SGI Flat Panels @ 1600x1024 w/ Linux/BSD? 10
PhilLong asks: "SGI has a limited time offer for the 1600x1024 flat panel for $1500 US. What options are available to support the 1600SW under Linux or BSD, especially at 1600x1024? What I know so far, from DejaNews and phone calls is the following: they will bundle it with either a multilink adapter or an Oxygen VX1 PCI card with DVI out, the multilink will take standard VESA resolutions @60Hz and drive the monitor, it will also accept 1600x1024@60Hz (there's a list of cards that will do the 1600x1024 under Windows on SGI's site). The SGI Linux (Red Hat 6.2) workstations with the nVidia chips (and more recent than 0.95) drivers work through multilink, and possibly DVI. I'm not clear on that. The matrox G400 is said to support the 1600x1024 under DVI/windows with the DVI daughtercard. Does this work under XFree4 @ 1600x1024@60Hz? Does anybody know if the daughtercard will fit on a card with the two head output built in? MetroX doesn't support the 1600SW, but Xi (Friday) posted a patch for the accelX 6 to support the Oxygen VX1 card." This offer is only good thru December, so you better act soon if you're interested.
Great (Score:2)
Good information from the XFree86 newbie list (Score:5)
Actually, the SGI 1600SW (and Radius Artica) do not use DVI, they use Open LDI as their native digital input -- and this is where the story starts.
The SGI Multilink Adapter (MLA) has a single DVI input that supports either DVI-I (analog) or DVI-D (digital) and comes with the necessary cables to hook up to either 15-pin analog, DFP or DVI-D video outputs, doing whatever conversion, and thus driving the 1600SW that way.
At one point in time, SGI shipped the 1600SW with a Number Nine Revolution IV video card, that both XFree86 3.3.6 and the 4.0.2 release candidates support very nicely - you can even do multi-head setups with AGP and PCI versions of the card in the same system. Alas, S3 bought #9 awhile back, closed them down, and now these cards are rather hard to find.
SGI is currently shipping one bundle of the 1600SW with the 3DLabs Oxygen VX1-1600SW PCI card which can drive the 1600SW directly (it is actually a PC version of the Formac Proformance 3 with Permedia 3 chip). Alas, I have not been able to figure out the proper XF86Config file settings to make the 1600SW and this video card work natively together under the XFree86 4.0.2 release candidates. The same mode lines, and some variations that I've tried from a working #9 I128 driver XF86Config, do not function with this combination - and I have not yet received an answer on the XFree86 Xpert list on this topic.
The other option is to use the SGI MLA with a DVI-out video card: Matrox G400 with DVI module, ATI Rage Fury Pro DVI, ATI Raedon All-In-Wonder, or some variation of an nVidia GeForce2-based card with DVI out. I've read that there is a limitation in the Matrox closed source HAL module for XFree86 that prevents you from running the second head, which is where the Matrox DVI module is driven from, at the required 1600x1024 resolution, so, for now, you can't use the SGI MLA with a Matrox card - someone please correct me if I am wrong. I haven't read anything yet about driving the SGI MLA from the ATI Rage Fury Pro DVI, ATI Raedon All-In-Wonder, or an nVidia GeForce2-based card at 1600x1024. I just got an SGI MLA myself the other day and I do have an ATI Rage Fury Pro DVI card that I will be trying out sometime this week in this particular combination.
Bottom line, IMHO, the best thing to do (most flexible combination) is to get the SGI 1600SW with the SGI MLA. This will let you work at any resolution *now* on any machine and platform, and when things get ironed out with driving DVI outputs at 1600x1024, you will enjoy the benefits then.
BTW, IMNSHO [:-)] , the SGI 1600SW is the best flat panel out there bar none. The 22" Apple Cinema display is too grainy (same resolution, larger display, larger pixels, twice as much) and all of the other flat panels just don't have the same quality, nor the ability to turn the 'pixels' on and off fast enough - they ghost like mad when moving windows around or playing videos.
SGI is the best screen pitty about the card (Score:2)
the problem is the card
I got a N9 card and as far as I can see its not in XFree 4.x.x I am considering PAYing/buying lots of beer for the work to be done
nice to see it might be done soon
the surport of 3dlabs used to be realy flakey I dont know what its like now
SGI advertised SGI PANNEL WITH LINUX but I dont see ANY suport for N9 cards in 4.xx considering they bought the company you would think someone would know something !
bitter but happy
john jones
(a deltic so please dont moan about spelling but the content)
Cheaper on Ebay (Score:3)
I was under the impression that using the multilink adapter was a bad thing because it required converting the signal from digital to analog.
LiNT
I lucked out, I suppose... (Score:1)
I just hope my Revolution IV doesn't croak! I had hoped to update the existing PCI card with AGP, but they have become too rare. :-(
If I had any confidence that sellers (on Ebay, for example) would be truthful about hot pixels, I would get another 1600SW without hesitation.
Convincing Your Company (Score:2)
I was able to convince my company to buy me two nice monitors--an SGI 1600SW flatpanel and a top-of-the-line Sony GDM-F500R 21" CRT. My reasoning for these monitors is that my eyesight is beginning to go bad and the eye strain from hours in front of a crappy 15" monitor was more than I could handle. Considering this, these nice moniotrs really do increase my efficiency.
Back to the topic of this story... I had no problems whatsoever getting my 1600SW working with the old #9 card (PCI) under FreeBSD. E-mail me if you want the XFree86 configuration file. Not suprisingly, I found I prefered the SGI flatpanel over my nice Sony CRT even though they are both top-of-the-line monitors. Since I read my mail on my Win2k machine and thus, spend most of my time staring at it, I decided to put the flatpanel on this Win2k box. This worked out rather nicely because the 21" CRT is better suited to typical X11 usage, IMHO. It's not practical to have very wide xterms open but it's nice to have very tall ones. Remember, the SGI flatpanel is a cinema-style display and doesn't have a whole lot of top-to-bottom desktop space.
Chris
Re:SGI is the best screen pitty about the card (Score:2)
Small Warning on the Multi-link (Score:3)
I was talking to a guy that had the multi-link adapter, and was trying to use one of those "superwide savvy" cards that SGI lists.
Though he had a card with a DVI connector (-D or -I... don't remember), he was not able to run the SGI at 1600x1024 through the DVI, only through the analog. From what I recall of the standard, you're only going to get 1280x1024 through DVI. (Correct me if I'm wrong)
Ya see, there really was a good reason why SGI decided to go with OpenLDI instead of DVI or that other VESA DFP standard. Two words: bandwidth limitation.
I'm just glad to be able to still run the old Number Nine RevIV card under XFree86. Those of us that have them will just have to hang tight for another year or so until displays like that expensive monster panel from IBM come down in price.
So, even though I love my SGI's (have two, no dead pixels), I'm not sure I can really recommend anyone buying one for now, unless you're fully aware of the limitations.
Re:SGI is the best screen pitty about the card (Score:2)
SGI sold this as a refurb for $1100 or so (Score:2)
These days though, if you want a high res LCD, you might look at a high end laptop, like an IBM Thinkpad A20p (1400x1050) or A21p (1600x1200), or (less expensive but not as nice) a Dell 5000e. All of these use the ATI Rage 128 chip which is supported by XFree86 4.01 and later.