would not be a no go?


I've never seen anyone try this, but it could well work if you can find a second c3d anywhere...


c3d is that hard to find?
do you know any other upa card that are easier to find? It doesn't need to be a superbe card, just a simple card/ It's for the second display anyway.
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ciaranm
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PostPosted: Fri Oct 31, 2003 12:10 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

smeets_marc wrote:
c3d is that hard to find?
do you know any other upa card that are easier to find? It doesn't need to be a superbe card, just a simple card/ It's for the second display anyway.


Not so much 'hard to find' as 'hard to find at non-rip-off prices'. But if you keep your eyes open, you may find one on ebay sometime.

There are some elite3ds (the next card up) on ebay.co.uk right now. They're pretty expensive though, and there are reports of them not working on XFree. If you're willing to take the risk, see the linky thing...

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3055851379&category=1486
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