Im an a new Mandrake Linux user. I am using 9.1 with KDE 3.2. I found out that direct rendering is off and that if i turned it on I would be able 3D games more smoother. I heard you can change it in 3Dsetup but i dont know where that is. If someone could tell me where either i can enable direct rendering or where 3Dsetup that would be great. Thanks

As long as direct rendering is compiled into your kernel (mandrake 9.1 i would assume it is) you can just load the "dri" extension into your XFree86 config file. I believe mandrake uses XF86Config-4 located in your /etc/X11/ directory. Edit the file and look for the "Modules" section and add
Load "dri"
to it. From there, look at XFree86's log file located in /var/log/XFree86.0.log and search for dri to see if its loaded.
-maitre

Thanks but that didnt seem to fix my problem. I can't even play tux racer becuse it is so lagy. There must be a way to get it playable. Does anyone else have a solution.

If your using a generic driver (vesa,nv), then you cant use direct rendering. getting an official driver from ATI or Nvidia should solve your problem. Be sure to follow their instructions carefully to make sure dri and glx work. Theres lots of threads on the subject, so do a search if you have problems.

Direct Rendering only helps hardware acceleration for desktop stuff, so it wouldnt help 3D game speed, only for transparancy and window moving and stuff like that.

That said, just using a specific driver (and not a generic one) will increase your performance in 3D like 1000%. But its not because of the Direct Rendering (just telling you).

Sorry, pressed the button twice.

ah - i got your problem now - yeah - just like contra said get your driver from either ATI or NVIDIA (hopefully NVIDIA) -- and use the appropriate driver. and contra - strip out the direct rendering option from your kernel and try playing your games - i think you'll realize dri isn't so bad (gives direct access to video hardware something like the NVdriver or atis if they've got one...)
-maitre

Well, the hardware acceleration is only for effects like transparancy, so it might help/hurt the game a little, but maybe Im wrong. I dont like to mess with my configurations unless I have to, so ill take your word for it.

Also, I believe the official Nvidia drivers have their own version of dri, so that probobly helps as well.