Will like to release xf86-video-mga Version 1.7 soon

[Kevin Brace]

Hi Felix,

Since I call myself, Brace Computer Laboratory, I do own a fair number of Matrox graphics cards.
I have been collecting them for some time knowing that I probably will be doing something like this (i.e., testing graphics cards for Linux / BSD) down the road.
Indeed, I am finally doing this now in Year 2018.
    I did some testing of the Version 2.0 RC1 (Release Candidate 1) code (Version 1.6.900).
These are the results.

- Millennium 4 MB WRAM PCI: Complete crash (EXA related)
- Millennium II 4 MB WRAM PCI: Severe rendering errors (i.e., artifacts)
- Millennium II 4 MB WRAM AGP: Severe rendering errors (i.e., artifacts)
- G200 8 MB SDRAM AGP: Okay
- G400 16 MB SDRAM AGP: Okay
- G400 MAX 32 MB SGRAM AGP: Okay
- G450 16 MB SGRAM PCI: Okay
- G450 16 MB SGRAM AGP: Okay
- G550 32 MB SDRAM PCI: Complete crash (X Server related)

I believe I also own G100 AGP and Mystique PCI, but I do not know where they went.
I do not own graphics cards older than Millennium. (I forgot the names of them, but they did exist.)
Please note that occasional artifacts do appear for those that are considered "okay." (i.e., G200, G400, and G450)
Also note that standby resume is completely broken, particularly when EXA is activated.
I did not test dual head (i.e., connected only one VGA monitor to VGA 1).
I used the following environment for the testing.

- Intel Pentium 4 1.5 GHz
- Shuttle AV40 mainboard (VIA Technologies P4X266 chipset)
- Xubuntu 16.04.5 (X.Org X Server 1.19.6)

Surprisingly (?), the mainboard itself is very stable despite being pretty old. (It was manufactured in Year 2001.)
For now, I hope disabling acceleration for Millennium family will be an okay workaround for this release.

Regards,

Kevin Brace
Brace Computer Laboratory blog
https://bracecomputerlab.com


> Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2018 16:42:02 -0500
> From: Felix Miata <mrmazda at earthlink.net>
> To: xorg-devel at lists.x.org
> Subject: Re: Will like to release xf86-video-mga Version 1.7 soon
> 
> Kevin Brace composed on 2018-11-29 22:25 (UTC+0100):
> 
> > I do have several models of Millennium 4 MB PCI, one G200 8 MB AGP, one or two G400 AGP (16
> > MB to 32 MB) , one G400 MAX AGP, and several G450 and G550 (mostly AGP, but at least one
> > PCI). For G200, I need a mainboard with AGP 3.3V signaling support in order to use it....
> 
> I have a G550 in a box with openSUSE Tumblweed and Debian 9, and several G400s that I could
> reinstall in boxes they were removed from due to lack of working MGA drivers, which in addition
> to Debian and Tumbleweed have Mageia 6 and/or Fedora 28 and/or Fedora 29. I can only test
> packages built by others. I may have a working PCI G200 as well.
> -- 
> Evolution as taught in public schools is religion, not science.
> 
>  Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks!
> 
> Felix Miata  ***  http://fm.no-ip.com/
> 
>