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[Sindi Keesan <keesan AT iamjlamb.com>]

I checked out the following video with BL2, Xvesa and SVGAlib.
(Sorry, I don't have any of the odder cards people are having trouble 
with.)

AGP onboard - SiS (up to 8M RAM)

PCI cards  VESA 1.2 unless noted
2M RAM - 
ATI Mach 64 '95, Alliance Promotion '95, Cirrus GD5446BV, 
2 Trident 8960 '94, other Trident, Tseng ET6000 '96 (VESA 2.0); 
S3 Vision964 '94, Trio64, Trio64V+'95
4M RAM - S3 Virge '96, STB Nitro 3D '97 (S3 86C385) 

Speeds (K/sec in Syschk)
SiS (AGP) 35  (very slow for some reason, though onboard) 
Tseng 160, Trident 136-145, ATI 128,
S3 Trio64 and STB 128, Trio64V+ and Virge 121, Cirrus only 92
(Forgot to test the Alliance.)

1600 resolution in DOS (whatvga2) and Xvesa (-listmodes)
Cirrus, S3/STB, SiS, Alliance

1280 resolution in DOS and Xvesa
Trident, Tseng, ATI

Non-Xvesa X:
S3 X server works with S3 Vision 964 and probably Trio64(V+)
S3 Virge and ATI have X servers (I did not test them).
Others should work with SVGA server.

Xvesa is much easier to set up and works with them all.

------------------------------------
Graphics without X, using SVGAlib (smaller, faster, but lower res)
SVGAlib is used by links2 (which can use X instead), zgv and seejpeg
viewers, and bmv postscript viewer.

/usr/lib/svgalib/vgatest - lists a lot of video modes, many of which
won't work and/or are not available with links2 graphical.
So I tested with links2 for modes:  links2 -g -mode 1 will list modes.

Available modes without the line 'chipset VESA' in /etc/vga/libvga.config

NONE - ATI (segmentation fault) (but it works with seejpeg and zgv)
640x480-16 colors - SiS and one Trident
640x480-256  - S3 Vision 964, Alliance
800-64K, 1024-256 - Trident 9680
800-16M, NO 1024 - Tseng ET6000
800-16M, 1024x768-64K Cirrus, S3 Trio64(V+)/Virge

Links2 modes with 'chipset VESA'

1024x768x64K - Trident 9680 and other Trident, Tseng, S3 Trio64
1280x1024x256 - SiS
crashes - ATI, Alliance, S3 Vision94; S3 Trio64V+, S3Virge, Cirrus

Good for SVGAlib (1024 max res unless noted)
without VESA - Cirrus, most S3/STB
with VESA - Trident, Tseng, SiS (1280)

Poor  - these crash VESA (it may display, then crash on exit) 
640x480x256 only - S3Vision964, Alliance
seg fault - ATI

Best overall cards for use with links2 
1280 (with VESA) - SiS (but quite slow)
1024 (with VESA) - Tseng or Trident (fastest)
1024 (no VESA) S3 since 1995: STB, Trio64(V+) Virge, Cirrus (slower) 

--------------------------
Video cards can display more rows/columns in console/text mode
using vga=ask when booting (or restoretextmode and resizecons).

Text mode columnsxrows available:
40x25 and 80x 25 28 30 34 43 50 60 - all
132 col - S3/STB (25 43 row) Trident Tseng ATI (also 28 or 30 and 60)
100 col - Tseng (40) ATI (25 44)

Wordperfect 5.1 for DOS has textmode drivers for all 132 modes of
individual chipsets listed, and also for Cirrus, but my newer
Cirrus card does not support these (in Linux anyway).

Ghostscript for DOS has drivers for Trident and Tseng to 1024, or plain 
vga for the others, in the posted binary.  

My recommendations - S3/STB for higher Xvesa resolution, or if you
prefer speed and more columns in text mode Tseng or Trident.  

I plan to set up one computer with S3 and one with Tseng.

Sindi Keesan