Re: [ccp4bb]: GeForce3 vs Quadro2Pro

[Ethan Merritt <merritt@u.washington.edu>]

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On Monday 21 January 2002 10:18, Jason Yano wrote:
>     I have one of the elsa quadro 2pro board (elsa gloria III) and
> unfortunatly it does not support stereo for linux (at least to my
> knowlege).

Note that the nvidia drivers have a really bad reputation among 
linux gurus - they are closed-source modules with an unfortunate
tendancy to trigger both hardware and software problems elsewhere 
in the system when run with any linux kernel other than the one
nvidia debugged them on.


> Notice how they never mention "3D functionality". I was a bit bummed, but
> it works great in windows.
>
> If anyone knows any different please tell me

Here is a pointer to the Xi graphics web site:
	http://www.xig.com/Pages/AXvsXFree86.html

Xi supports in-window stereo graphics for many cards, including
at least one from Elsa (I don't know whether it's an nvidia chipset, though).

We were using the Xi X-servers for a while, but for
all purposes except the in-window stereo mode we have found that 
XFree86 gives better performance and fewer problems (caveat:
XFree86 ATI driver is buggy).  
For in-window stereo, however, XFree86 is not (currently) an option.

So far as I know, under linux you must still choose your video hardware 
carefully to match the stereo mechanism used by your specific application 
programs.  The real cost is usually the monitor, not the graphics card,
as the most general stereo gizmos require a refresh rate of >= 120 Hz,
which is not typical of inexpensive monitors. 


-- 
Ethan A Merritt       merritt@u.washington.edu
Biomolecular Structure Center Box 357742
University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195
phone: (206)543-1421
FAX:   (206)685-7002