[NTLUG:Discuss] Video cards

[Steve Baker]

Greg Edwards wrote:
> 
> Has anyone tried the ASUS V7100 GeForce2 MX AGP card?

Probably :-)

At work, we've had a gazillion different GeForce2 cards from
all sorts of different manufacturers.  They really are all
pretty much the same (for identical memory configurations that
is).  I'm fairly sure we've used the ASUS and it's indistinguishable
from the other GF2/MX cards.

The only thing to look out for is that those GeForce chips run
HOT and are very sensitive to a build-up of heat in your PC
cabinet.  I *heard* that one or two GeForce card manufacturers
were shipping boards with just a heatsink - and no fan.  I'd
avoid those kinds - they NEED that fan.

Anyway, the nVidia drivers for Linux are pretty good - I've yet
to find an OpenGL program that wouldn't run on GeForce hardware.
Grab the drivers from www.nvidia.com and you'll need XFree 4.1.x
and a reasonably recent kernel (2.2.18 or later IIRC).

However, if you are *insistant* on having sources for *everything*
on your machine, you'll have to use the so-called "UTAH-GLX" driver
instead of nVidia's driver (which is binary-only) - and that's "A Bad
Thing" because the UTAH driver is not as good.

Some motherboards have problems with all GeForce cards - some don't
provide sufficiently thick power connections to the AGP slot - others
have problems running AGP at x4 rates with the nVidia cards.

Make sure you have plenty of capacity in your power supply too!  When
you add another 64Mb of hard-working RAM and a second HUGE computing
engine, you eat a lot more power and generate a lot more heat.

----------------------------- Steve Baker -------------------------------
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