S3 Chrome 430GT and Linux

[Vassili]

I saw that S3 introduced a new graphics card: the Chrome 430GT and I asked myself the question if these S3 graphics cards are any good with Linux?

I found some information on the internet that indicates the drivers aren't good, but I thought the people here might know better.

[Svartalf]

Heh... We know better, all right.

Better to not acquire them right at the moment. There's some rumblings that VIA's management may be taking us quite a bit more seriously and possibly giving us more than just the time of day- but right now, they're just rumblings. The 3D support's even worse than some of the vendors' lowlights on some of their lineup.

I'd avoid it like the plague for right now. I'd use my AMD R420 or Rv515 boards first- and I don't use them because there's some issues with the drivers that preclude me running with anything but NVidia right at the moment.

[Regenwald]

rumblings? could you precise it? as far as i know, there was just this petition?!

[Svartalf]

Originally Posted by Regenwald

rumblings? could you precise it? as far as i know, there was just this petition?!

John Gatt from VIA had indicated that upper management had seen the thread and petition and that they were in talks with some of the open source community and were trying to come up with an appropriate answer to the issue. Nothing's come of it in the month since that posting from John in their forums.

[Melcar]

Source

In data supplied by S3 Graphics, the card seems to perform spectacularly when pitted against the Radeon HD 3450 and the nVIDIA 8400 GS.

If someone could get good drivers out, then we might have a good budget part.

[Kano]

Why don't you get a board with onboard vga? The speed is so low that it really is no good buy - does not matter at all how much it costs - it is always useless.

[Svartalf]

Originally Posted by Kano

Why don't you get a board with onboard vga? The speed is so low that it really is no good buy - does not matter at all how much it costs - it is always useless.

Much like the S3 parts are for us right now. Nice though the parts are, if they're not going to come up with real drivers for Linux or give out the technical specs so we can make it happen, it's about as useful as most companies IGP lineups.

[Svartalf]

Originally Posted by Melcar

]
If someone could get good drivers out, then we might have a good budget part.

This is an interesting observation. But unless they give out drivers or solid techincal specs, the things are still worthless to a Linux user.

[Regenwald]

Originally Posted by Svartalf

John Gatt from VIA had indicated that upper management had seen the thread and petition and that they were in talks with some of the open source community and were trying to come up with an appropriate answer to the issue. Nothing's come of it in the month since that posting from John in their forums.

thanks for the info! sounds interesting! we'll see...
can you perhaps provide me the link for the quotation?