From: David Waite <mass@ufl.edu>
  To  : ggi-develop@eskimo.com
  Date: Fri, 26 Feb 1999 21:16:35 -0500

RE: Matrox G200 specs released!

It definately appears to be everything from what I see. Maybe they don't
fully describe exactly how to program everything, but I see discussion on
how to load textures, and the registers for the texture ALU.

I am having a serious geek crisis here, I do a lot of OpenGL work in
windows, but I would certainly like to own as much linux-supported hardware
as possible.  Especially since there will hopefully be MesaGL support for
this 'rather soon' anyways.

Within a month or two I will either buy the G200, or get the TNT or TNT2. If
I get the G200, I would definately want to help out with the driver.

BTW, since the specs were released, I would imagine the best way to
implement 3D would be just to expose the registers to user space, with as
little between as possible (I didn't check to see if they have any register
mishaps documented - you would want to make sure a user has no ability to
crash the card and the machine). Then user-level libraries and programs can
implement GLX, Mesa, GGI3D, direct-to-board communication, whatever.

*sigh* decisions, decisions. Luckily, I win either way ;-)

-David Waite


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Stephen Crowley [mailto:stephenc@stephenc.wf.net]On Behalf Of
> Stephen Crowley
> Sent: Friday, February 26, 1999 8:35 PM
> To: ggi-develop@eskimo.com
> Subject: Re: Matrox G200 specs released!
>
>
> On Fri, Feb 26, 1999 at 05:15:20PM -0800, Dan Hollis wrote:
> > On Fri, 26 Feb 1999, Stephen Crowley wrote:
> > > I don't know if anyone has noticed yet but matrox has
> released complete
> > > specs to the G200!
> > > http://www.matrox.com/mga/dev_relations/chips_tech/mga-g200.htm
> >
> > Developers ive talked to have said its only the 2d stuff, the
> 3d stuff is
> > still under wraps.
> >
> > And the G400 is due 'any day now' B)
>
> I don't know, it appears that the 3d information is here too.
> Talks about Fog, specular highlighting, texture mapping, transparancy,
> Z-depths..
>
> But I haven't had time to read it in detail. I'm not sure.
>
>
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> |Stephen Crowley      stephenc@wf.net, crow@debian.org      |
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