[NTLUG:Discuss] video card recommendation

[Russell Lemburg]

Agree with Bob.  I've had more problems with ATI than I can take, especially
because of the open-source drivers.
EnvyNG is great, especially running a new nVidia card, and it seems like the
proprietary drivers just work.

GeForce 8500GT is a pretty nice cheap 512 meg card, and it works on my
machine.  It's about 100 bucks and it handles my 3 screens.
Plus, SLI is nice to have if you're thinking of running lots of fancy
stuff.  But like you said, it's general purpose.


On Thu, Jun 12, 2008 at 12:26 PM, Bob Netherton <Bob.Netherton at sun.com>
wrote:

>
> > Ralph (the OP) wants to stick with pure open source drivers.  Ideally
> > he wants the new Intel card... but it isn't out :(
>
> Hey Chris,
>
> What's the rationale for open source on the driver ?  With a track
> record of free (but closed source) with excellent performance and
> complete functionality (ie accelerated 3D), why would nvidia not
> be a good choice ?   There is an argument to be made for them to
> protect their IP as long as they play nice with the community, which
> I think they have done.   I may be mistaken on this point, but I'm
> pretty sure we  include their closed source drivers in OpenSolaris so
> redistribution doesn't seem to be a problem for them.
>
> > Thus the "Nvidia is better" argument, may not apply in this case.
>
> Just trying to understand.  I'm a pragmatist, not a purist :-)
>
> > I know I've been forced to use the commercial driver for both
> > Nvidia AND Radeon lately because of lack of good support in
> > the open source drivers....
>
> Not wanting to ruffle any feathers here, but all of the open source
> drivers stink.   You have to get the guys working in the GPUs to
> do the driver work.  There's not enough information published to
> write a good driver.   Most of the time you're better off running
> Windows (where the drivers are the best) and do some sort of
> desktop virtualization like VMware or VirtualBox rather than use
> the open source drivers.
>
> We're totally nVidia in this house.
>
> > But I know work is being done on the Radeon side, and I'll
> > admit, I haven't tried the new open source stuff there yet.
>
> Not going to hold my breath on that one :-)   I have to support
> several OSes in my Enterprise :-)  and nVidia is the only one
> that is consistent across all the platforms.
>
>
> Bob
>
>
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>



-- 

Russell Lemburg
IC Technology, Inc.
1900 Preston Road, #267-303
Plano, TX 75093 USA
(214) 460-8504
cplusruss at gmail.com