SciTech SNAP Graphics for Linux Beta is now available for evaluation and testing. Read more for the full press release and more links:
SciTech Software, Inc. today announced that it has released a public beta version of SciTech SNAP Graphics for Linux. This release is based on
SciTech System Neutral Access Protocol (SNAP) architecture and supports X11, MGL and direct-access all with advanced 2D acceleration, Plug-N-Play support, enterprise level stability and is fully scalable for enterprise
and embedded systems use.
Pricing for SciTech SNAP Graphics for Linux has not yet been announced,
but is expected to be less than $30(usd) per unit. Volume
discounts will also be available.
THe beta release has been tested for use on Red Hat, Mandrake, SuSE,
Slackware, Debian, and TurboLinux distributions; compatibility with
other distributions (Xandros, Lycoris, and possibly others) may follow in
a future release.
Note that all changes are tracked on our web site. Public changes are
tracked at the following URL:
http://www.scitechsoft.com/snap_linux_changes.txt
About SciTech SNAP Graphics for Linux
————————————-
SciTech SNAP Graphics provides high performance graphics accelerator
access across a wide range of modern graphics hardware and operating
systems. The core technology is our SciTech SNAP Graphics Architecture,
which is a cross platform device driver technology enabling the use of the
same device drivers in all versions of SciTech SNAP Graphics. Sharing the
drivers between platforms improves the quality and performance of device
drivers for all supported operating systems.
The install archive contains the end user Linux installation of SciTech SNAP Graphics. It contains all of the necessary Linux based utilities and device drivers that work with SciTech SNAP based applications, as well as
full support for XFree86 4.0.2 and later official releases. Applications that can utilise SciTech SNAP currently include applications developed using the SciTech MGL graphics library, or applications written to work
directly with the SciTech SNAP device drivers.
For more detailed information about SciTech SNAP Graphics for Linux (including the list of supported graphics chipsets) see the complete readme at:
ftp://ftp.scitechsoft.com/snap/linux/beta/readme.txt
Support
——-If you have any problems or wish to discuss this beta release, please use
the SciTech newsgroups at:
news://news.scitechsoft.com/scitech.snap.graphics.linux
Please note that the product has a 21-day evaluation period; if you would like to purchase it for continued use, it will be available in our online store shortly. Once you have registered, you can get priority
support by opening tickets on the SciTech HelpDesk:
After installing this binary I had my 1st and 2nd EVER complete system failure on a linux box.
couldn’t switch tty’s couldn’t 3 finger salute, couldn’t anything. Had to pull the plug.
Had i not backed up my old xf86 id not be talking to you right now.
I saw S3 and 3dfx cards supported so i figured my diamond steath and 3dfx chip on the board would work since i’ve always used S3 drivers but *shrug* said my card wasn’t supported and that graphics might suck so i continued ignoring my better judgment.
Hope you guys have better luck
Well for starters this is the first wide BETA distribution of the product there are expected to be problems cropping up. Also did you check that your distro is supported? Some of them are not yet supported but we are working on finding and fixing the bugs.
As for a complete system failure, I suspect that is not entirely correct. The problem you had I suspect is one we have seen on a few distros internally (Xandros and Lycoris are two) such that the keyboard gets stuck in RAW mode and hence it ‘seems’ that the system is locked. In reality it isn’t, just that the keyboard is not responding. If you have another box around with SSH or telnet, you can connect into the machine and do a software reboot that way without needing to pull the plug.
Anyway we expect to see problems like this now that the BETA is getting tested outside the lab, so please head over to our web ticketing system and enter a bug report for your system. We will work to ensure that this is fixed for the next BETA.
hmm, the installer creates a backup of your config automatically so you should have also had this option available to you as well – If you don’t mind please post this to the SNAP Linux new group so we can diagnose and correct this issue:
news://news.scitechsoft.com/scitech.snap.graphics.linux
What chipset is on that card? Is it 3Dfx or S3? I am not talking about the brand, I am talking about the CHIP that is on the card.
S3 had its own chips, and 3Dfx had its own chips. When S3 bought Diamond, they renamed these cards as “S3”, but this card of yours might still be using a 3DFx chip. You need to be more clear than that in order to help.
BTW, SciTech does backup your previous XF86Config file, .bak somewhere in the /usr/X11R6/ directories (can’t remember exactly where)
And if you need to revert back to the older XF86 file because of something might got wrong, just go in text mode (assuming you can change ttys), and load pico or jed or nano or any other editor you use in text mode, and load the /etc/X11/XF86Config(-4) file and change in the driver module the option that says “scitech”. Change that option to “tdfx” if you are using a 3Dfx chipset, to “nv” if you are using an nvidia card etc. (complete reference of the names of the drivers can be found in your /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/ I think (I am not under Linux atm, can’t remember the exact dir) and see the filenames of the modules listed there).
Oh, and make the installation of the scitech drivers on a full screen text mode console, not under X11 being loaded.
Is there any 3D support planned ?
In B16 we changed the installer so that installing from a fullscreen text mode consoler is no longer necessary. The installer will automatically sniff out a VC it can use and then switch to it, automatically switching away from the XFree86 desktop to do the install. Makes it easier for the user as they don’t have to deal with this themselves 😉
Yes, 3D support is planned. We have a lot of other fish to fry first though, such as getting all the distros and all versions of XFree86 working flawlessly.
Is there any 3D support planned ?
The short answer here is yes. However, I will defer to Kendall for a longer more meaningful answer;)
Okay, i’ll file a report but something is confusing me, I appear to have two boards (wasn’t my system) i’ll try to explain perhaps you can help me figure out how to make a better, more specific bug report.
Okay I have a top board that is a diamond steath 3D 2000 pro there is a connecter comming out of the back connecting to another board in the box, this other board says ‘Diamond multimedia’ and has two chips reading 3DFX. So i’m confused.
perhaps someone who knows about hardware can take a stab at what this is doing.
as for the keyboard nothing seemed to work but when I held down a bunch of keys it apparently was seding something cause it responded ‘bash not found’
oops, using Redhat 9 too btw (checked the readme first)
This sounds like a voodoo or voodoo 2 which is 3D only and as such is not supported at this time by SciTech SNAP Graphics for Linux:(
However please report this to our newsgroup. – thanks!
Like Andrew says, your secondary board is probably a Voodo or Voodoo2 board, while the primary card in your system is probably some variant of an S3 card.
When you send in the your bug report, make sure you sent the graphics.log file that was generated so we can identify the hardware you have installed.
Ive been beta testing this thing for about 2 weeks now, and it has potential. Here were my problems.
Poor Dual Head Support if any =)
Slower than VESA driver for my GeForce 4ti4200 (in x11 mode).
and poor xinerama extensions.
oh, and did i mention the xf86config maker is based on xfdrake? which i personaly hate, but thats cause i use gentoo
We actually have dual head support for the entire Matrox family, but we have not had a chance to hook it out yet in our XFree86 drivers. Hopefully that will get done before the final release (plus we have NVIDIA and ATI dual head drivers under development; no promises on if those will make the final release though).
When you say it was slower than the VESA driver on your GeForce 4ti200, can you be more specific? What areas was it slower? Also please post a bug report about this issue so we can test it; our GeForce cards are running very fast in our tests.
Lastly I wrote the XF86Config file generation program from scratch, and I have never seen xfdrake. So I don’t know where you get the idea it was based on that!
“Slower than VESA driver for my GeForce 4ti4200”
If it is the AGP 8X version, it *is* running in VESA mode (and the installer should have told you that). We will have better support for many more Nvidia chipsets in the near future, perhaps in time for the next beta.
If it’s not the AGP 8X version, please go to our newsgroups, and file a detailed report that includes your graphics.log file. Thanks!
Ah, the Voodoo setup. External 3D at all of 100,000 polygons per second
Those were the days… Your Diamond Stealth card is the one that actually does 2D drawing, so that’s the one you need to worry about. The Stealth 3D 2000 Pro, like most of S3’s cards in the mid 1990’s, uses some varient of the ViRGE chipset, which apparently isn’t supported by SNAP.
The supported chip list in SciTech SNAP Graphics for Linux currently supports about half of our already available driver binaries. This is due to various reasons but primarily due to time constraints.
Prior to being considered “SciTech Certified” an individual driver must first pass an exhaustive battery of automated and visual tests in our lab. On average a driver is subjected to several hours of certification testing prior to being included for use with a given/supported OS.
While the chip list as linked from the Linux page is accurate in terms of what’s available for use *today* by SciTech SNAP Graphics for Linux, you may want to take a look at the OS/2 supported HW list of chips as these chips have already been certified for use under OS/2 and are currently being certified for use on Linux:)
Available Today
http://www.scitechsoft.com/chiplist/snap_linux_chiplist.html
Available soon:
http://www.scitechsoft.com/chiplist/snap_os2_chiplist.html
Something like FreeBSD and other BSDs? I am speaking of native; not use the Linux emulator. 🙂
After getting all of the driver binaries certified and making the XFree86 shell driver bullet proof we will then be porting SciTech SNAP for use on other OS’es – Free BSD is a top contender at this time.
Installation was a bit confusing. I’ve never had to use gzip on something before :p
So far, here’s my discoveries in a few minutes:
1) Pretty good 2d performance, nice and crisp display, however I had to manually add 1600×1200 and 1280×1024 resolutions.
2) xrandr seems to work just fine
Improvements over NVidia’s driver:
* Scrolling is noticeably better everywhere
* Text drawing in general seems to be a lot snappier
* Gnome terminal is noticeably faster when clearing the terminal
* Flash ads that display in mozilla no longer slow scrolling down to a halt practicaly making the browser temporarily unuseable
* 2d performance in general is GREATLY improved, especially when browsing
* No “tainted” kernel
Problems:
* Performance is slow under RedHat9 when dragging out a large transparent selection box on the desktop w/ wallpaper. Much slower than the standard XFree or NVidia driver. At least when dragging really quickly.
* I had to completely stop X before I could install SNAP properly, yes it did switch to another VC first, it just wouldn’t install right (didn’t set up the X configuration file, and told me my license was expired to use it)
* Flash based video won’t display (see http://www.nvidia.com/nzone/ demo videos of the 5900)
Wishlist:
1) 3d support (hehee, yes, I know it’s coming)
2) Graphical configuration programs for switching the resolution and depth on the fly for us XFree 4.3.x folk
I’ll post all this on the newsgroup as well…
Great! I am looking forward for it.. Be sure to visit bsdforums.org and post the news about your products when your team create FreeBSD and other BSDs version. Also, in the FreeBSD’s maillist. 🙂
RENDER extension is not yet accelerated in SNAP as is the case with the majority of XFree86 drivers – thus the difference in performance when dragging a large transparent selection. We will look into this to verify my theory – I’m the marketing guy so lets see what QA has to add to this;)
Thanks for the information; we look forward to seeing your post in the SciTech Linux news group.
Have you compared the drivers to NVIDIA’s 31.XX series? It’s well known that the 4X.XX series drivers are significantly slower in 2D, because of issues with NVIDIA’s transition from XAA to their own interface. I’d take a look myself, but the SNAP installer doesn’t seem to detect my GeForce4Go.
“Have you compared the drivers to NVIDIA’s 31.XX series?
No, we have not looked at these… just checked the nVidia site and noted that they appear to no longer be available.
Would it be possible to support Glide for at least the 3dfx cards that are supported by SNAP, when 3D support will be started? That would be really great. I believe many stuff is opensource, http://sourceforge.net/projects/glide/
Maybe it would be possibe to write Glide drivers for other chipsets too. I don’t know much about these things though.
“Have you compared the drivers to NVIDIA’s 31.XX series? It’s well known that the 4X.XX series drivers are significantly slower in 2D, because of issues with NVIDIA’s transition from XAA to their own interface. I’d take a look myself, but the SNAP installer doesn’t seem to detect my GeForce4Go.”
Yes, the 31.xx were much faster, but I still think the SNAP drivers are faster when it comes to scrolling so far. I’ve been using NVidia’s Linux drivers since they first released Linux drivers back when I owned a Riva TNT
NVidia’s justification for removing XAA support was that they couldn’t implement XAA and support extensive simultaneous 2d/3d rendering at the same time like Maya or other programs use. I don’t believe this, but since I don’t write XFree drivers, maybe they know something I don’t.
NVidia has an archive of *all* their old XFree drivers here:
ftp://download.nvidia.com/XFree86_40
Ok thanks – I passed the url on to QA/testing
Actually, I think their justification is that XAA isn’t really suited to doing simultanious 2D/3D on their architecture. They moved to their own architecture so they can maximize both 2D and 3D performance. The current performance issues are due to the immaturity of the new interface, rather than any inherent weaknesses.
Unless I am missing something, you should be able to use the existing Glide support on your 3Dfx cards…
I think the better question here is “will there be support for 3d acceleration on NVIDIA hardware?”
(drivers without support for that are useless for me, and I haven’t bought this expensive GeForce for using its 2D features)
Hey Kendall,
I’m trying the beta with Debian using 4.3.0 and I’m using an original Radeon with 32 ddr. I’m not sure if I notice a speed increase or any increase in responsiveness.
I do have a problem, my refresh rate now sucks. It’s at about 60 hz and is very hard on the eyes.
Not really asking for a solution (it is a beta after all), just thought that info might be useful for you.
Now to switch back.
my Savage MX-IV isn’t supported except in VESA VBE and it came up in 800×600 16bit which, on this laptop, isn’t really
usable. But I added 1024×768 to the 24 bit section of XF86config and it came up fine. Both the trackpointer and the USB mouse work together; scrolling delay is tolerable and dragging a window is pretty good if the system isn’t busy.
How wonderful..my savage IX isn’t supported.I got a vaio sr series laptop..i think its sr27 or something.
I have one question:
Will it be possible with these drivers to have an accelerated framebuffer (for 2D)? I’m thinking especially of nvidia…
This is very weird. It’s theonly change I have made to my system. It works fine if I reboot into XP on the same hardware.
Yeah, I forgot to mention this. Glide currently only works with XFree 3.3.x, not with 4.x. If SciTech SNAP would allow that, that would be great.
I had one of those cards before I got a S3 Virge. It is a very old PCI card
Looking on the web i see it uses the
“S3 ViRGE 64” Chipset which is an ancient virge chipset
The other card could be a Diamond Monster 3D II which is a Voodoo 2 in disguise