Sridhar Ayengar wrote:
Curtis H. Wilbar Jr. wrote:
If you are looking to add better video... I have
some Sun SS20 8MB
VSIMMS
brand new in the box.
I used an SS20 (at different times with a single HS180, and dual
SM71s) (under Solaris 8), and with decent drives and not
shortchanging it on RAM, I found it to be a fairly nice system. The
VSIMM (SX video), gives you 24 bit video, and drops it right on the
memory bus... so it has the best speed your going to get in a SS20
too.
Isn't it unaccelerated 24-bit video though? Did Sun ever make an
accelerated 24-bit card?
Not sure... it may lack hardware acceleration.... but the fact that the
card is on the
memory bus makes it fast for everyday X11 use.... I never felt wanting
for more
speed out of it....
although... from a document I found by googling:
SX provides acceleration of the graphics and imaging segments of
applications that run on a SPARCstation 10SX or SPARCstation 20
workstation. Acceleration can be used for a wide range of pixel
operations, including 2D and 3D graphics rendering, multimedia, and
image processing.
The SX accelerator, built into the SMC, can directly accelerate
operations on both the system main memory (DRAM) and the video memory
(VRAM). The SMC is comprised of:
1. An error-correcting code memory controller which interfaces
with both the system main memory (DRAM) and the video memory
(VRAM; the frame buffer) to the system memory bus.
2. The SX imaging and graphics accelerator.
Peace... Sridhar
So, I guess there is some acceleration .... but I haven't found much
details on
exactly what kind or how good it is in comparison to other frame buffers.
For what I used SS20 for, I'd rather have SX video over any other.
But I'm sure certain operations would be better on TGX series or ZX...
but for 'day to day' use... I found the SX to be excellent.
-- Curt