[9fans] ATI Xpert 98 video weirdness

[9fans] ATI Xpert 98 video weirdness

[John E. Barham]

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Hi all,

Well, I bought an "ATI Xpert 98 AGP X2" video card and have managed to install Plan9.  FWIW, the chip itself says "RAGE Mobility-L" although I'm using it in a Dell deskstop.

(As an aside, the install procedure was very pleasant.  Certainly more humane than FreeBSD.  Reminded me a lot of the BeOS [RIP] installer.)

However, the display is messed up w/ left-hand side of the screen repeated and the right side consequently falling off the right-hand side of the screen.  Can I fiddle w/ VGADB to fix this?  Or do I have to "upgrade" my video card yet again?

Thanks in advance.

    John

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Re: [9fans] ATI Xpert 98 video weirdness

[Joel Salomon]

john e barham@hotmail.com (John E. Barham) wrote:
> Well, I bought an "ATI Xpert 98 AGP X2" video card and have managed to 
> install Plan9. FWIW, the chip itself says "RAGE Mobility-L" although 
> I'm using it in a Dell deskstop.
Sound like it was a 'white box' graphics card.  I have one of those, (
the same ATI XPERT 98 etc.) & I'm pretty satisfied with it.

> However, the display is messed up w/ left-hand side of the screen 
> repeated and the right side consequently falling off the right-hand side 
> of the screen.  Can I fiddle w/ VGADB to fix this?  Or do I have to 
> "upgrade" my video card yet again?
I had a similar problem for a time, it's more likely an improper
selection of monitor in plan9.ini than anything wrong with the video
card.  Does standard 640x480 work?

> Thanks in advance.
>     John

Hope this helps,
Joel

Re: [9fans] ATI Xpert 98 video weirdness

[Dharani Vilwanathan]

Hi,

About a year back someone suggested ATI Xpert 98 and I bought a couple of
cards (AGP 1x version).

I use it with 1600x1200 resolution. It works okay but there is one strange
problem. While I boot the system, it doesnt reliably switch to graphics
mode. It fails about 20% of the time. If I reset the system, the next time
turns to graphics mode. Sometimes it is very frustrating because I am afraid
the file system might get corrupted any time.

Anyone faced a similar pb with ATI Xpert 98?

Thanks
dharani

> john e barham@hotmail.com (John E. Barham) wrote:
> > Well, I bought an "ATI Xpert 98 AGP X2" video card and have managed to
> > install Plan9. FWIW, the chip itself says "RAGE Mobility-L" although
> > I'm using it in a Dell deskstop.
> Sound like it was a 'white box' graphics card.  I have one of those, (
> the same ATI XPERT 98 etc.) & I'm pretty satisfied with it.
>
> > However, the display is messed up w/ left-hand side of the screen
> > repeated and the right side consequently falling off the right-hand side
> > of the screen.  Can I fiddle w/ VGADB to fix this?  Or do I have to
> > "upgrade" my video card yet again?
> I had a similar problem for a time, it's more likely an improper
> selection of monitor in plan9.ini than anything wrong with the video
> card.  Does standard 640x480 work?

Re: [9fans] ATI Xpert 98 video weirdness

[John E. Barham]

"Joel Salomon" <joelcsalomon@excite.com> wrote in message
news:ec836bd9.0203171952.69ab2889@posting.google.com...
> john e barham@hotmail.com (John E. Barham) wrote:
> > Well, I bought an "ATI Xpert 98 AGP X2" video card and have managed to
> > install Plan9. FWIW, the chip itself says "RAGE Mobility-L" although
> > I'm using it in a Dell deskstop.
> Sound like it was a 'white box' graphics card.  I have one of those, (
> the same ATI XPERT 98 etc.) & I'm pretty satisfied with it.

I've actually given up on this particular card since it was acting up even
on Windows (colors bleeding after the monitor went to sleep and woke back
up).  Not sure what to blame (the card seemed to work fine on a separate
Win2k box) but my Win98 install is already fragile enough that I don't want
to mess w/ it too much.

> > However, the display is messed up w/ left-hand side of the screen
> > repeated and the right side consequently falling off the right-hand side
> > of the screen.  Can I fiddle w/ VGADB to fix this?  Or do I have to
> > "upgrade" my video card yet again?
> I had a similar problem for a time, it's more likely an improper
> selection of monitor in plan9.ini than anything wrong with the video
> card.  Does standard 640x480 work?

No, I tried that resolution & still got the left-hand side repeating
problem.

> Hope this helps,
> Joel

Thanks for trying!

Seems I have to up my budget.  Any recommendations on more contemporary
cards that are known to work w/ Plan9?  Russ recommended the Diamond Stealth
III S540 but that too seems to be in short supply.

Pity the scope of the MS enquiry can't be expanded to investigate Windows'
monopoly on device drivers...

    John

Re: [9fans] ATI Xpert 98 video weirdness

[balajis]

FWIW I run an ATI Xpert 98 and here is the info from W2K...

Name: ATI Technologies Inc. 3D RAGE PRO PCI
Adapter Type: ATI 3D RAGE PRO PCI(GT-C2U2), ATI...

and P9 v4 works flawlessly.

Andrew Stitt wrote:
>
> fwiw i got a similiar pci card, it worked as an Xpert 98, and a Rage
> something or other. I dont know why. In windows (my os at the time) the
> ati drivers let you install it as either.
>
> On Thu, 2 May 2002, Russ Cox wrote:
>
> > > Well, I bought an "ATI Xpert 98 AGP X2" video card
> > > and have managed to install Plan9.  FWIW, the chip
> > > itself says "RAGE Mobility-L" although I'm using it in a Dell deskstop.
> > >
> > > However, the display is messed up w/ left-hand side
> > > of the screen repeated and the right side consequently
> > > falling off the right-hand side of the screen.
> > > Can I fiddle w/ VGADB to fix this?  Or do I have to
> > > "upgrade" my video card yet again?
> >
> > I picked up what was said to be an ATI Xpert 98 AGP X2
> > on Ebay and it seems to work just fine with the fourth
> > edition vga, just fyi.  Then again, the chip says
> > "Rage Pro Turbo AGP" on it, so maybe there's more than
> > one chip on the AGP X2's floating around, or maybe
> > I didn't really get an AGP X2.
> >
> > Russ

Re: [9fans] ATI Xpert 98 video weirdness

[Andrew Stitt]

fwiw i got a similiar pci card, it worked as an Xpert 98, and a Rage
something or other. I dont know why. In windows (my os at the time) the
ati drivers let you install it as either.


On Thu, 2 May 2002, Russ Cox wrote:

> > Well, I bought an "ATI Xpert 98 AGP X2" video card
> > and have managed to install Plan9.  FWIW, the chip
> > itself says "RAGE Mobility-L" although I'm using it in a Dell deskstop.
> >
> > However, the display is messed up w/ left-hand side
> > of the screen repeated and the right side consequently
> > falling off the right-hand side of the screen.
> > Can I fiddle w/ VGADB to fix this?  Or do I have to
> > "upgrade" my video card yet again?
>
> I picked up what was said to be an ATI Xpert 98 AGP X2
> on Ebay and it seems to work just fine with the fourth
> edition vga, just fyi.  Then again, the chip says
> "Rage Pro Turbo AGP" on it, so maybe there's more than
> one chip on the AGP X2's floating around, or maybe
> I didn't really get an AGP X2.
>
> Russ

Re: [9fans] ATI Xpert 98 video weirdness

[Russ Cox]

> Well, I bought an "ATI Xpert 98 AGP X2" video card
> and have managed to install Plan9.  FWIW, the chip
> itself says "RAGE Mobility-L" although I'm using it in a Dell deskstop.
>
> However, the display is messed up w/ left-hand side
> of the screen repeated and the right side consequently
> falling off the right-hand side of the screen.
> Can I fiddle w/ VGADB to fix this?  Or do I have to
> "upgrade" my video card yet again?

I picked up what was said to be an ATI Xpert 98 AGP X2
on Ebay and it seems to work just fine with the fourth
edition vga, just fyi.  Then again, the chip says
"Rage Pro Turbo AGP" on it, so maybe there's more than
one chip on the AGP X2's floating around, or maybe
I didn't really get an AGP X2.

Russ

Re: [9fans] ATI Xpert 98 video weirdness

[Russ Cox]

> Any recommendations on more contemporary
> cards that are known to work w/ Plan9?  Russ recommended the Diamond Stealth
> III S540 but that too seems to be in short supply.

Most Nvidia cards appear to work, with tweaks to the
install process.  I see lots of Diamond Stealth III S540s
on Ebay.  There appears to be an Xtreme version now as well, which
we probably can support easily (it's a Savage4 chip; those
are well-understood), but only with a few tweaks to vga.

Russ