Blasphemy! I have always been an ATI card user, mostly for the AIW option, but the inability to get drivers to use for 2.6 kernel, X.org files, and so on is getting me to turn attention to nVidia. At the risk of starting a major catfight over cards, any suggestions? I was somewhat comfortable knowing ATI card numbers and "what they had under the hood" but am in the dark for nVidia. I have not seen an AIW equivalent. Is there one, or is that not such a great idea anyway, and if not, what is a good TV card for linux? I have also been scared by what seem to be lots of problems posting to this list about getting nVidia cards to work. Is that all old hat now, with dirivers working and easily available/installable and hunky-dory? Generally, my needs are commonplace usage, some graphics and photo work, mostly light duty, some gaming (Quake when I can get it to run, as I have not recently). Thanks for suggestions. Please don't let me be the instigator of a big flame war; I just want to know what people think of the "other" cards and what might be similar to ATI maybe 9200, 9600, like that. Thanks, Richard
Don't be scared of "what seem to be lots of problems posting to this list about getting nVidia cards to work". If anything it because of the fact that there ARE drivers for nvidia cards, and lots of options, and people here to help. I have used nVidia (under SuSE) since 6.3 and never looked back. They are excellent for OpenGL. The VIVO is somewhat lacking, (rivaTV doesn't work with binary drivers, yet). B-) On Monday 20 December 2004 02:21 pm, Richard wrote:
Blasphemy! I have always been an ATI card user, mostly for the AIW option, but the inability to get drivers to use for 2.6 kernel, X.org files, and so on is getting me to turn attention to nVidia. At the risk of starting a major catfight over cards, any suggestions? I was somewhat comfortable knowing ATI card numbers and "what they had under the hood" but am in the dark for nVidia. I have not seen an AIW equivalent. Is there one, or is that not such a great idea anyway, and if not, what is a good TV card for linux? I have also been scared by what seem to be lots of problems posting to this list about getting nVidia cards to work. Is that all old hat now, with dirivers working and easily available/installable and hunky-dory? Generally, my needs are commonplace usage, some graphics and photo work, mostly light duty, some gaming (Quake when I can get it to run, as I have not recently). Thanks for suggestions. Please don't let me be the instigator of a big flame war; I just want to know what people think of the "other" cards and what might be similar to ATI maybe 9200, 9600, like that. Thanks, Richard
On Monday 20 December 2004 3:21 pm, Richard wrote:
Blasphemy! I have always been an ATI card user, mostly for the AIW option, but the inability to get drivers to use for 2.6 kernel, X.org files, and so on is getting me to turn attention to nVidia. At the risk of starting a major catfight over cards, any suggestions? I was somewhat comfortable knowing ATI card numbers and "what they had under the hood" but am in the dark for nVidia. I have not seen an AIW equivalent. Is there one, or is that not such a great idea anyway, and if not, what is a good TV card for linux? > snip < Thanks, Richard
I'm in the same boat as you with ATI's AIW cards; great day for a sail, eh? Great idea IF they'd support Linux for them. My suggestion would be to get a stand alone TV card such as the Hauppage PVR cards. Then you can use ATI, Nvidia, Matrox or whatever for your primary video card. There seems to be more/better and quicker support for stand alone TV cards then for ATI's AIW cards. I put the blame on ATI because they seem to have used many 3rd parties to get all the components together and someone isn't playing nice with Linux by releasing drivers for the various multimedia portions of the AIW cards. My vote: get a stand alone TV/multimedia card. Stan
I have also been scared by what seem to be lots of problems posting to this list about getting nVidia cards to work. Is that all old hat now, with dirivers working and easily available/installable and hunky-dory? Generally, my needs are commonplace usage, some graphics and photo work, mostly light duty, some gaming (Quake when I can get it to run, as I have not recently). Thanks for suggestions. Please don't let me be the instigator of a big flame war; I just want to know what people think of the "other" cards and what might be similar to ATI maybe 9200, 9600, like that.
Well, I'm not running SuSE on an Nvidia card (yet-- new laptop SHOULD be here this week... Providing Fedex doesn't do anything else stupid, like shipping the package back to the sender like they did today!) but the main thing seems to be that after any upgrade/reinstall of the Kernel, you have to reload video drivers. Nvidia has probably provided the best "manufacturer" video card support for Linux over anyone else out there.
On Monday 20 December 2004 1:44 pm, Steve Kratz wrote:
I have also been scared by what seem to be lots of problems posting to this list about getting nVidia cards to work. Is that all old hat now, with dirivers working and easily available/installable and hunky-dory? Generally, my needs are commonplace usage, some graphics and photo work, mostly light duty, some gaming (Quake when I can get it to run, as I have not recently). Thanks for suggestions. Please don't let me be the instigator of a big flame war; I just want to know what people think of the "other" cards and what might be similar to ATI maybe 9200, 9600, like that.
Well, I'm not running SuSE on an Nvidia card (yet-- new laptop SHOULD be here this week... Providing Fedex doesn't do anything else stupid, like shipping the package back to the sender like they did today!) but the main thing seems to be that after any upgrade/reinstall of the Kernel, you have to reload video drivers.
Nvidia has probably provided the best "manufacturer" video card support for Linux over anyone else out there.
Thanks. Last para is probably what I really wanted to hear. Other than the ATI cards I have really tried to look for hardware supported under linux and specifically for manufacturers that offer drivers, support. Time to move it seems. Any suggestions on making sense of the alphabet/number soup of the cards? GeForce 6800 seems to be the latest, but driver on Nvidia site shows support for 6600 included in most recent release. Does that make the 6600 a better bet right now? Richard
On Monday 20 December 2004 18:53, Richard wrote: ...............<snip a bunch>............
Nvidia has probably provided the best "manufacturer" video card support for Linux over anyone else out there.
Thanks. Last para is probably what I really wanted to hear. Other than the ATI cards I have really tried to look for hardware supported under linux and specifically for manufacturers that offer drivers, support. Time to move it seems. Any suggestions on making sense of the alphabet/number soup of the cards? GeForce 6800 seems to be the latest, but driver on Nvidia site shows support for 6600 included in most recent release. Does that make the 6600 a better bet right now? Richard
Richard, Here is a excerpt from a lug list I am on. A little long but very informational about nvidia. The guy that wrote is a pretty good hardware guy. Helped me to decide. Maybe it will help you. --------------------------------------------------------------- Yeah. In a nutshell, here's the deal. #1: nVidia Generation comparison (this is mega-oversimplified): NV2x (GeForce 3 and 4"Ti" series): Old best bang for the buck NV3x (GeForce "FX" 5000 series): Not so good bang for the buck NV4x (GeForce 6000 series): New best bang for the buck Pure "performance-wise," there is not much difference between the NV2x and NV3x series. In fact, some of the cheaper NV3x series (GeForce 5200, 5500 and 5700LE) are typically _slower_ than most of the NV2x series (GeForce 4 Ti4200-4800). BTW, don't confuse the GeForce 4 "Ti" products (NV25) with the cheaper/more-common GeForce 4 "MX" (NV17). The latter is the _previous_ generation NV1x series (GeForce 1/2 core). The only thing the NV3x has is some extra capabilities that make it perform better at OpenGL (and DirectX 9) software, especially when you use Full Screen Anti-Aliasing (FSAA) which reduces the number of "jaggies" on the edges between objects. It basically takes a GeForce FX5700 ("true"/non-"LE") or FX5700Ultra to being to "equal" the GeForce 4 Ti4200-4800 at most titles, and even then it still loses on older DX apps without FSAA. The new NV4x series is best of both worlds, more performance at both older and newer features. #2: Here are the typical options you have for PCIe and AGP: PCIe (PCI-Express): $ 75-100 GeForce 6200 $125-150 GeForce 6600 $175-200 GeForce 6600GT $350-375 GeForce 6800 (aka 6800GE) $375-500 GeForce 6800GT $600-700 GeForce 6800Ultra [ NOTE: I _purposely_ left off the GeForce PCX 5000 series because they are not worth a dime if you have PCI-Express ] AGP: $ 50- 75 GeForce Ti4200/4800 $ 50- 75 GeForce FX5200 $ 75-100 GeForce FX5500 $ 75-125 GeForce FX5700LE $100-125 GeForce FX5600XT $125-200 GeForce FX5700 ("true"/non-"LE" _very_ hard to find!) $175-200 GeForce FX5700Ultra $175-250 GeForce 5900 $225-250 GeForce 6600GT $250-275 GeForce 6800LE $275-325 GeForce 6800 $325-400 GeForce 6800GT $300-600 GeForce 6800Ultra [ I won't list the GeForce 5900Ultra/5950 as they are $350+ and can't be the cheaper 6800 series for the same bang ] Looking at the list, you'll realize the following: A) On PCI-Express, the 6200/6600 are cheap, but the 6800 tends to be more expensive than its AGP equivalent. Long story short, the newer NV4x (43/45 6200/6600) is natively PCI-Express, while the older NV4x (40/41 6800) is natively AGP. A bridge chip is required for the older, but faster 6800 series. B) On AGP, it's the opposite. The 6600GT is more expensive because it requires a bridge to AGP, but the 6800 series is cheaper because it is native to AGP. In fact, the 6800LE is probably a better option than the 6600GT for $25 more. C) The "cheap" AGP solutions _suck_ because the NV3x is still "selling well" for nVidia -- especially the 5600XT (NV31) and 5200/5200 (NV34). These things can be _half_ the speed of the older GeForce Ti4200! nVidia won't introduce an AGP version of the 6200 or 6600, only the 6600GT (which is almost the cost of the 6800LE, so not worth it), because it competes with the 5200/5500/5600XT. So given these facts, here are some conclusions: 1. If you want a "solid AGP video card" for $50-75, the GeForce Ti4200 (Ti4200-8x or Ti4800 -- which isn't too much different) is still good. Aim for 128MB for a few bucks more. 2. _Avoid_ the GeForce FX5200, 5500 and even 5600XT, even if they have 256MB of RAM. They _suck_. In the "best case scenario," about the only place they can "match" the GeForce 4 Ti4200-4800 is in Doom3 with _all_ of the options _jacked_up_ (including Isotropic Filtering). But then you're running at 10fps, so it doesn't matter. ;-ppp 3. If you can find a "true" GeForce FX5700 for AGP for cheap (like $125), and not the overwhelming number of FX5700"LE" cards (which is 40% _slower_), then that will be near-equivalent in older titles to the Ti4200, but faster in more OpenGL or when you use FSAA. 4. If you really want a "higher-end" card, you've got two options: AGP: Start with the GeForce 6800LE or 6800 for $250-325 PCIe: Buy a new, "regular" nForce4 mainboard (due in January) for about $125, and then a GeForce 6200, 6600 or 6600GT for about $75-175 (your choice) The 6200-6600 are not quite a 6800, but they are _far_closer_ than a GeForce FX5700, and even the FX5900 series is not quite any 6000 series card. ----------------------------------------------------- Bob S.
On Monday 20 December 2004 8:38 pm, B. Stia wrote:
On Monday 20 December 2004 18:53, Richard wrote: ...............<snip a bunch>............
Nvidia has probably provided the best "manufacturer" video card support for Linux over anyone else out there.
<snip even more>
So given these facts, here are some conclusions:
1. If you want a "solid AGP video card" for $50-75, the GeForce Ti4200 (Ti4200-8x or Ti4800 -- which isn't too much different) is still good. Aim for 128MB for a few bucks more.
2. _Avoid_ the GeForce FX5200, 5500 and even 5600XT, even if they have 256MB of RAM. They _suck_. In the "best case scenario," about the only place they can "match" the GeForce 4 Ti4200-4800 is in Doom3 with _all_ of the options _jacked_up_ (including Isotropic Filtering). But then you're running at 10fps, so it doesn't matter. ;-ppp
3. If you can find a "true" GeForce FX5700 for AGP for cheap (like $125), and not the overwhelming number of FX5700"LE" cards (which is 40% _slower_), then that will be near-equivalent in older titles to the Ti4200, but faster in more OpenGL or when you use FSAA.
4. If you really want a "higher-end" card, you've got two options: AGP: Start with the GeForce 6800LE or 6800 for $250-325 PCIe: Buy a new, "regular" nForce4 mainboard (due in January) for about $125, and then a GeForce 6200, 6600 or 6600GT for about $75-175 (your choice)
The 6200-6600 are not quite a 6800, but they are _far_closer_ than a GeForce FX5700, and even the FX5900 series is not quite any 6000 series card. ----------------------------------------------------- Bob S.
Wow. Answered questions I didn't even know I had, and gives me some pretty good direction. And far more concise than what I might have finally come up with after hours of searching thru current and old Anandtech articles, usually my source for techie reviews, even tho I know these get dated very fast and don't show how cards/chips/boards perform over time, or stack up over time. Thank you very much for the info and time you put into finding this. Richard
On Tue, 2004-12-21 at 00:05, Richard wrote:
On Monday 20 December 2004 8:38 pm, B. Stia wrote:
On Monday 20 December 2004 18:53, Richard wrote: ...............<snip a bunch>............
Nvidia has probably provided the best "manufacturer" video card support for Linux over anyone else out there.
I'll agree with this. I won't buy anything BUT Nvidia. I'll take a Pentium 133 with a 16 MB Nvidia card before I would a Pentium 4 with a 256 MB top of the line ATI...... Wait no I won't, I'd sell that ATI card and buy an Nvidia and keep the processor... Ah well.
<snip even more>
So given these facts, here are some conclusions:
2. _Avoid_ the GeForce FX5200, 5500 and even 5600XT, even if they have 256MB of RAM. They _suck_. In the "best case scenario," about the only place they can "match" the GeForce 4 Ti4200-4800 is in Doom3 with _all_ of the options _jacked_up_ (including Isotropic Filtering). But then you're running at 10fps, so it doesn't matter. ;-ppp
I'm going to have to give you a kick in the head for this though.... This box has an Nvidia GE Force FX 5200 with 128 MBs, and it play Unreal Tournament 2003 and the original and it plays Doom, and quake, and Unreal 2, and Tux Racer without a problem. And it was cheap and has it's own fan. My laptop has an Nvidia GE Force FX GO 5200, and I'm happy with that to. Maybe me not giving a shit about FPS makes me this way, but I can watch video, play the games I actually care about, which I named pretty much all of them give or take Tron and solar wolf, and that's the only things I play. Maybe I'll get a Faster Nvidia Card for my Compaq which has a crappy integrated card if I want Doom 3 to fly but for now, no big deal. The first computer I ever bought has an Nvidia card in it with 16 MBs Video, and it can do Tux Racer and UT.
Wow. Answered questions I didn't even know I had, and gives me some pretty good direction. And far more concise than what I might have finally come up with after hours of searching thru current and old Anandtech articles, usually my source for techie reviews, even tho I know these get dated very fast and don't show how cards/chips/boards perform over time, or stack up over time. Thank you very much for the info and time you put into finding this. Richard
always buy Nvidia. I've never even attempted to try another card and I won't. That's UNIX elitism right there. It's not broken so I'll not even bother trying to break it so I can fix it ;) AllwindowsTechnologyIdiots Nvidia rocks and has actual Drivers for Free BSD and Linux and they proudly support it. They are great for making the same quality drivers on Linux as Windows.
Allen wrote:
On Tue, 2004-12-21 at 00:05, Richard wrote:
always buy Nvidia. I've never even attempted to try another card and I won't. That's UNIX elitism right there. It's not broken so I'll not even bother trying to break it so I can fix it ;)
AllwindowsTechnologyIdiots
Nvidia rocks and has actual Drivers for Free BSD and Linux and they proudly support it. They are great for making the same quality drivers on Linux as Windows.
Recently there was a good interview with the guys at NVidia, it was an eye opener, they are doing good work behind the scenes. Just a few days ago, I tried upgrading my gentoo box from 6111 to 6692 - MX400 card and ended up with a blurred and unreadable display in KDE, I went back to 6111 and posted a bug to NVidia. I received a prompt reply that the problem will be fixed in the next release. If I have a choice, I'll always buy NVidia also. Regards Sid. -- Sid Boyce .... Hamradio G3VBV and keen Flyer =====LINUX ONLY USED HERE=====
On Monday 20 December 2004 11:05 pm, Richard wrote:
On Monday 20 December 2004 8:38 pm, B. Stia wrote:
On Monday 20 December 2004 18:53, Richard wrote: ...............<snip a bunch>............
Nvidia has probably provided the best "manufacturer" video card support for Linux over anyone else out there.
<snip even more>
So given these facts, here are some conclusions: Hi Richard,
Hey, why not knock off till after the holidays? Never work under anymore pressure than necessary. If you got something that ends in pkg2 then don't trust it!!!! the most current installer pkg at the NVIDIA site is 6629 pkg1. This works on my SUSE 8.2 and 1 9.2 systems and 6111 on another SMP 9.2 PC. If starting the sys from a reset or power on, and you never saw correct text screens the prob is almost certainly HW. until SUSE boot process starts X the sys is only using the VESA std vga part of the card. When things calm down take a thoro look at the SYS board and cards and all connections. Those AGP cards can get very tweaky about correct seating in their slots. Happy Holidays!!!! ........................... PeterB -- -- Proud SUSE user since 5.2 Loving SUSE 9.2 My BLOG == http://vancampen.org/blog --
On Thursday 23 December 2004 1:55 pm, Peter B Van Campen wrote:
On Monday 20 December 2004 11:05 pm, Richard wrote:
On Monday 20 December 2004 8:38 pm, B. Stia wrote:
On Monday 20 December 2004 18:53, Richard wrote: ...............<snip a bunch>............
Nvidia has probably provided the best "manufacturer" video card support for Linux over anyone else out there.
<snip even more>
So given these facts, here are some conclusions:
Hi Richard,
Hey, why not knock off till after the holidays? Never work under anymore pressure than necessary.
Because I was starting to get the DT's when I had no working linux system and had to boot up XP just to be able to look at a screen.
If you got something that ends in pkg2 then don't trust it!!!! the most current installer pkg at the NVIDIA site is 6629 pkg1. This works on my SUSE 8.2 and 1 9.2 systems and 6111 on another SMP 9.2 PC.
If starting the sys from a reset or power on, and you never saw correct text screens the prob is almost certainly HW. until SUSE boot process starts X the sys is only using the VESA std vga part of the card.
When things calm down take a thoro look at the SYS board and cards and all connections. Those AGP cards can get very tweaky about correct seating in their slots.
Happy Holidays!!!! ........................... PeterB
I will check these all out some more. I perhaps failed to mention I am working on x86_64 AMD system. I notice -pkg1 was most recent for IA32 release, -pkg2 for -64. Also, -pkg2 added support for 6600GT, my new card, chosen over the 6800 because nvidia showed support for it. What are the gotcha's that may be lurking in the 6629 builds? Richard
Thanks. Last para is probably what I really wanted to hear. Other than the ATI cards I have really tried to look for hardware supported under linux and specifically for manufacturers that offer drivers, support. Time to move it seems. Any suggestions on making sense of the alphabet/number soup of the cards? GeForce 6800 seems to be the latest, but driver on Nvidia site shows support for 6600 included in most recent release. Does that make the 6600 a better bet right now? Richard
The 'bleeding edge' does tend to bleed quite a bit more under Linux, for just about any hardware... Release schedules for video drivers hasn't been something I've paid that much attention to, though, since I've been running on relatively ancient hardware thus far...
On Mon December 20 2004 4:21 pm, Richard wrote:
Blasphemy! I have always been an ATI card user, mostly for the AIW option, but the inability to get drivers to use for 2.6 kernel, X.org files, and so on is getting me to turn attention to nVidia. At the risk of starting a major catfight over cards, any suggestions? I was somewhat comfortable knowing ATI card numbers and "what they had under the hood" but am in the dark for nVidia. I have not seen an AIW equivalent. Is there one, or is that not such a great idea anyway, and if not, what is a good TV card for linux? I have also been scared by what seem to be lots of problems posting to this list about getting nVidia cards to work. Is that all old hat now, with dirivers working and easily available/installable and hunky-dory? Generally, my needs are commonplace usage, some graphics and photo work, mostly light duty, some gaming (Quake when I can get it to run, as I have not recently). Thanks for suggestions. Please don't let me be the instigator of a big flame war; I just want to know what people think of the "other" cards and what might be similar to ATI maybe 9200, 9600, like that.
I have nVidia and no problems. If I were to get another one, I'd want an 8200 series. Fred -- "As Internet technology itself vaults into new areas, so too does the Microsoft monopoly and its tried-and-true bag of tricks." -US Senator Orrin Hatch, (R) Utah
On Thu, 2004-12-23 at 18:17 -0500, Fred A. Miller wrote:
On Mon December 20 2004 4:21 pm, Richard wrote:
I have also been scared by what seem to be lots of problems posting to this list about getting nVidia cards to work. Is that all old hat now, with dirivers working and easily available/installable and hunky-dory? Generally, my needs are commonplace usage, some graphics and photo work, mostly light duty, some gaming (Quake when I can get it to run, as I have not recently). Thanks for suggestions. Please don't let me be the instigator of a big flame war; I just want to know what people think of the "other" cards and what might be similar to ATI maybe 9200, 9600, like that.
I have nVidia and no problems. If I were to get another one, I'd want an 8200 series.
I'm just getting my machine back up after a month of being down due to a power supply warranty issue, and I just tried to get Quake2 to run again. It segfaults on the OpenGL driver, but the software renderer still works. Ah well. Nostalgia. A lot of reviews I've seen say that the card to get these days -- the best price/performance ratio -- is a 6600 GT. If I hadn't just dropped $700 upgrading to a nice SATA RAID setup, I'd have bought on by now. (The power supply ate my SCSI card, or the other way around.) http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleid=1701&page=12 dk
participants (10)
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Allen -
B. Stia -
Brad Bourn -
David Krider -
Fred A. Miller -
Peter B Van Campen -
Richard -
Sid Boyce -
Stan Glasoe -
Steve Kratz