First review of ATI420 chip

[Matthew Walton]

Alex Deucher wrote:
> --- Sean Middleditch <elanthis at awesomeplay.com> wrote:
> 
>>On Tue, 2004-05-04 at 14:42, Jon Smirl wrote:
>>
>>>http://www.hothardware.com/viewarticle.cfm?articleid=517&cid=2
>>>
>>>This picture makes a good case for why xserver should move away
>>
>>from using the
>>
>>>2D hardware to the 3D versions.
>>
>>It will be interesting in the future if we see card architectures
>>like
>>the below, but missing that little "2D Engine" block.  ;-)
>>
>>I wonder how well things like video acceleration can mix with the 3D
>>engine?  And also, is it feasible to get something like the Linux
> 
> 
> I wonder if this card even has a video overlay or if they jsut relay on
> YUV textures for doing accelerated video.  I wonder if it's worth
> trying to create a server module for Xv that interfaces with the
> dri_driver, similar to what we are looking at for indirect rendering,
> or if it's better to convince video app programmers to use openGL.

I seem to recall seeing something in the Tom's Hardware Guide article on 
this chip that video stuff is implemented on the card using pixel 
shaders. Whether that's a driver or hardware thing I have no idea, but I 
thought it was interesting.