I bought Xi AcceleratedX a few days ago because I wanted gamma correction
for my Diamond Stealth III S540 card (32 MB, Savage4) which didn't appear
to be on the horizon for XFree86.
Executive summary: Get Xi AcceleratedX if you really, really need some
features and you know what you're getting into. I have found it to be
a mixed bag, but it is useful to me. As a company, I think Xi Graphics
has problems that could sink them if they don't get their act together.
The web site (www.xig.com) definitely has its quirks. I used the 2D demo
(limited to 10 minute runs) and was satisfied. I bought the license,
tried installing it, and was rejected. Email to the support address
brought a prompt, but cryptic response. I had to figure out for myself
that the license key unlocked the *3D* demo. Fine, though it would have
been nice to make this clear when I purchased the license. I still have
some open issues with Xi support, which I will describe further below.
The other unsettling aspect of the web site is that even though the order
page uses HTTPS, somehow my credit card number leaked out. The very next
day, I got a call from MBNA (who service the "Linux Fund" MasterCard)
and they reported that four additional charges had been made against my
card in the name of Xi Graphics. MBNA's rep spoke with Xi, and found
Xi had no record of the additional charges; they cancelled the card and
sent a new one on its way. In the years I have been using the Internet,
this is the first time I've had this kind of problem. But hurray for
Linux Fund and for MBNA.
AX performs quite well in some respects. It supports 24-bit mode, which
allows it to refresh at 70 Hz on my 1600x1200 display. XF86 has to do
32-bit, limiting it to 60 Hz. I thought the improvement was impressive.
I felt the improved image quality with gamma correction was well worth
the $29 I spent, in spite of the irritations I describe in this message.
Then I tried running x11perf. AX delivered approximately 20% higher
numbers than XF86. However, it locked the S540 when I got to the 10x10
stippled rectangle (17x15 stipple) and some interesting screen corruption
occured; the keyboard would not respond but I was able to rlogin. I could
kill x11perf and the AX server, but could not get the console back, so
I had to do an init 6 to get things working again. I tried it again,
and the console locked at the same place. At least it didn't jam the
whole system like the ATI Xpert 98 used to, which would have required
a hard reset and a full fsck of all my disk partitions.
There's other bad news. VMware's DGA extension is not yet supported
under AX, and I could not get it to run; Xi support said that this would
happen in the future, though a precise date was not known. Also, my
Logitech cordless wheel mouse did not work. I tried the various mouse
configurations that AX allowed, but none of them seemed to bind any
useful events to the wheel (as shown by xev). One final annoyance was
that when I tried to run xboing, Xlib had some fatal incompatibility
with AX. (Hey, I have better things to do than play games on the
computer). So I have implemented a wrapper script for startx that
sticks in the XF86 or the AX server, depending on what I plan to do.
As I said, these are open issues with Xi support. I'll write again if
there's a happy ending.
Romain Kang Siemens Info/Comm Products, San Jose R&D
[EMAIL PROTECTED] formerly Pyramid Technology Corp.
Disclaimer: I represent myself alone, except where otherwise indicated.
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