Re: Video card questions...

Don Fisher (fisherd@aries.tucson.saic.com)
Thu, 02 Jan 1997 16:07:27 -0700


Rob Glover wrote:
>
> First: Why would you WANT more than 1 video card? no real need.
>
> Second: PCI is much faster than VLB.
>
> Third: No real advantage, just having another monitor hooked up, but you
> shouldn't need it, linux has virtual consoles.
>
> Fourth: My suggestion is to use the PCI card and not do anything, you
> can't merge the VRAM to 2 megs....
>
> -Rob
>
> On Thu, 2 Jan 1997, Charlie Ross wrote:
>
> >
> > I have a q or 2 about video cards and linux... for instance.. what can do
> > with 2 video cards? 3?
> >
> > Which is better pci or vlb bussing?
> >
> > Any advantage to more than one vcard?
> > can I use the video memory for anything neat?
> >
> > The reason I ask is that I currently have a PCI bussed cirrus logic
> > CL-GD5434 and I just got my hands on a Diamond "Speed Star Pro" (vlb) it
> > appeard to be (to my untrained eye) a Cirrus Logic CL-GD5428 with a
> > "SpeedStar Pro" bios. Havent put it in my machine yet... I also have a
> > Paradise (ISA :P) Can I use all 3? 2? if so how... if not which one is
> > best?
> >
> > Both the CL cards have a meg of vram... is there any cheezy way I can use
> > both cards to gether to give me 2 meg? (wishfull thinking I know but I have
> > seen some preety wacky things done with vram, including using it to up the
> > available dos mem to 720k... )
> >
> > My machine will take vlb, pci and isa... so thats not a worry.
> >
> > Any suggestions?
> >
> > -Chuck
> >
> > s253343@gettysburg.edu
> > (717)-337-8212
> >
> > "God is real, unless declared integer."
> >
> >
> >
> >
It might be more accurate for one to say that he/she, as an individual,
has no need for more than one video card. I have situations, such as
debugging encoder/decoders in compression algorithms, where I can use
all the space I can get. If I run ddd twice, once to see what is
generated and again to determine if the correct thing is decoded, I can
eaisly fill two screens. And there are other ways to do this. But
cards and monitors are cheap compared to salary. I have been trying to
encourage the development of multi-head capability. It has been used on
Macs for years.

I currently have two matrox millennium cards, (merry Christmas) that are
supposed to be supported by MetroLinks Metro-X server. I will let you
know how it works out.

don

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