Mailinglist Archive: opensuse (3784 mails)
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Re: [SLE] Nvidia cards
- From: Gerhard den Hollander <gerhard@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 2 Oct 2001 11:18:37 +0200
- Message-id: <20011002111836.S4471@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
* Derek Fountain <fountai@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> (Tue, Oct 02, 2001 at 08:35:00AM +0100)
>> I would not get a computer with a nVIDIA card. Here is why:
>> 1) While nVIDIA cards do give excellent graphics they tend to screw up
>> other applications like 3D drawings in Star Offices StarDraw. Also,
>> screensavers sometimes malfunction.
> Not on my machine here at work, or my machine at home. I use Staroffice on
> both.
That was a problem with older drivers (0.6 or 0.7 forgot which)
>> 2) nVIDIA cards sometimes causes hang on logout.
> I've never seen that either. KDE has/had some logout bugs but I've never
> heard those attributed to nVIDIA cards.
Is true,
even 1.251 had problems on the geforce2go ,
but this was specific to the dell inspiron laptop with geforce2go and has
been fixed in 1.521 and 1.541 series of drivers.
>> 3) Certain applications, when run on an nVIDIA card, like Gtulpas and Xmms
>> cause serious crashes.
> Dunno that first one, but Xmms works perfectly for me.
xmms has been working fine for me on all NVidia drivers (0.6 upward).
It is true that the Xserver sometimes gets stuck, and dual CPU machines
with (older) versions of the NVidia drivers are not too stable.
>> 4) You may not be able to return to your original session after switching
>> to a virtual console.
> Never seen that one and I use VTs constantly.
That was fixed in KDE2.2 and/or the 1.5* series of NVidia drivers, forgot
which.
>> 5) Certain applications that use anti aliased fonts (GV) do not work
>> properly, if an nVIDIA card is installed.
> I use Qt based AA fonts all the time and I've never had a problem.
Than AA fonts aren;t properly installed, or you're using /were using an old
version of their driver software
>> 6) nVIDIA drivers are not part of the SuSE distribution; you have to
>> download them and install them. A kernel patch is also required.
> 7.1 installed out of the box on both my nVIDIA equipped machines. I upgraded
> them both immediately though so I didn't get to test much.
You don;t need a kernel patch.
you download a kernel module, different beast.
And yes, you have to download the latest driver to get full acceleration.
The opensource nv drivers do work out of the box though.
>> 7) The provided software drivers are closed source so their can be no
>> check, by XFree86.org, on whether they will work properly.
> That one, at least, is true. 1 out of 7.
In all fairness though, they work better than some of the open source XFree
drivers (multiple Gl contexts in a single application wreac havoc on a
Voodoo board. The matrox G200, G400 and G450 can all be crashed repeatedly
by moving Gl windows over each other (e.g. some of the xscreensaver demos,
or simply multiple instances of gears).
This might have been fixed in later versions though.
> Jonathon, you've clearly had a bad experience with an nVIDIA card, but all
> but the last point of the above can be put down to bad configuration.
> For the sake of the list archives, I'd like to make it clear that nVIDIA
> cards do work; anyone who has already got one will be happy with its
> performance under Linux. If you have config problems, don't get bitter, just
> ask. Loads of people use these cards quite happily.
one major drawback is that NVidia drivers (1.0 and upward) no longer
support color indexed textures, which sucks.
Gerhard, <@jasongeo.com> == The Acoustic Motorbiker ==
--
__O Some say the end is near.
=`\<, Some say we'll see armageddon soon
(=)/(=) I certainly hope we will
I could use a vacation
>> I would not get a computer with a nVIDIA card. Here is why:
>> 1) While nVIDIA cards do give excellent graphics they tend to screw up
>> other applications like 3D drawings in Star Offices StarDraw. Also,
>> screensavers sometimes malfunction.
> Not on my machine here at work, or my machine at home. I use Staroffice on
> both.
That was a problem with older drivers (0.6 or 0.7 forgot which)
>> 2) nVIDIA cards sometimes causes hang on logout.
> I've never seen that either. KDE has/had some logout bugs but I've never
> heard those attributed to nVIDIA cards.
Is true,
even 1.251 had problems on the geforce2go ,
but this was specific to the dell inspiron laptop with geforce2go and has
been fixed in 1.521 and 1.541 series of drivers.
>> 3) Certain applications, when run on an nVIDIA card, like Gtulpas and Xmms
>> cause serious crashes.
> Dunno that first one, but Xmms works perfectly for me.
xmms has been working fine for me on all NVidia drivers (0.6 upward).
It is true that the Xserver sometimes gets stuck, and dual CPU machines
with (older) versions of the NVidia drivers are not too stable.
>> 4) You may not be able to return to your original session after switching
>> to a virtual console.
> Never seen that one and I use VTs constantly.
That was fixed in KDE2.2 and/or the 1.5* series of NVidia drivers, forgot
which.
>> 5) Certain applications that use anti aliased fonts (GV) do not work
>> properly, if an nVIDIA card is installed.
> I use Qt based AA fonts all the time and I've never had a problem.
Than AA fonts aren;t properly installed, or you're using /were using an old
version of their driver software
>> 6) nVIDIA drivers are not part of the SuSE distribution; you have to
>> download them and install them. A kernel patch is also required.
> 7.1 installed out of the box on both my nVIDIA equipped machines. I upgraded
> them both immediately though so I didn't get to test much.
You don;t need a kernel patch.
you download a kernel module, different beast.
And yes, you have to download the latest driver to get full acceleration.
The opensource nv drivers do work out of the box though.
>> 7) The provided software drivers are closed source so their can be no
>> check, by XFree86.org, on whether they will work properly.
> That one, at least, is true. 1 out of 7.
In all fairness though, they work better than some of the open source XFree
drivers (multiple Gl contexts in a single application wreac havoc on a
Voodoo board. The matrox G200, G400 and G450 can all be crashed repeatedly
by moving Gl windows over each other (e.g. some of the xscreensaver demos,
or simply multiple instances of gears).
This might have been fixed in later versions though.
> Jonathon, you've clearly had a bad experience with an nVIDIA card, but all
> but the last point of the above can be put down to bad configuration.
> For the sake of the list archives, I'd like to make it clear that nVIDIA
> cards do work; anyone who has already got one will be happy with its
> performance under Linux. If you have config problems, don't get bitter, just
> ask. Loads of people use these cards quite happily.
one major drawback is that NVidia drivers (1.0 and upward) no longer
support color indexed textures, which sucks.
Gerhard, <@jasongeo.com> == The Acoustic Motorbiker ==
--
__O Some say the end is near.
=`\<, Some say we'll see armageddon soon
(=)/(=) I certainly hope we will
I could use a vacation
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