# 3dfx card

## mingthefirst

How can I get my 3dfx card to work? I think I compiled xorg with +3dfx, but now I can barely get x to run. xorgcgf give an error.

BTW: is it possible to get 3d support out of this banshee card?

BTW2: is it possible to use an nvidia driver with this card?

BTW3: Is  banshee better supported on xfree or xorg?Last edited by mingthefirst on Sun Dec 12, 2004 6:32 pm; edited 2 times in total

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## NeddySeagoon

mingthefirst,

Its a while since I played with a 3dfx card. The first thing to do is to get xorg to work at all, then add in your 3dfx drivers later, when everything else is OK. It will give you some 3d support (it supports openGL) but modern features are misssing.

In your device section in xorg.conf, use the vesa driver, or even the vga one (they should both work) In the Screen Section, set the DefaultDepth to 8, since the vga driver only does 8 bit colour.

Does X start now?

I mean X with twm, not Gnome or KDE, thats a whole new bag of worms after X starts.

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## mingthefirst

works...... now for the possible (is it?) 24 bit colour and 3d accel   :Very Happy:  .

any tips?

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## rlj

The opengl implementation that comes with X (Mesa I think?) uses glide for 3d acceleration for 3dfx cards (at least, it does for my voodoo3).  If you have a voodoo3 chip, set USE flags "voodoo3" and "3dfx". If you have a 4/5, set USE flag "3dfx" (it will default to building glide for 4/5). after that use flag is set, run "emerge glide-v3". Also, do not forget to enable dri in your kernel and to load the dri module in the X config file. Run "glxinfo" in an xterm then look for "direct rendering: yes" in the output. Good luck - the DRI guide on the gentoo.org web page might offer some help too.

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## mingthefirst

thanx, i got glx working, no 3d accel though   :Confused: 

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## Dr Gonzo

That's kind of confusing.  GLX is 3d acceleration, is it not?

I assume you're using the tdfx driver?  If not, after everything's compiled with the correct USE flags, you should be able to use the tdfx driver in place of vga or vesa.  Then, you can also switch your color depths.

Ooh, just saw you have a Banshee.  Out of the realm of my experience, but I think it's the same driver as the Voodoo3.

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## mingthefirst

 *Quote:*   

> ming@gentoo ming $ glxinfo | grep rendering
> 
> direct rendering: No
> 
> 

 

This is what I mean, but the error from above is gone as programs wont complain as much about glx maybe I should compile xorg with voodoo3 and 3dfx?

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## rlj

Yes, you need to use the tdfx driver with X, but that is not enough to get direct rendering. Without glide installed, the Mesa opengl will emulate 3d rendering in software instead of using the hardware capabilities of your voodoo card. With glide installed, the opengl functions of Mesa will call on the glide libraries to do hardware rendering. That "direct rendering: no" message indicates you are still using software rendering instead of hardware rendering.  I did have voodoo3 and 3dfx set when I emerged Xorg, but look in 

/usr/X11R6/lib/modules/dri for a file called tdfx_dri.so before you do that, and dont forget to emerge glide-v3 also. Again, good luck.

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## mingthefirst

 *Quote:*   

> ming@gentoo ming $ ls /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/dri
> 
> gamma_dri.so  i915_dri.so  r128_dri.so  radeon_dri.so  tdfx_dri.so
> 
> i810_dri.so   mga_dri.so   r200_dri.so  sis_dri.so
> ...

 

Thanks for the reply, i think I do have the file, what should I do now?

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## rlj

Great, that is the xorg DRI module for your card. Make sure your USE flags are set - voodoo3 if that is appropriate (is the banshee card a voodoo3 or a 4 or 5?) if it is a voodoo3 set USE flags to include "voodoo3" and "3dfx". if it is a voodoo4 or voodoo5 chip. set them to include just "3dfx" (no voodo3). 

next, run "emerge glide-v3". 

verify that you have these lines in your /etc/x11/xorg.conf file - they were near the top of my xorg.conf:

load "glx"

load"dri"

also, you want to make sure you have the proper permissions set to access the dri device. this was at the end of my xorg.conf: 

 Section "DRI"

    Mode 0666

 EndSection

or whatever permissions are appropriate for your environment. you might try running X as root once just to make sure it is not a permissions problem.

keep me posted. the first time i got DRI running on my card it was a lot of trouble. good luck to you.

just remembered something and had to edit - look in /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/drivers for a file called tdfx_drv.o and grep through your /etc/x11/xorg.conf file for a line that says 

      Driver      "tdfx"

to make sure you arent using the vesa video driver or whatnot.

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## mingthefirst

Thanks, got it working, execp i used Mode 0777 instead.

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