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Sindi Keesan wrote:
>
> Does anyone have any pci video cards working at more 
> than 8-bit color?

Yes, I do.  All of my BL2 computers are running 16-bit
color.  One of them is using the Mach64 Xserver; all of
the others are using the S3 Xserver.

> These are all older than Slackware 7.1.  1994-1997 video cards.  

Then Slackware 7.1 will probably work with them quite well.

> I am getting the impression that SVGA only does 8-bit color, 

Then you are getting the wrong impression.  Perhaps you should
read a bit more about the SVGA Xserver:
-------------
man XF86_SVGA
-------------

> The PCI cards are Vesa 1.2.  

AFAIK, the frame-buffer Xserver requires Vesa 2.0 or better.

> In order to get them to work at all, we had to put in an ISA 
> video card, take that out, and then put in the PCI card, 
> otherwise there was nothing to see.  

That's weird.  None of my PCI video card needed that.  They work
just fine in BL2.

> A friend explained that this was because pci cards are plug 
> and play.  ? 

PCI is not the same as plug'n'play.  The BL2 kernel has the 
ability to handle PCI cards (but not PnP).  
-------------
cat /proc/pci
-------------

> So what is the point of changing to a lower resolution than 
> the largest one?  

I rarely change the resolution.  Once I've determined the most 
appropriate screen resolution for the hardware/software, I 
usually stick with it.

Cheers,
Steven