x20 video ram

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bagehot · #1 Post by **bagehot** » Sat Jan 26, 2008 1:29 pm

I read somewhere that the ATI Rage Mobility card on the X20/21 came in two flavors: X (4MB vram) and X1(8MB vram). Can anyone confirm the X1 option? I haven't come across anything other than 4MB on this card.

If the X1 option doesn't exist, is there any way of making the card DRI-capable, other than reducing color depth and going to 800x600?

phool@round · #2 Post by **phool@round** » Sat Jan 26, 2008 2:44 pm

Welcome to the Forum!!!

http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/ATI_Rage_Mobility_M

Your kind of stuck in 2D land with this chip. I have not seen any documentation that tells me what board uses the X1 (MI) option for 8M of VRAM. I've looked too, it would seem pretty rare and I wouldn't mind having one of those.

If you move up to the X22 it uses the ATI Radeon 7000 (M6) and you can use DRIconfig to set up Direct Rendering. You can try DRIconfig with your X20 but it'll probably crump on you.

bagehot · #3 Post by **bagehot** » Sat Jan 26, 2008 7:26 pm

Phool@round: I'm pretty much stuck in Crumpland right now. I've just dumped XP on my 2000-ish X20 for Xubuntu and can get 3D of a sort at 800x600 (screensavers, glxgears etc). I wanted to make sure there wasn't something I was missing (including a mobo swap) before resigning myself to life in a 2D world.

phool@round · #4 Post by **phool@round** » Sun Jan 27, 2008 4:17 am

Here's a little more information for you, don't know your skill level though....: http://dri.freedesktop.org/wiki/Building

What other distro's have you tried starting from the bottom of the Distrowatch list going up? There are better than You burnt U. Since your already playing around try an i686 flavor on that pokey puppy. Probably won't mind 2D nearly as much.

bagehot · #5 Post by **bagehot** » Tue Jan 29, 2008 11:09 am

I'm kinda invested in UB2 right now - the thought of another week of configuration hell is not appealing! If 3D ever becomes a real issue, I'll check out the other distros. Which would you recommend?

phool@round · #6 Post by **phool@round** » Tue Jan 29, 2008 12:42 pm

I can assume that your somewhat new to Linux by the use of Xubuntu although Xfce isn't a noob's window manager. I primarily use Arch Linux. I don't suggest it because you must know alot to configure it right. There is no hand holding done in Arch, you either know it or your going to pull your hair out learning it (or not). It's based on the concept of in depth linux knowledge and installing what you need rather than bloat that you don't. Not a noob's linux at all.

Vector is my other main linux. It's i686 and zips along. A few of the developers and contributors are Arch members as well. It's not easy to install but there is enough humor and hand holding that it's not too difficult. Still need to know how to partition a disk though.

bagehot · #7 Post by **bagehot** » Tue Jan 29, 2008 7:01 pm

Thanks for the pointers. I checked out Vector and it looks like a good package. I don't have the stomach for another install just yet, though. It's like moving houses: you only ever do it when you've forgotten how bad it was last time around!

phool@round · #8 Post by **phool@round** » Tue Jan 29, 2008 9:19 pm

Vector is very easy to install. The only pointer I'll need to give you is to partition your disk in three partitions. One will be root (whole disk minus 1Gig), the other will be home which can be another 512Mb and then swap. Swap only needs 512Mb, root can be the remainder of the disk.

The partitioning is done through cfdisk and is very easy. Other than that it will guide you pretty good and lots of humor thrown in, not mine theirs. One thing, the Xircom MPCI+ 56K modem isn't given a driver. And the Ati driver will be "Radeon" opensource. The other two that it recognizes are fglrx and ati opensource. Pick the Radeon and then let it autoconfigure your screen and it will come out looking like a million bucks.

I play alot of Tetris and Poker......what can I say. The Radeon driver will give you a few more aspects then a Rage driver will and is backwards compatible.

Good luck, it will take all of about 20 minutes from start to finish. Just as easy as the rest and it rips far quicker. You'll notice the difference.

bagehot · #9 Post by **bagehot** » Mon Feb 18, 2008 4:50 pm

OK, I finally bit the bullet and installed Vector. Took a bit longer than 20 minutes, mostly because of my own ignorance. I'm very pleased with the result. Still no DRI, but very nice graphics - clear, crisp and good colors. The machine runs noticably faster than under Xubuntu, and the user interface is more elegant. Many thanks for the pointers.

phool@round · #10 Post by **phool@round** » Mon Feb 18, 2008 5:36 pm

My pleasure. I've been "phooling around" for along time...... I know what works for me so it probably will work for you too.

Excellent, I'm glad you took the suggestion!

x20 video ram

x20 video ram

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