Linux support for Matrox cards nowadays?

[w-ber]

It's been nearly two years since I last used these forums (and it was with a different nick then ). I've been using G450 DH with a success in the meantime and even the TV-out works, though with small glitches. Could you summarize the current state of how the newer Matrox cards are supported (Parhelia, P750, etc.)? Currently I'm in the army and as things stand I don't have much opportunies to browse the 'net; that's the reason for this request.

The things I'd like to know are:

• Dualhead/Triplehead functionality/limitations, XFree86 driver state
• Console framebuffer support
• TV-out support (i.e. better or worse than G450/G550)
• Is 3D available at all? (I don't play much 3D games, but a support is always nice)
• User experienses

I'd be grateful to have some information. Although G450 is an excellent card, I kind of fancy switching to a newer one. If the official driver sucks, and there are no good unofficial alternatives, I'll stick to the old card. But, it'd be nice to update the graphics once in a while too.

[leech]

Well, I quite like my Parhelia/linux but your mileage may vary.

1: Triplehead works great here. Can even do triple-head independant, I do that because otherwise VMWare doesn't work in 24bit color... That and it's kind of nice to have the left and right fully available, and have the panel in Gnome or KDE just in the middle screen (unlike in windows where it stretches across the whole screen and you have to move the mouse all the way to the over to whever the start button is...). XV is supported, the main limitation right now is SMP+OpenGL=lockups or no window managers....

2: I haven't played with this, not sure if it works... someone else can pipe in here..

3: There is TV-Out support with the newest drivers. Though I haven't tried it myself, mainly due to having three monitors already.

4: Yes, though some things will cause a hard lock, such as UT2004demo (haven't tried the other UT's but have heard they're broken as well) Savage doesn't detect hardware acceleration (I'll look into this...) Neverwinter Nights does work great, as does Tux Racer.

4: Overall, it's been pretty nice to me. Some people aren't so lucky (check the Matrox tech support forums for that.) Most of the things I've tried work pretty well.

Leech