Hi,

I was curious which of these two framebuffers would be better
for general 2D stuff like web browsing (with flash content) and
other multimedia content. The Creator is SBus based in a dual 400MHz
U2, whilst the Elite card is in a U60 with dual 450MHz.

Thanks and regards,
Andrew

Andrew Tyson wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I was curious which of these two framebuffers would be better
> for general 2D stuff like web browsing (with flash content) and
> other multimedia content. The Creator is SBus based in a dual 400MHz
> U2, whilst the Elite card is in a U60 with dual 450MHz.
>
> Thanks and regards,
> Andrew
>
>
Lets get a few things straight. There are 3 types of Elite graphics
cards; 1) M6 horizontal, 2) M6 vertical and 3) M3 vertical. The
difference between M3 & M6 are the floating point processors, where M3 =
3 processors and M6 = 6 floating point processors. I have 2 Ultra 2's
with the Elite 3D-M6 cards. They are UPA based, and horizontal. The
Elite 3D cards you specify for the Ultra 60's are vertical. One
horizontal card cannot be interchanged with a vertical card, but both
are Elite cards. The Creator cards are UPA cards also, I replaced my
Creator 3D cards with my Elite 3D-M6 cards. Now, to get to the root of
your question, when I replaced my Creator cards with the Elite card,
IMO, the 2D graphics didn't change much or sped up a little, and the 3D
capability sped up considerably. My choice would always be an Elite 3D
card.

Paul

> capability sped up considerably. My choice would always be an Elite 3D
> card.

thanks paul !

Andrew Tyson wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I was curious which of these two framebuffers would be better
> for general 2D stuff like web browsing (with flash content) and
> other multimedia content. The Creator is SBus based in a dual 400MHz
> U2

Actually, the Creator is UPA, not Sbus, based. Just got my Creator 3D a
few hours ago. Found out it isn't supported in NetBSD 1.6.2, at least
not out of the box.

On Thu, 15 Jul 2004 03:23:32 GMT
Paul Gress <pgress@pb.net> wrote:

> My choice would always be an Elite 3D card.

I tried both the Creator#D series 3 and the Elite 3Dm3
in my Ultra 60, and I found the Elite to be superior
on all counts (image quality, 2D and 3D speed). The
Creator can go up to 1600x1200, if I'm not mistaken,
whereas the Elite's maximum resolution is 1280x1024,
so this might be the determining factor.

Take care,

--
Stefaan
--
"What is stated clearly conceives easily." -- Inspired sales droid

On Thu, 15 Jul 2004 04:25:09 -0400, Donn Miller wrote:

> Actually, the Creator is UPA, not Sbus, based. Just got my Creator 3D a
> few hours ago. Found out it isn't supported in NetBSD 1.6.2, at least
> not out of the box.

OpenBSD's XFree86 does support the Creator 3D. But its driver for the
hme NIC had some problems in v3.4. I haven't tried v3.5 yet on an Ultra.

>>>>> "Stefaan" == Stefaan A Eeckels <tengo@DELETEMEecc.lu> writes:

Stefaan> On Thu, 15 Jul 2004 03:23:32 GMT
Stefaan> Paul Gress <pgress@pb.net> wrote:

>> My choice would always be an Elite 3D card.

Stefaan> I tried both the Creator#D series 3 and the Elite 3Dm3
Stefaan> in my Ultra 60, and I found the Elite to be superior
Stefaan> on all counts (image quality, 2D and 3D speed). The
Stefaan> Creator can go up to 1600x1200, if I'm not mistaken,

1920x1200 is possible on some Creators. I think Series 3 can do that.

Ray

Dave Uhring wrote:
> On Thu, 15 Jul 2004 04:25:09 -0400, Donn Miller wrote:
>
>
>>Actually, the Creator is UPA, not Sbus, based. Just got my Creator 3D a
>>few hours ago. Found out it isn't supported in NetBSD 1.6.2, at least
>>not out of the box.
>
>
> OpenBSD's XFree86 does support the Creator 3D. But its driver for the
> hme NIC had some problems in v3.4. I haven't tried v3.5 yet on an Ultra.

Ah, thanks for that bit of info. I took at peek through FreeBSD's
source tree, and it looks like the Creator 3D is supported in 5-current.
Problem is, I suppose Ultra 1/2 support is very new in FreeBSD. Last
time I attempted to install the latest FreeBSD/sparc64 snapshot, I got a
"Device not configured" when the installer attempted to read from the CD
to extract the components of the OS. I would've tried installing via
ftp, but the DHCP didn't work in that particular snapshot. The ISO was
SNAP-20040612-sparc64-miniinst.iso. Plus, the screen was pretty messed
up, apparently because the console wasn't playing well with curses.

This Ultra-2 has a 2.1GB HD, so unfortunately, Solaris wouldn't install.
It does look like Gentoo/sparc64 is a good option though, and the
virtual consoles actually worked. I don't think virtual consoles worked
at all on NetBSD/sparc64.

I did find NetBSD to be nice and responsive on the Ultra-2. I guess
it's either OpenBSD or Gentoo for now.

On Thu, 15 Jul 2004 13:38:11 -0400, Donn Miller wrote:

> Ah, thanks for that bit of info. I took at peek through FreeBSD's
> source tree, and it looks like the Creator 3D is supported in 5-current.

I've tried FreeBSD-5.2.1 only on x86 hardware and was disappointed with
its stability.

> This Ultra-2 has a 2.1GB HD, so unfortunately, Solaris wouldn't install.
> It does look like Gentoo/sparc64 is a good option though, and the
> virtual consoles actually worked. I don't think virtual consoles worked
> at all on NetBSD/sparc64.

Larger HDDs are available and at reasonable prices. I just bought 2
18.2GB Seagate Cheetah drives from serversupply.com for $50 ea. including
shipping. You should still be able to get the developer's package cluster
to install, specially if you deselect such things as GNOME, the app
server, name server, etc.

> I did find NetBSD to be nice and responsive on the Ultra-2. I guess
> it's either OpenBSD or Gentoo for now.

NetBSD-1.6 did run pretty well on my Ultra-1/170E but as you have
discovered the C3D framebuffer is not supported. If you want to use a BSD
then OpenBSD should be a good choice except for problems with its hme
driver. It's necessary to configure X with an editor; there's a README in
/usr/X11R6.

> + On 15-Jul-04 04:23:32
+Paul Gress <pgress@pb.net> wrote

>Creator 3D cards with my Elite 3D-M6 cards. Now, to get to the root of
>your question, when I replaced my Creator cards with the Elite card,
>IMO, the 2D graphics didn't change much or sped up a little, and the 3D
>capability sped up considerably. My choice would always be an Elite 3D
>card.

I have two Ultra10 at work, one with Elite3D M6 and one with Creator3D,
I would say that the Elite3D is faster in some 2D stuff, however, for
2D both are very useable.

...However I heard that the Creator3D can manage higher resolutions than
the Eliet3D, I never tried that however, I already have a nice resolution.