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Re: Best supported and rendering card

Hi,


First of all I like ATI cards, and I still think that the basic
quality is usually better than nVidia. However, that cannot be said
for the drivers. While they are very configurable, they are also
riddled with an amazing number of bugs. I have an ATI 9600, and it
does not work with the free drivers (tested XFree 4.3 and X.org 6.8)
unless you completely disable acceleration. 


Well, I missed to say that 80% of the time I use Linux and I only use it
for web browsing, hacking (PHP, using emacs), Evolution, gnome-terminal,
etc.. I mean, I don't use Linux to play and for obvious reasons I don't
play 3D games under it, sometimes I see 3D animations (swf) but that's
all.

Now, I only use Windows to play Wolfstein (3D) and use msn+webcam.

So, I don't care if the 3D is not *great*  under Linux, with just having
nice 3D support (not *great*) and *fast* rendering for basic things:
drag & drop, close windows, move windows.. etc..

For Windows I think the Windows driver will be enough, I think these
drivers will give me *great* 3D support for msn+webcam and Wolfstein.


The proprietary 3D drivers from ATI are ok, but rather difficult to
install. The fglrx-package helps a lot, but there are still issues.
Configuration is an absolute nightmare. Dual monitor configurations do
not work correctly. The 3D speed is ok, but not great, and certainly
behind what is possible on Windows. Switching consoles often crashes
the system. 


Yeah I know about this issue :-(.


So all in all the Radeon 9600 is not a great card for Linux. If you
get it very cheap, it should be ok, but otherwise I would look for
alternatives. I heard that the Radeon 9800 has quite a bit more
performance (but I don't know about the number of problems :-)). 


Well, I have many offers, dunno if people here are running any of these
video cards:

  * VIDEO CARD ATI RADEON 9550 AGP 128MB TV OUT DVI OUT
  * VIDEO CARD RADEON 9600 PRO 256 MB V/D/VO R96-HD3
  * VIDEO CARD AGP 8X RADEON 9550 256 MB / TV OUT / DVI

Any comments? I'm looking for a video card that its price rounds between
$80 ~ $100 bucks.


Sticking with nVidia might also be an option. Ok, you have to use the
binary driver, but given that the free driver does not really work for
recent ATI cards either, this is not much of a difference. I heard
that 3D performance is better under Linux, probably because the
drivers are more optimised. 


I'd like to continue using nVidia, however I live in Mexico and is very
difficult (if not impossible) to buy a nVidia, most USA retailers don't
send products outside USA.

Pablo

-- 
Pablo Fischer Sandoval (pablo [arroba/at] pablo.com.mx)
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