Enabling hardware acceleration

[doublec16]

How is hardware acceleration enabled in Linux? I'm running RH7.2 with the 2.4.18 kernel, and games are really slow, on a dual AMD XP1700+, and I'm thinking it's not because the computer is too slow. Is there some setting in the kernel configuration that sets this? If so, what section is it under?

[z0mbix]

What 3D accelerator car do you use? what drivers have you installed? have you edited you /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 file to enable glx? What exactly have you done to enable 3D acceleration?

[bwkaz]

IF you use an nVidia card, then you don't really have to do anything in your kernel configuration, other than just enabling generic AGP for your motherboard's chipset.

Once that's enabled, go to www.nvidia.com (http://www.nvidia.com) and hit drivers, Linux, and get the newest kernel and GLX .tar.gz's. I say get the .tar.gz's because you obviously are not using RedHat's kernel (2.4.18 is way too new for them to have it out yet... wait a minute.... 2.4.18 isn't even out yet!! It's still in -rc4! Are you planning on using this machine for testing new 2.4 kernels? If not, if you want some sort of stabillity, you do not want to be running a -preX or a -rcX kernel, they may have bugs in them -- especially since you're using SMP)

Anyway, yeah, get the .tar.gz's because the .rpms will not install without massive headaches because your kernel is different from the standard RedHat one.

Anyway, extract the kernel tarball, go into the directory, become root (su does the job), and "make". Then delete the directory, extract the GLX tarball, go into the directory, become root again, and "make".

Then follow nVidia's instructions on how to change your XF86Config-4 file to use the correct driver.

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And if you don't have an nVidia card, then just ignore me.