On Tue, 14 Sep 1999, you wrote:
> S3 Virge GX2 (4 meg) on the Linux machine. Xfree is the standard one found
> on the Mandrake 6.0 cd. The work machine has an S3 DX.
>
> There may well be acceleration on the windows machine as the S3 virge uses
> an svga server. Yeah you are right I can probably figure out my own
> problems from that information however I am actually interested more in why
> I seemed to get better video performance from RH5.2
>
There is a "known" bug in some implementations of the S3
chipset, according to xfree86.org. The problem *I* have
seen is that it messes up the console mode text after
quitting X. They attribute this to "plain reading from video memory in text mode
(to save text mode fonts at startup) fails and returns
bogus data." (Quote from Harald Koenig of Xfree86 team.)
Now, a commercial server MAY fix this problem. Matter of
fact, on S3's website they suggest Accelerated-X for Linux
users. Perhaps if you switched to Accelerated-X (there's a
10-minute free demo you can download) the problems you've
experienced would go away and the video performance would
likely improve.
John
