Dual head AGP video card recommendations

[Joel Jaeggli]

On Fri, 23 Apr 2004, Polashek, Matthew wrote:

> Here's a real idot question for you.
> What is the difference between 2D and 3D?

the z-axis...

instead of two axis you have three, the depth buffer may be 16 or 32 bit
so at (1024x768)(32bpp+32bitZ) instead of 3.4MB of display buffer (2d) you
need 6.2MB of ram... if the display is double buffered then you need
12.8MB of ram. then you need room to buffer the textures that are going to
applied to the display primitives that will be rendered by the graphics
card and still more memory for other image processing such as
anti-aliasing.  lastly the graphics card has to have enough bandwidth
between the gpu and it's own ram to do everything before the next image
needs to be on the screen, to continue with the example 372MB/s of the
video cards memory bandwidth would be expended just in the process of
writing to the screen at 60fps.

pushing this up to 1600x1200 and you can understand why people buy new 
videocards... 7.68MB for 32 bit color, 15.3MB with Z, 30.72 double 
buffered. add a second display and all of a sudden that 256MB graphics 
cards with with 25GB/s worth of memory bandwith start to make a lot of 
sense.

> Matthew Polashek
> Associate Editor, Silver Burdett Ginn - Music
> Scott Foresman/Pearson Education
> 299 Jefferson Road
> Parsippany, NJ 07054-0480
> office: 973.739.8709
> fax: 973.739.8098
> Matthew.Polashek at scottforesman.com
> 
> 
> > ----------
> > From: 	Chris Manning
> > Reply To: 	For users of Fedora Core releases
> > Sent: 	Friday, April 23, 2004 3:09 PM
> > To: 	'For users of Fedora Core releases'
> > Subject: 	RE: Dual head AGP video card recommendations
> > 
> > I run a Matrox P750 with 3 17" LCD panels for my workstation.  I'm running
> > FC1 and it wasn't difficult to get it up and running.  This is an upgrade
> > from a Matrox G550.  I've run multiple cards in the past, but I've found
> > this a better option performance wise than having a pci card to drive the
> > second and third display.
> > 
> > And while the Matrox doesn't perform as well as many of the current Nvidia
> > or ATI cards in 3d games, I am still able to play Unreal Tournaments 2004
> > at
> > a decent resolution (1024x768) with reasonable effects turned on.
> > 
> > At the end of the day though you have to decide which is more important,
> > 2d
> > performance or 3d performance.  If 3d performance is the be all and end
> > all
> > for you, then go with a decent AGP and pci card.  If like me 2d
> > performance
> > is far more important, you won't beat the Matrox dual head cards.
> > 
> > Chris Manning
> > 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: fedora-list-bounces at redhat.com
> > [mailto:fedora-list-bounces at redhat.com]
> > On Behalf Of Polashek, Matthew
> > Sent: Friday, April 23, 2004 2:39 PM
> > To: 'fedora-list at redhat.com'
> > Subject: Dual head AGP video card recommendations
> > 
> > 
> > I am looking into getting going with a dual head video set up.  Anyone
> > have
> > any recommendations that include the phrase "really easy to set up and
> > use?"
> > 
> > Thanks!
> > 
> > Matthew
> > 
> > 
> > 
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Joel Jaeggli  	       Unix Consulting 	       joelja at darkwing.uoregon.edu    
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