> 
> 
> Does anyone have any info on this? Has anyone got / seen / used /
> smelled one?
> 
> I heard by personal e-mail that someone was planning to do a NetBSD
> driver and X support for it - are they here?

S3 864 drivers should be available for NetBSD.

> My priorities are:
> 
> 1. Works with cheapo SVGA multisync
yes
> 2. X11 under NetBSD
not yet
> 3. Retargeting Workbench and some productivity apps (mainly ProPage)
Don't have Propage so i can't judge if it runs
> 4. Passthru for output from the A3000 VGA connector
Yes
> 5. "AGA emulation" (e.g. 256 colour Workbench) on A3000
> 
Yes though this has nothing to do with AA

> 
> On the assumption that it can and will be supported under NetBSD, and
> that all the claims in the advert are true (almost all of the
> Picasso's software features), clearly the Cybervision will be the best
> deal when it becomes available.

The guys that did the Picasso software develop the Cybervision software.

> 
> In any event, I plan to wait until the Cybervision is available and
> talk to a techie type about it - one of the more professional and
> competent distributors said they expect some in "any day now" to test.
> 
> Questions:
> 
> 1. Is anything I've assumed above wrong?
> 
> 2. Is there any problem with Z3 cards if you have the old "broken"
> Buster/DMAC? I'd assume there isn't since I can't imagine them using
> DMA, but I'd like to hear it from someone who knows for sure.
> 

It's not using DMA so there's no Buster problem

> 3. Is the speed difference between the Picasso and the Z3 cards really
> noticeable? If not, then there's little point in risking the devil you
> don't know and getting something else.
> 

Well i have both a Picasso and a CyberVision and it's like night and day.


> 4. The advertising for the Cybervision says "planar to chunky pixel
> conversion is performed in hardware on the card, 6-8 faster [ sic ]
> than copying methods". How would you interpret this:
> 
>    a. The copywriter was confused and it merely uses a chunky pixel
>       screen and the blitter on the card, with its own graphics
>       routines
> 
>    b. It maps the screen memory into the CPU address space so that 
>       normal Intuition operations (except those using the Agnus
>       blitter) can work, and the hardware re-maps write's to the
>       appropriate video RAM in chunky pixel format
> 
>    c. ??????
> 

Well..it has a small circuit that speeds up planar(bitplane format)
converting into chunky format.




-- 
Ralph Schmidt                                            laire@uni-paderborn.de
University of Paderborn (Germany)