[mythtv-users] alternative GPU - graphics cards with open sourcedrivers question

[Bob]

Todd Ignasiak wrote:
> I looked into these a while back, and I was unable to find any
> standalone video cards available for purchase.  With the video
> processing capabilities they have, the S3 products would make ideal
> HTPC video cards.
> 
>   As you mentioned, the Unichrome is available integrated into many
> motherboards.   S3 also announced a couple new models recently, the
> S25 and S27.

I belive these are PCI Express models 
http://www.s3graphics.com/en/products/index.jsp but I'm sure someone 
could put them on an AGP card with a converter like some of the Nvidia 
cards, I think it's the 6600s that are natively PCI-E but have AGP 
versions available through the magic of a little chip.

> If you can find one, there are still a few questions..  Does the
> driver from the unichrom project support these chips?   Do the
> standalone cards have the same MPEG decoder capabilities as the
> unichrome?

Don't know but I'd have thought their'll be plenty of similarities 
though one big difference is going to be in memory handling, I'm pretty 
sure the on-board unichrome GPU uses some of the system RAM but an 
expansion card model won't.  As for the MPEG stuff, the specs claim 
acceleration and given the man hours involved in developing such a 
feature it's probably the same~ish but I'm speculating.

> I currently use an Nvidia FX5200 (it's fanless, and supports XvMC
> MPEG2 acceleration).   But, I would like to replace it with a card
> that has open source drivers.. if something is out there.

Me too, lets hope a the turnover provided by the VIA boards is enough to 
stop S3 going under (as everyone on /. seems to think it will) until a 
major card fab puts the chips on something we can buy and thus promote 
better support for open source software from hardware manufacturers.

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