RE: [SLE] Linux 3D card

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Jostein Berntsen

13 Nov 2001 13 Nov '01

10:42

Hi, I would suggest the Asus V8200 Geforce3. Works great on SuSE. Jostein

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===== Original Message From "Jeff Filapose" ===== What's the best card for 3D game in Linux. I'm running 7.3 with a voodoo 3000 but can't seem to get Quake III to run at all. I would like to upgrade my card anyways so if you guy's could give me some suggestions that would be great.

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Gert-Jan Rodenburg

13 Nov 13 Nov

14:20

New subject: [SLE] Linux 3D card

On Tuesday 13 November 2001 11:42, Jostein Berntsen wrote:

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Hi,

I would suggest the Asus V8200 Geforce3. Works great on SuSE.

Jostein

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===== Original Message From "Jeff Filapose" ===== What's the best card for 3D game in Linux. I'm running 7.3 with a voodoo 3000 but can't seem to get Quake III to run at all. I would like to upgrade my card anyways so if you guy's could give me some suggestions that would be great.

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-- To unsubscribe send e-mail to suse-linux-e-unsubscribe@suse.com For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the FAQ at http://www.suse.com/support/faq and the archives at http://lists.suse.com

NVidia only provides binary drivers for their cards, this is not necessary a bad thing, but it could become one. There are a lot of fast 3d cards which have full open-source support. Check www.Xfree86.org for a list. Gr. GJR

John Scott

16:22

New subject: [SLE] Linux 3D card

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I would suggest the Asus V8200 Geforce3. Works great on SuSE.

Jostein

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===== Original Message From "Jeff Filapose" ===== What's the best card for 3D game in Linux. I'm running 7.3 with a voodoo 3000 but can't seem to get Quake III to run at all. I would

----- Original Message ----- From: "Gert-Jan Rodenburg" To: "Jostein Berntsen" ; "Jeff Filapose" ; <suse-> > like

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to upgrade my card anyways so if you guy's could give me some suggestions that would be great. <snip> NVidia only provides binary drivers for their cards, this is not necessary a bad thing, but it could become one. There are a lot of fast 3d cards which have full open-source support. Check www.Xfree86.org for a list.

Gr.

GJR

AFAIK, NVIDIA was the first top performing graphics co that offerred fully supported drivers for linux. I have played a number of openGL games from loki and the performance is superb. If you buy nvidia (no I don't work for them) at least you know your card will work out of the box with drivers directly from the people who know the card best. Since their cards are the fastest anyway, you can't go wrong. John

Gert-Jan Rodenburg

20:16

New subject: [SLE] Linux 3D card

On Tuesday 13 November 2001 17:22, John Scott wrote:

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----- Original Message ----- From: "Gert-Jan Rodenburg" To: "Jostein Berntsen" ; "Jeff Filapose" ; <suse-> >

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I would suggest the Asus V8200 Geforce3. Works great on SuSE.

Jostein

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===== Original Message From "Jeff Filapose" ===== What's the best card for 3D game in Linux. I'm running 7.3 with

a

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...
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voodoo 3000 but can't seem to get Quake III to run at all. I would

like

...
...
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to upgrade my card anyways so if you guy's could give me some

suggestions

...
...
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that would be great.

<snip>

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NVidia only provides binary drivers for their cards, this is not necessary

a

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bad thing, but it could become one. There are a lot of fast 3d cards which have full open-source support. Check www.Xfree86.org for a list.

Gr.

GJR

AFAIK, NVIDIA was the first top performing graphics co that offerred fully supported drivers for linux. I have played a number of openGL games from loki and the performance is superb. If you buy nvidia (no I don't work for them) at least you know your card will work out of the box with drivers directly from the people who know the card best. Since their cards are the fastest anyway, you can't go wrong.

John

Nope they where not the first, (Well company wise they might have been) 3Dfx was the first supported 3d hardware. The problem with the NVidia drivers is that although they have drivrs for you, they are CLOSED SOURCE. meaning: The big guys who make linux CAN'T and WON'T develop stuff for that. So instead of a big group working on features for your card, you are stuck with what NVidia delivers. Now this might not be a problem now, but in next kernelversions your Kernel will be marked TAINTED if you run any closed source binary, and no one of the OpenS community wil be willing to help you if you have a weirdo error (Go complain to the manufacuror will be the reply) for they cannot debug the code. There are plenty of fast 3d cards that have full disclosed source of the card-drivers. My next card will be one of those. Can you spell out DRI? that is kernel level stuff, NVidia won't be supported with that, for they do not disclose the drivers.. Gr. GJR

John Scott

14 Nov 14 Nov

16:22

New subject: [SLE] Linux 3D card

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On Tuesday 13 November 2001 17:22, John Scott wrote:

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<snip> which have full open-source support. Check www.Xfree86.org for a list.

Gr.

GJR

AFAIK, NVIDIA was the first top performing graphics co that offerred fully supported drivers for linux. I have played a number of openGL games from loki and the performance is superb. If you buy nvidia (no I don't work for them) at least you know your card will work out of the box with drivers directly from the people who know the card best. Since their cards are

----- Original Message ----- From: "Gert-Jan Rodenburg" To: "John Scott" ; Sent: Tuesday, November 13, 2001 9:16 PM Subject: Re: [SLE] Linux 3D card the

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fastest anyway, you can't go wrong.

John

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Nope they where not the first, (Well company wise they might have been) 3Dfx was the first supported 3d hardware.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but 3dfx drivers for linux were offerred on their webpage, but they were community written drivers, not written by 3dfx themselves.

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The problem with the NVidia drivers is that although they have drivrs for you, they are CLOSED SOURCE. meaning: The big guys who make linux CAN'T and WON'T develop stuff for that. So instead of a big group working on features for your card, you are stuck with what NVidia delivers.

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Now this might not be a problem now, but in next kernelversions your Kernel will be marked TAINTED if you run any closed source binary, and no one of

That's like saying you're "stuck" with a top of the line Porsche, or Mercedes. Seems fine to me. As far as "big guys" ignoring it, I think the SuSE distro you are using now came with NVidia-written drivers on the CD didn't it? the

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OpenS community wil be willing to help you if you have a weirdo error (Go complain to the manufacuror will be the reply) for they cannot debug the code.

Actually, the driver comes in two parts: a binary suited for your platform, and source package that you compile specifically for your kernel. When I went from 2.2.x to 2.4.x, it was a 3 minute driver recompile and I was done. Their drivers were well thought out. Again, the binary *only* version is only for those people running the kernel shipped on their CD without any modification. When you recompile your kernel, the driver won't work anymore until you recompile it. Gotta have source for that... As for the community rejecting you for using a closed source driver, hasn't been a problem for me. People are always willing to help. Given the numbers of people who appreciate nvidia's *direct* support of linux and who are using their cards, you are not likely to run into problems with that. Go to linuxgames.com and you'll see nvidia cards are all the rage. (no ATI pun intended)

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There are plenty of fast 3d cards that have full disclosed source of the card-drivers.

As for the other cards "offering" open source drivers, remember that most of the manufacturers with supported cards have given the XFree folks access to info to have the drivers built for free. NVidia spends their own money to build for linux directly, and they take responsibility to fix the bugs. After the pain of buying ATI cards a few years ago and waiting 4-6 months for linux support to appear, I have no intention of going back to those dark days! Don't get me wrong, I think open source is great and I fully support it. But it's not the holy grail by which I judge all products.

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My next card will be one of those. Can you spell out DRI? that is kernel level stuff, NVidia won't be supported with that, for they do not disclose the drivers..

Doesn't matter because they have access to the source and have said they will maintain compatibility for the forseeable. Remember, the are giving more *DIRECT* support than ANY OTHER COMPANY. So tell me, do you go to restaurants that bring ingredients to your table so you can fix your own food, or do you want it already prepared? I'll take full support, partial source, and top-notch drivers over unsupported, source-only-build-it-yourself-6-months-later drivers any day. Just my 2 cents... John

Gert-Jan Rodenburg

17:11

New subject: [SLE] Linux 3D card

On Wednesday 14 November 2001 17:22, John Scott wrote:

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----- Original Message ----- From: "Gert-Jan Rodenburg" To: "John Scott" ; Sent: Tuesday, November 13, 2001 9:16 PM Subject: Re: [SLE] Linux 3D card

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On Tuesday 13 November 2001 17:22, John Scott wrote:

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Nope they where not the first, (Well company wise they might have been) 3Dfx

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was the first supported 3d hardware.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but 3dfx drivers for linux were offerred on their webpage, but they were community written drivers, not written by 3dfx themselves.

It might not have been clear, but that was wat I meant to say :)

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The problem with the NVidia drivers is that although they have drivrs for you, they are CLOSED SOURCE. meaning: The big guys who make linux CAN'T and WON'T develop stuff for that. So instead of a big group working on features for your card, you are stuck with what NVidia delivers.

That's like saying you're "stuck" with a top of the line Porsche, or Mercedes. Seems fine to me. As far as "big guys" ignoring it, I think the SuSE distro you are using now came with NVidia-written drivers on the CD didn't it?

BIG NO, your SuSE CD/DVD did NOT, repeat NOT come with the NVidia drivers. They came with stubbs of the same name, but you gotta go onto the net to get the REAL ones, since NVidia does not let distribution-makers include the drivers on their disks. And as far as being 'stuck' with the Porche, (which is a bad comparison by the way), what if you wanted to tinker with the Porsche (tune it) and the whole engine compartiment was sealed of, inaccesible? Then you would have a valid comparison, now it is just meaningless.

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Now this might not be a problem now, but in next kernelversions your Kernel will be marked TAINTED if you run any closed source binary, and no one of the OpenS community wil be willing to help you if you have a weirdo error (Go complain to the manufacuror will be the reply) for they cannot debug the code.

Actually, the driver comes in two parts: a binary suited for your platform, and source package that you compile specifically for your kernel. When I went from 2.2.x to 2.4.x, it was a 3 minute driver recompile and I was done. Their drivers were well thought out. Again, the binary *only* version is only for those people running the kernel shipped on their CD without any modification. When you recompile your kernel, the driver won't work anymore until you recompile it. Gotta have source for that...

Again, There is binary and binary. The source distro of the Nvidia drivers are part source, part binary (modules), that source-part is needed to make the correct linking into the kernel, the linking of the binary, and closed source stuff that is in the SOURCE package.

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As for the community rejecting you for using a closed source driver, hasn't been a problem for me. People are always willing to help. Given the numbers of people who appreciate nvidia's *direct* support of linux and who are using their cards, you are not likely to run into problems with that. Go to linuxgames.com and you'll see nvidia cards are all the rage. (no ATI pun intended)

Go to the kernel-mailing list and you will find a whole other discussion going on. This is not about does it work or not, it very obviously does so (also for my trusty TNT2), but stuff like DRI on kernel level will not happen, since they do not know what happens in the binary part of the source package. And in-kernel optimalization for aplications is already happening, since some parts of it are tuned for X 4.1.0 (and later), this is where NVidia is excluded.

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There are plenty of fast 3d cards that have full disclosed source of the card-drivers.

As for the other cards "offering" open source drivers, remember that most of the manufacturers with supported cards have given the XFree folks access to info to have the drivers built for free. NVidia spends their own money to build for linux directly, and they take responsibility to fix the bugs. After the pain of buying ATI cards a few years ago and waiting 4-6 months for linux support to appear, I have no intention of going back to those dark days!

Don't get me wrong, I think open source is great and I fully support it. But it's not the holy grail by which I judge all products.

Don't get me wrong either, as said, I do own a TNT2 and am very glad with the support (I can remember the days that you could choose from say 10 Graphics cards in X, boy has that changed), but I just don't like that they have choosen this path. How much more nice would it have been if they did the middle way -> We develop for our own, and here you have the source of the stuff whe have done. They could easilly do this for the older versions of their drivers

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My next card will be one of those. Can you spell out DRI? that is kernel level stuff, NVidia won't be supported with that, for they do not disclose the drivers..

Doesn't matter because they have access to the source and have said they will maintain compatibility for the forseeable. Remember, the are giving more *DIRECT* support than ANY OTHER COMPANY. So tell me, do you go to restaurants that bring ingredients to your table so you can fix your own food, or do you want it already prepared? I'll take full support, partial source, and top-notch drivers over unsupported, source-only-build-it-yourself-6-months-later drivers any day. Just my 2 cents...

John

Gr. GJR -- When someone tells you that Linux isn't user friendly, just tell 'em that it is, but that it is really picky in who his friends are. Gert-Jan Rodenburg. http://members.home.nl/hertog

Jon Pennington

23:53

New subject: [SLE] Linux 3D card

--- John Scott wrote:

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Correct me if I'm wrong, but 3dfx drivers for linux were offerred on their webpage, but they were community written drivers, not written by 3dfx themselves.

That's a long and complicated story. In short: - A hacker named Daryll Strauss bought a 3Dfx card. - DS wanted to use the 3D functions of the 3Dfx card, but had no drivers. - DS signed the NDA to see how GLIDE worked, and wrote a binary-only driver. - DS released the Binary driver, 3Dfx started to pay attention. - 3Dfx allowed DS to release source code, driver was Free Software. - DS moved on, and has been a key player in the DRI project. - 3Dfx made GLIDE free software, not just the driver. This is the story roughly, and may not be 100% accurate, but will do for the sake of this arguement.

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That's like saying you're "stuck" with a top of the line Porsche, or Mercedes. Seems fine to me.

You don't change your own oil, do you? Do you even pump your own gas? This is not acceptable; you might as well hire a schouffer. (I can't even spell that word well enough for the spell checker to recognize it.)

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As for the other cards "offering" open source drivers, remember that most of the manufacturers with supported cards have given the XFree folks access to info to have the drivers built for free.

Thats very much not true. Matrox and ATI *both* spent money to get their DRI drivers working, Matrox mostly in-house and ATI by contracting Precision Insight. There was a lot of money involved.

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NVidia spends their own money to build for linux directly, and they take responsibility to fix the bugs.

You say so now. I remember having to manually change a .c file to get their drivers to work with a low-cost TNT2 card that I once had. I'll drop my gauntlet for now. ===== -- -=|JP|=- Hit me! - http://www.xanga.com/cowboydren/ Jon Pennington | Debian 2.3 -o) cowboydren @ yahoo . com | Auto Enthusiast /\\ Kansas City, MO, USA | ICQ UIN 69 67 29 31 _\_V __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Find the one for you at Yahoo! Personals http://personals.yahoo.com

John Scott

15 Nov 15 Nov

00:59

New subject: [SLE] Linux 3D card

----- Original Message ----- From: "Jon Pennington" To: "SuSE-Linux List" Sent: Thursday, November 15, 2001 12:53 AM Subject: Re: [SLE] Linux 3D card

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--- John Scott wrote:

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You say so now. I remember having to manually change a .c file to get their drivers to work with a low-cost TNT2 card that I once had.

I'll drop my gauntlet for now. -- -=|JP|=-

Good, because when all is said and done nvidia STILL offers the BEST card at the BEST price with the BEST *direct* support with undisputedly, the BEST performance. The original poster asked us what would be the BEST card for him to play games in linux. It was a simple question. HE DIDN'T ASK ANYTHING ABOUT OPEN SOURCE DRIVERS OR THE FREE SOFTWARE FOUNDATION!!! Let's answer the questions to best help newbies and not confuse them with religious arguments and ideology. Tell him what the best card is, then if you are inclined give him a hyperlink to the FSF as a footnote or even a pamplet to the cult of your choice, then do so. But in the end, I hope he got the information he was looking for. *sheesh* John

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===== Hit me! - http://www.xanga.com/cowboydren/ Jon Pennington | Debian 2.3 -o) cowboydren @ yahoo . com | Auto Enthusiast /\\ Kansas City, MO, USA | ICQ UIN 69 67 29 31 _\_V

Karol Pietrzak

14 Nov 14 Nov

02:38

New subject: [SLE] Linux 3D card

On 13 Nov 2001, Gert-Jan Rodenburg wrote:

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NVidia only provides binary drivers for their cards, this is not necessary a bad thing, but it could become one. There are a lot of fast 3d cards which have full open-source support. Check www.Xfree86.org for a list.

This is not necessarily fully NVidia's fault. AFAIK, to gain SGI's seal of approval for OpenGL, an NDA has to be signed along with a fee. This is why Mesa will never have a SGI OpenGL license (because it's open source). Nvidia's drivers are not entirely closed source: SRPMS are available. -- Karol Pietrzak PGP KeyID: 3A1446A0

John Scott

16:29

New subject: [SLE] Linux 3D card

----- Original Message ----- From: "Karol Pietrzak" To: Sent: Wednesday, November 14, 2001 3:38 AM Subject: Re: [SLE] Linux 3D card

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On 13 Nov 2001, Gert-Jan Rodenburg wrote:

<snip>

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This is not necessarily fully NVidia's fault. AFAIK, to gain SGI's seal of approval for OpenGL, an NDA has to be signed along with a fee. This is why Mesa will never have a SGI OpenGL license (because it's open source).

Nvidia's drivers are not entirely closed source: SRPMS are available.

-- Karol Pietrzak PGP KeyID: 3A1446A0

Thank you Karol! Couldn't have said it better. I just think it's important to remember that NVidia is spending money on Linux. It's just my opinion but I think that should earn them at least a look from the community. I honestly wouldn't even consider any other card at this point. Support like this is hard to come by for linux. John

Gert-Jan Rodenburg

17:14

New subject: [SLE] Linux 3D card

On Wednesday 14 November 2001 17:29, John Scott wrote:

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----- Original Message ----- From: "Karol Pietrzak" To: Sent: Wednesday, November 14, 2001 3:38 AM Subject: Re: [SLE] Linux 3D card

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On 13 Nov 2001, Gert-Jan Rodenburg wrote:

<snip>

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This is not necessarily fully NVidia's fault. AFAIK, to gain SGI's seal of approval for OpenGL, an NDA has to be signed along with a fee. This is why Mesa will never have a SGI OpenGL license (because it's open source).

Nvidia's drivers are not entirely closed source: SRPMS are available.

-- Karol Pietrzak PGP KeyID: 3A1446A0

Thank you Karol! Couldn't have said it better.

I just think it's important to remember that NVidia is spending money on Linux. It's just my opinion but I think that should earn them at least a look from the community. I honestly wouldn't even consider any other card at this point. Support like this is hard to come by for linux.

John

The SRPM contains not only source, it also contains precompiled source-only pieces, and guess, those are the pieces that matter, the engine. There is binary and binary. This is a mix of source and binary, in a source-rpm(which is binary, for it is compressed, sidenote). Gr, GJR -- When someone tells you that Linux isn't user friendly, just tell 'em that it is, but that it is really picky in who his friends are. Gert-Jan Rodenburg. http://members.home.nl/hertog

Gert-Jan Rodenburg

17:26

New subject: [SLE] Linux 3D card

On Wednesday 14 November 2001 18:14, Gert-Jan Rodenburg wrote:

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The SRPM contains not only source, it also contains precompiled source-only pieces, and guess, those are the pieces that matter, the engine.

Of cource I meant binary only in above piece

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There is binary and binary. This is a mix of source and binary, in a source-rpm(which is binary, for it is compressed, sidenote).

Gr,

GJR

-- When someone tells you that Linux isn't user friendly, just tell 'em that it is, but that it is really picky in who his friends are. Gert-Jan Rodenburg. http://members.home.nl/hertog

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participants (5)

Gert-Jan Rodenburg
John Scott
Jon Pennington
Jostein Berntsen
Karol Pietrzak