[ale] video card recommendation?

[Dow Hurst]

I have to put in my two cents and say Nvidia works for me.  The 
installation has shifted in the past year or so from rpm to a shell 
wrapper and from distro specific rpm's to a unified format.  SuSE8.1 has 
a specific problem in that SaX2 and Yast2 did not understand or 
recognize the new unified driver installation.  SuSE 8.2 doesn't have 
that problem according to the docs at Nvidia.  On my Athlon based system 
running SuSE 8.1, I have two different issues:

1. I did have to disable the hardware recognition script that runs on 
reboot by removing the link to it from the /etc/init.d/rc5.d directory.  
I was having SaX2 auto-started to configure my monitor on each reboot.  
This might be video card related since Yast2 and SaX2 didn't understand 
the current unified driver from Nvidia at the time.

2.  Full screen gaming depends on the games ability, so that some games 
not written to support a variable full screen resolution will use only 
one monitor and don't have configurability to use the dual monitor 
setup.  Of course, that is game support and programming and not really a 
Nvidia problem.

Certain Nvidia cards don't get all the features of the unified driver 
since they may be physically limited by the design.  The Geforce3 and up 
with dual outputs seem to be the minimum worth paying for.  The reviews 
of the newest Nvidia 5800 card don't seem so great compared to the ATI 
9800.  I'd like to see what the open source ATI drivers can do on a 9700 
or 9800 versus the closed source Nvidia drivers on a G4Ti4600.  Someone 
may have done that comparison already.

Has anyone bought the Linux version of Return to Castle Wolfenstein?  I 
know that I can turn on every graphical option in Quake3Arena and still 
render at a 90-100fps with the G4 Ti-4200.  Since I am not up to date on 
games, that experience has blown me away!  The F-22 Raptor flight game 
on SuSE 8.2 was great on a Inspiron 8500 laptop I was configuring for 
someone.  The instructions to install and configure the Nvidia G4 Go 
4200 chip were pretty straightforward and SuSE 8.2 supported the install 
of the Nvidia unified driver.  I was screaming thru the sky trying to 
shoot down the enemy (in training mode)!

I'd be interested in ATI if the performance and dual screen support were 
there.  If a game supports windowing mode then I can size the window on 
one monitor and have other stuff going on the other monitor.  This 
allows one to falsely believe that they are being productive and gaming 
at the same time! 

I know the MX series are not considered good cards, only the Ti series.  
The mobile Go chip rivals the Ti-4600 and beats the Ti-4200 easily.  The 
G2 or G3 don't rate against the Ti series.  The prices are definitely a 
good rating system.  I think the Nvidia G4-Ti4200 is the best buy for 
price/performance at the moment.  If the ATI open source drivers are 
good then checking the ATI performance would definitely be worth it for 
a 9700.

Cordially,
Dow


ChangingLINKS.com wrote:

>Since my first experience with Linux, the Nvidia video cards have always been 
>a problem. I have had to learn new tactics to get the drivers to install 
>everytime I upgrade. Finally, they have a new driver that is supposed to fix 
>the problem. I had many problems getting that driver to work, and once I was 
>able to get it "successfully" installed, it rewards me with a black screen 
>when I try to use the 3d acceleration. The worst purchase I have ever made in 
>hardware was the Nvidia graphics cards (and I put them on all of my systems).
>
>At this point, I don't think I am interested in dealing with these cards 
>anymore. Considering the amount of time I have spent playing with them - they 
>are far more expensive than they are worth. I need to move on and get a 
>graphics card that it automatically configured when I install Linux. Every 
>other piece of hardware that I have works this way.
>
>I am thinking that I want 64 ram, 3D graphics card, that is automatically 
>installed CORRECTLY from the installation of most versions of Linux (I am on 
>Suse). 
>
>Anyone have recommendations from personal experience?
>  
>

-- 
__________________________________________________________
Dow Hurst                  Office: 770-499-3428
Systems Support Specialist    Fax: 770-423-6744
1000 Chastain Rd. Bldg. 12
Chemistry Department SC428  Email:   dhurst at kennesaw.edu
Kennesaw State University         Dow.Hurst at mindspring.com
Kennesaw, GA 30144
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