[opensuse] Recommended Video Card?
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 That's probably a pretty big question, but one I could really appreciate some help with. I got the new Linux machine up and running last night, and it went fairly well. I had problems getting the 64-bit distribution installed (I think I recall a message about it's not liking SATA DVD drives, and the symptom was that during the installation, it couldn't mount my CD), so that made the decision for me to go ahead with the 32-bit distro, just to move along. In fact, it may be quite a while before I exceed 2 GB of memory on this box, so that may end up being the best, after all. I couldn't get Linux to recognize the onboard NIC, but I had plenty of unused 10/100 PCI cards from back before we went wireless here, and the Linux box is within four feet of my router, so that problem was easily solved. And the Ethernet connection is faster than our wireless anyway. The only remaining problem is that the onboard video really sucks, because it's running in default VGA mode. Perhaps with some research, I could find out how to get Linux to recognize it, but I figured that would be wasted effort if I'm going to install a 3D card of some kind anyway. So that finally brings me to my question for this esteemed assembly: What's a good idea for a graphics card for someone who's NOT a gamer, but simply wants good responsive graphic output? And will be well supported by SuSE 10.2? With my present monitor, it only needs to support 1280x1024, but I wouldn't want to box myself in, in that regard. I guess I'm looking for a recommendation of a "best buy" in this area, and it's not something I've had a lot of experience with. In my work, and at home, I've always had computers that simply came with adequate graphics cards to start with, so I've never been in the market before. What's a good card that Linux will find easy to work with? Thanks in advance for your suggestions! -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.5 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with SUSE - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFGT99rdqy7mNl00FsRAtfIAJwImihQAJBoCr1+ZX5rz5OpLiO06QCgku2t EkoxBFFRaOvV3hHbYbpzjsA= =5ubO -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
What's a good idea for a graphics card for someone who's NOT a gamer, but simply wants good responsive graphic output? And will be well supported by SuSE 10.2? With my present monitor, it only needs to support 1280x1024, but I wouldn't want to box myself in, in that regard.
I guess I'm looking for a recommendation of a "best buy" in this area, and it's not something I've had a lot of experience with. In my work, and at home, I've always had computers that simply came with adequate graphics cards to start with, so I've never been in the market before. What's a good card that Linux will find easy to work with?
Thanks in advance for your suggestions!
I recommend getting a mid line Nvidia card. I have been using an ATI 9600xt for a couple of years and the driver development leaves a lot to be desired - especially when it comes to getting the damn things configured and the kernel drivers into the sys. I recently updated my video card to a Nvidia 7800GS and was pleased at how well/easily (compared to ATI) the card drivers compiled and loaded. This was done the first time using a the downloaded install program. I rebuilt my system and used YaST2 repo to dl the drivers and it (apparently) did everything behind the scenes and automatically. I did run the "modprobe nvidia" command right after the driver installed and 3D worked after re-enter/starting the X sys. I checked the Xorg.conf file and the proper driver and extensions had been written to the file - so I rebooted and saw the Nvidia splash screen present itself - so overall pretty painless. You can get a 6800 series card for a fairly good/low price and that will most likely meet you needs and then some. Shop around and you'll likely find a deal! HTH, Curtis. -- Spammers Beware: Trespassers will be shot, survivors will be shot again! I don't want a politician I can believe in. I simply want a politician I can believe! -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On Sunday 20 May 2007, Jerry Houston wrote:
That's probably a pretty big question, but one I could really appreciate some help with. [...] The only remaining problem is that the onboard video really sucks, because it's running in default VGA mode. Perhaps with some research, I could find out how to get Linux to recognize it, but I figured that would be wasted effort if I'm going to install a 3D card of some kind anyway. So that finally brings me to my question for this esteemed assembly:
What's a good idea for a graphics card for someone who's NOT a gamer, but simply wants good responsive graphic output? And will be well supported by SuSE 10.2? With my present monitor, it only needs to support 1280x1024, but I wouldn't want to box myself in, in that regard.
I guess I'm looking for a recommendation of a "best buy" in this area, and it's not something I've had a lot of experience with. In my work, and at home, I've always had computers that simply came with adequate graphics cards to start with, so I've never been in the market before. What's a good card that Linux will find easy to work with?
Thanks in advance for your suggestions! ============
What have you got to work with on the new mobo? AGP, PCI-x or just PCI? What is the onboard video? Maker, ram, specifics? It might be that someone here can walk you right thru getting it going nicely. I still prefer the ATI cards for ease of use and good Linux compatibility. If you go with something older, 92xx, 96xx or 98xx, you'll find that xorg supports those cards right out of the box! You won't have to give a lot of money for them either. They'll give you great 2d and 3d support with only xorg drivers, no need to install the ATI binary drivers. The models I listed only come in AGP models though and many 64-bit motherboards only have PCI-x type slots. regards, Lee -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On Saturday 19 May 2007, BandiPat wrote:
I still prefer the ATI cards for ease of use and good Linux compatibility. If you go with something older, 92xx, 96xx or 98xx, you'll find that xorg supports those cards right out of the box! You won't have to give a lot of money for them either. They'll give you great 2d and 3d support with only xorg drivers, no need to install the ATI binary drivers. The models I listed only come in AGP models though and many 64-bit motherboards only have PCI-x type slots.
I hadn't thought about ATI cards and not using the binary drivers. This too would a viable course as well - for myself I use the 3d drivers because I game in Linux and without these the frames rates are more like a slide show. But as you've said, you're not interested in 3d on that level and therefore a 96xx or similar series would also do well since setting up X with their drivers would be suffice. I just spoke from the perspective hardcore Gamer. Lee has a good point though and either the nvidia, ati, or even bargain generic clone vid cards would do the job. Cheers, Curtis. -- Spammers Beware: Trespassers will be shot, survivors will be shot again! I don't want a politician I can believe in. I simply want a politician I can believe! -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Curtis Rey wrote:
I hadn't thought about ATI cards and not using the binary drivers. This too would a viable course as well - for myself I use the 3d drivers because I game in Linux and without these the frames rates are more like a slide show.
Thanks to _everyone_ for your suggestions. The first one was NVIDIA, and mentioned that there is support for their cards. While I was out picking up a copy of Pan's Labyrinth at Circuit City today, I found an e-GeForce 7300 GS there, at a trivial price. Figuring that if it didn't work for me here, I'd stick it in a Windows machine sometime, I went ahead and bought it. It turns out the installation was pretty painless. (Well, there was that thing about booting to console mode, but I used sax2 to reconfigure the graphics, and all was well after that.) It sure made a difference! Just scrolling through a message in Thunderbird, or a web page in Firefox was painful before. Now it works great, and the Motocross game even recognizes it as a 3D graphics card. Again, thanks for all the suggestions. Luckily for me, the first suggestion turned out to work well. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.5 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with SUSE - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFGT+ZBdqy7mNl00FsRAhA5AJ9MGfaEa0zD93rmzpG9REFTUlI2iQCgk26P Yfn6+Ju2/88s/Znelfv4QKc= =eGO2 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
On Saturday 19 May 2007, Jerry Houston wrote:
Curtis Rey wrote:
I hadn't thought about ATI cards and not using the binary drivers. This too would a viable course as well - for myself I use the 3d drivers because I game in Linux and without these the frames rates are more like a slide show.
Thanks to _everyone_ for your suggestions. The first one was NVIDIA, and mentioned that there is support for their cards. While I was out picking up a copy of Pan's Labyrinth at Circuit City today, I found an e-GeForce 7300 GS there, at a trivial price. Figuring that if it didn't work for me here, I'd stick it in a Windows machine sometime, I went ahead and bought it.
It turns out the installation was pretty painless. (Well, there was that thing about booting to console mode, but I used sax2 to reconfigure the graphics, and all was well after that.)
It sure made a difference! Just scrolling through a message in Thunderbird, or a web page in Firefox was painful before. Now it works great, and the Motocross game even recognizes it as a 3D graphics card.
Again, thanks for all the suggestions. Luckily for me, the first suggestion turned out to work well.
Just in case your interested. Go to the Nvida site and grab the Linux drivers program ( NVIDIA-Linux-x86-1.0.9755-pkg1.run) and put somewhere you can remember from the console. You can log out of the gui (gnome/kde/etc) and the go into the "log in to console" in the login gui. Then type in "root" and the root passward. Now type in "init 3" and then find the drivers and type "./NVIDIA-Linux-x86-1.0.9755-pkg1.run". It will complain that it can't find a "pre-compiled" driver and ask to compile one - let it. The it will ask a few other things - most importantly it will ask to write the xorg.conf file. After it's done then run "modprobe nvidia" and it will load the kernel module. Then type "init 5" and your back in the gui login. Go into your desktop and bring up the console/konsole and type "glxinfo | grep render" and you should get: glxinfo | grep render direct rendering: Yes OpenGL renderer string: GeForce 7800 GS/AGP/SSE/3DNOW! GL_NVX_conditional_render, GL_SGIS_generate_mipmap, GL_SGIS_texture_lod, If you get something like "direct rendering: No" and it tells you it's using "MesaGLX" then you're using software. If you do get this make sure that these lines are in your xorg.conf file: Section "Module" Load "dbe" **** This is needed for more robust GL Load "type1" Load "freetype" Load "extmod" Load "glx" ****** this give you hardware GL. Load "v4l" EndSection And also: Section "Device" BoardName "GeForce 7800 GS AGP" BusID "2:0:0" Driver "nvidia" *** if it reads "nv" then it's software - change it. Identifier "Device[0]" VendorName "NVidia" EndSection Another more painless way is to open up YaST2 and go to the "Installation Source" section. Click "Add" button, then select "URL" and got to the next step and add this URL: http://download.nvidia.com/opensuse/10.2/ Now finish this and go into "Software Management". Then do a search for nvidia drivers and allow YaST to install it - the rest should be done behind the scenes. If you're having problems (due to hardware... mobo, vid manufacturer, etc) and you're not getting the results and don't want to fool around anymore, you can simply change the "nvidia" line back to "nv" and you'll be back to software mode and able to use you sys with software 3D. Before doing any of these check the xorg.conf file to see if this hasn't already happened - as above in the "Module" and "Device" sections. Remember - your mileage may vary. Cheers, Curtis. -- Spammers Beware: Trespassers will be shot, survivors will be shot again! I don't want a politician I can believe in. I simply want a politician I can believe! -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
participants (3)
-
BandiPat -
Curtis Rey -
Jerry Houston