SGI: Computer Graphics

Hi, a couple of weeks ago i bought a Indigo 2 Impact just for the fun.
After some searching on internet i managed to install "IRIX 5.3 All Impact" on the machine and tried to get to the login screen.

The login screen however does not appear as i get a black screen after IRIX starts up(the screen works just fine before IRIX starts).
After some googling i managed to start IRIX without starting x, so to console as in single user mode.

When i run /usr/gfx/gfxinit the screen goes blank but the rest of the system runs just fine(i can still telnet for example).
gfxinfo gives a ? for the revision of GE11 (GE11 rev ?).

So my question is, is the graphics card broken or am i doing something wrong in IRIX?

Thanks

What hardware is in your machine? IRIX 5.3 All Impact doesn't support the 250MHz IP22 or any R8000 or R10000 machines.

Aha my Indigo 2 is indeed a 250Mhz version, but the system runs just fine exept for the graphics card.
Also i have narrowed it down (i think) to ucode loading of the GE11 as gfxinit gives an error on loading its code.
Should i install a different version of IRIX and if so which version?

Hi jesse,

From your answers i infer that IRIX 6.2 and IRIX 6.5 up to 6.5.22 supports your machine. But is it possible to give us the result of hinv -v from telnet? Alternatively, you can interrupt the boot proces with <esc> and go the the command line monitor (option 5). There you can also enter hinv -v
Oh, and please enter you location. Your name sounds Dutch and it would be nice to see where you live.

Hi dexter1,

I will try to find a copy of 6.2 as i only have 96MB of ram.
I there any way to start the X server without initializing the graphics board? i tried to startx without gfxinit but could not find a way.

This is the output of hinv -v running from IRIX 5.3:

IRIS 1% hinv -v
Iris Audio Processor: version A2 revision 1.1.0
1 250 MHZ IP22 Processor
FPU: MIPS R4000 Floating Point Coprocessor Revision: 0.0
CPU: MIPS R4400 Processor Chip Revision: 6.0
On-board serial ports: 2
On-board bi-directional parallel port
Data cache size: 16 Kbytes
Instruction cache size: 16 Kbytes
Secondary unified instruction/data cache size: 2 Mbytes
Main memory size: 96 Mbytes
EISA bus: adapter 0
Integral Ethernet: ec0, version 1
Integral SCSI controller 1: Version WD33C93B, revision D
Integral SCSI controller 0: Version WD33C93B, revision D
CDROM: unit 3 on SCSI controller 0
Tape drive: unit 2 on SCSI controller 0: DAT
Disk drive: unit 1 on SCSI controller 0
Graphics board: Solid Impact

b.t.w. i am indeed from The Netherlands.

I am off and on trying to build a IRIX 5.3+XFS for All Indigo2 IMPACT including 2MB SC, and I've gotten it to install on High IMPACT but not work right on Solid IMPACT.

I looked into some things and noticed that High and Max IMPACT were the first cards released, followed by Solid. I can't recall the exact timing, but I think that 5.3 was early enough that I suspected that it may not have had Solid support. The difference would be meaningful as Solid lacks the texture hardware that High/Maximum have. Look at the brochure on Ian's site: http://www.futuretech.blinkenlights.nl/ ... actpg.html - it lists 250MHz R4k, but only High and Max IMPACT graphics.

Anyone have a definite date for Solid IMPACT release?

I don't have a release date on Solid Impact, but found a hint in this old thread

Not sure you patched your system, but patch 1099 and 1157 seem to be required, especially 1099 which is adding support for software texture mapping on the Solid Impact.

Dexter - do you know anything about Graphicd Rollup patch 1332? I can't get it to install on any of my boxes, it has a depends failure.

Let's look at the Readme:


So it clearly states that it is a superset of previous 5.3 Indigo2 Impact patches, but it can only be installed on IRIX 5.3 All Indigo2 Impact (1022585737) so check if you actually have that. You probably need to check eoe.sw.base for its version number.

Apart from this i can't tell you anything more, since i'm unable to test it (don't have an Indigo2 R4K Impact system)