When will reliable support for 3D graphics acceleration be integrated into linux? When will it also work for multihead mode? When I tried to use it on just one screen, my entire graphics subsystem (not the OS itself) frequently crashed.
I currently have 3 graphics cards (1 integrated and 2 cards) and 3 monitors running happily w/ xinerama, but I can't use anything graphics intensive.
Does anybody know a way to make it work?
Perhaps a replacement for xfree86?
| ocalhoun wrote: |
When will reliable support for 3D graphics acceleration be integrated into linux? When will it also work for multihead mode? When I tried to use it on just one screen, my entire graphics subsystem (not the OS itself) frequently crashed.
I currently have 3 graphics cards (1 integrated and 2 cards) and 3 monitors running happily w/ xinerama, but I can't use anything graphics intensive.
Does anybody know a way to make it work?
Perhaps a replacement for xfree86? |
The problem is that chipset manufacturers (nVidia, Ati) do not publish enough specs to enable the development of a free (as in freedom) drivers. Ati used to do it previously, but has now backed out. nVidia never supported any community efforts towards development of drivers for its chips.
A start has been made by the Freedesktop project and the development of the modular Xorg (version 7.0). Also S3 has released its driver as open source software. The future looks bright 
Microsoft ownes Direct3D.
So they probably wont give it to Linux
| kansloos wrote: |
Microsoft ownes Direct3D.
So they probably wont give it to Linux |
Your statement is factually incorrect. Direct3D isn't a product or brand that Microsoft would be able to own, it's a name for a technology and is emulated by Cedega (Transgaming). Also Linux isn't a company or any single entity that Microsoft would be able to contribute code to.You won't get DirectX on Linux but maybe Direct3D yes.
A good idea would be trying to use Wine. This adds Window$'s libraries so that you can run most .exes and so. It will give support to some Window$ features.
Maybe it's a good idea to install graphics drivers on Linux, it might help.
I think that if those don't work, you probably won't get it.
He is talking about DRI, Dirct Graphics Rendering. A lot of cards support it but nVidia is the best. Also use Xorg, It replaces XFree86, has a free licence, and seems to handle DRI better. If you want to try (K)Ubuntu, it uses Xorg, and you can just "apt-get install nvidia-glx nvidia-settings" and then "sudo nvidia-glx-config enable" and I works great. I have never had a crash, but I only have one display. I believe on www.ubuntuforums.org there is a howto for multihead nVidia DRI.
As for DirectX, Linux has OpenGL to replace it. A lot of games can use both, and most run better using OpenGL
Hope this helps!
Oh BTW, I use Kubuntu a lot. But prefer and use Gentoo on my main machine. (K)Ubuntu lately has some bugs (permissions probs on /home/user/.kde, and usb storage probs, but hopfully will get fixed soon) You can do cd packet writing and such very easily, and it is much more configurable than others. I guess Gentoo is just "me"!
