OSDev.org

Okey, i've got another old piece of video chipset called Ati Rage 3D II+DVD. Wikipedia says about it:

Specifications for the RAGE II+DVD:
60 MHz core
60 MHz memory
480 MB/s memory bandwidth
DirectX 5.0

Should be enough for a playing with video stuff. I own a few other video cards, but this one made my eyes blinking. It has 8 memory chips on it, and there is written in megabytes:2 2 1 1 4 4 3 3 . After addition i get 20megabytes. Strange number i can say. Maybe there is an error? OK, it's not about that, the most important thing is that i could not find any information about it on the google, osdev.org forum search and... linux code. i tried to search but my nonsleep eyes haven't detected anything usefull. So i wanna tell that i would be very happy if anyone could give me some links, docs or any information about how to toutch this 'animal'

Welcome to the world of proprietary hardware. Fasten your seatbelts, stock up on caffeine and medicine against headaches. Time turners are valuable items.

There are some places where you can start. First there's VGADoc, which holds information on ATI cards, up to Mach64 (3D Rage). Be careful as the Rage II is a new generation and the documentation might no longer apply.

Then there's X.org. It provides linux drivers for ATI cards, including the entire 3D Rage series. Sourcecode can be freely downloaded, but they come without hardware documentation, so you need to reverse engineer stuff. The authors have named things logically, which can help you a lot.

If you dare, dump the bios for interesting goodies, or disassemble the windows drivers.

You can visit AMDs site for a phone number, but I seriously doubt that that would work. I'm bugging Rendition for specs on their 3d cards (they come with programmable gpu) and I have yet to get a meaningful response. (Read: tech support is dumb)


That said, there are video cards which have open documentation, and are thus easier to program. These are mainly the older Voodoo cards, and the more recent intel chips. Grab hold of one of them if you want an easier road to success.

I have 2 models of the Rage II+DVD - both are PCI, The memory calculations you posted are very wrong though..

Xorg supports basic 2D operations - OpenGL acceleration should be available with the Mach64 DRI module.

The source code is under a very permissive licence.. but be prepared for code obfustication

Good luck!