$73 AMD64 MB with SiS760 integrated graphics : compatibility ?

kozaki · 04-29-2005, 03:46 PM

Hi tuxes

What do you think about getting a $73 AMD 64 socket 754 motherblard with LAN, Audio, Usb, Firewire AND Graphics integrated ?
Interested ?

Here they are :
- AOpen s760GXm-S
- ASRock K8Upgrade 760GX
- ECS/Elitegroup 760GX-M
- Foxconn Winfast 760GXK8MB-ERS

Those Athlon-64 low cost / high performances motherboards w/ SiS 760GX Built-in Graphic offer great performances for those of us who are interested by compilation/video/audio/2D great performances, rather than 3D/DirectX15 games-of-the-day

We can have a look @ those motherboards features and performances with (PCPerspective) and without (tomshardware) GPU.
- http://www.tomshardware.com/motherbo...415/index.html
- http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid...e=expert&pid=1

Does someone know wether the onboard Mirage 2 graphic controller is Linux compatible ?
Here some related informations :

- Thomas Winischhofer - X.org/XFree86/Linux and SiS graphics chipset

- An interesting LQ thread where they write opposite stuffs like "Only VESA drivers can make this video chip work" // "The driver should work but no 3d"

I'd like some more information about these chipsets on Linux

crashmeister · 04-30-2005, 09:33 AM

If Winischhofer says to stay away from it I'd do just that.

kozaki · 04-30-2005, 01:09 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by crashmeister
If Winischhofer says to stay away from it I'd do just that.

Well, he specifically advise us not to buy that chipset with a dual screen --if i understand him clear.
But it doesn't say explicitly which feature are limited in single head operation. Do you make it clearer than I do ?

Quote:

3. A few words about the SiS 760/761

The SiS76x are chipsets for the AMD64 and AMD Sempron platform. These CPUs have a memory controller built-in, ie in systems based on these CPUs, there is no dedicated memory controller present.

(...)

While shared memory was quite usable on all previous integrated chips (630/730, 65x, 661, 74x), there is a serious problem with it on the SiS76x - caused by the aforementioned fact that the CPU contains the system memory controller. This leads to severe memory bandwidth limitations if only shared system memory is used and no local framebuffer memory is present.

Therefore, the 76x - if used with shared memory only - is not really usable in dual head configurations; even in single-head operation, some features are limited. This especially affects video overlay support (Xv): Although the SiS76x supports two video overlays, these are in most cases not usable: Heavy flicker in the video and the graphics may occure as a result of exceeding the available memory bandwidth. The X driver takes some counter-measures on such systems, but it can't avoid the problems entirely. On systems with both shared and local video memory, the drivers will only use the local memory part. You may likewise disable the shared memory in the BIOS.

My advice: Don't buy a machine with a SiS76x unless this machine has dedicated local video memory.

crashmeister · 05-02-2005, 05:15 AM

The 'even in single-head operation....' part and what comes after that seems like trouble.
I think he is refering to problems with a single monitor after that but it's not entirely clear.
Especially the trouble with the xv extension is no good if looking for good video performance.

Other than throwing in a cheap nvidia card the picture does look rather ugly for onboard solutions with good Linux support.

kozaki · 05-02-2005, 06:59 AM

crashmeister > Yeap

Thank you you made it clearer (and i won't go for one of those SiS 760 chips !)