Graphics card

Anybody know about graphics cards and Linux? In this area I know zilch, so any info would be super helpful. The graphics card I have now is pretty lousy and I was wondering if anybody knows what I could possibly replace it with. (This computer is entirely Linux, by the way, and it's a desktop.) Thanks!

 

Something nVidia preferably. A 7600GT is a pretty good idea. They're not overly expensive but still provide good performance. I think you can pick one up on newegg for less than $200.

 

I'll second NBFTW's suggestion, especially if your desktop will be running linux only. While some of ATI's cards may give you more bang for your buck than the 7600GT, you simply won't be able to use it to it's full potential using ATI's (current) linux drivers.

 

ATI's linux drivers have been stable for awhile now, but still rather slow.

 

They're stable, but they don's support the Composite and Render extensions like NVIDIA's do, and they're just not as nice to use in Linux, period. NVIDIA does OpenGL right. ATI has always half-arsed it.

 

I don't know what distro you plan on using, but I had SUSE and tried to go the easy way of installing the nvidia drivers... not a good idea. Performance was showing as 3D support, but it was terrible. I ended up just compiling the drivers from the binaries provided by nvidia myself. Performance shot up. You may have to do the same if you go with SUSE, even if you get an nvidia card.

 

I think it's only fair to give ATI another shot. They are trying, and while they sucked for the longest time they are attacking things most important issue first. Stability is there, now they can start working on features and speed.

I imagine AMD will light a fire under their collective ass, too.

 

Yeah, I hope you're right, Ethyriel, I one day hope to make my Inspiron a SuSE only machine. At the moment, ATi's drivers aren't versatile enough.

 

For FreeBSD and Linux you should got nVidia since opengl sucks in AMD/ATI

 

Another thing to note these days (since the thread has been brought back up) is that ATi's previous gen cards (i.e. x800, etc) cards have open source drivers. If that's something that's important to you as a Linux driver, you could look at some older ATi cards that will still be good performers. My original suggestion still stands though.

 

What is AMD/ATI policy for releasing new gpu cards drivers for FreeBSD and Linux now?

 

agreed! i m quite pleased with the latest proprietary 3d driver from jan07. And as u mentioned, now that AMD is in the picture, linux driver will get more attention within ati

cheers ...

 

Same as nVidia as far as I know. They're closed source. I think they open-sourced their previous drivers because they changed architecture with the x1k series. They're still supporting Linux/BSD, but they don't want to open source their drivers for fear of exposing their IP. The problem is, their Linux/BSD support still doesn't seem to be on par with nVidia, even in their open source drivers.

 

If you have an ATI or nVidia card, then driver updates are are easy as installing and running Albert Milone's "Envy" Python Script for driver installs.

 

If at all possible, don't go ATi. They might be getting better, but not much. Fglrx modules that randomly unload themselves, even simple upgrades to mesa can screw fglrx over. I'm having to reinstall my fglrx drivers for the 2nd time in two days now after they have unloaded themselves.