> On Sun, Sep 12, 1999 at 08:54:07PM -0500, Richard Rauch wrote:
> > STB Nitro3D S3 ViRGE/GX or some such.  It supposedly is a fairly nice
> > card, but it was pre-installed in the machine, which itself is getting
> > close to 2 years old.  (^&  (It does have some 3D features, as the name
> > implies, and is among those cards supported by XF86_S3V.  But I don't
> > think that anyone's done any clever 3D support for it under X/Mesa.)
> 
> You are right. The only cards/chips for which XFree86 GLX source
> is available right now are the Matrox G[24]00 and the Riva TNT.

In other words: I am out of luck unless I become a Matt Dillon/Richard
Stallman and hack up an STB Nitro GLX driver overnight?  *grin*  (Or
unless I install one of the supported cards...)

I can live with that.  Mesa appears close enough to OpenGL that there
should be little or no changes needed in the lab.


> > Question: Why does Mesa work well without GLX, while OpenGL has a fit?
> 
> Because traditionally Mesa has not used GLX at all, instead rendering
> frames in the application, whereas SGI clients have depended on the
> X server having the renderer.
> 
> The way Mesa-with-GLX is currently built, it too is an either/or
> thing - it has no way of falling back to rendering itself if the
> X server has no GLX extension.

This is interesting to know, at least.  (^&  Is it in the cards for Mesa
to support fall-back to internal rendering, in the future, or is it felt
that this is a decision best made at install-time?


Thanks to both of you for your input.  At least it looks like I can quit
banging my head against a wall, now.


  "I probably don't know what I'm talking about."  --rkr@rkr.kcnet.com