[Gllug] Geforce2

[Stuart Children]

On Wed, Jan 23, 2002 at 02:44:34AM -0000, E. R. Vaughan wrote:
> Using 2.4.17, Athlon 1000(133), KT7A, X 4.1 (Slack 8.0), and the latest
> detonator drivers I have had no lockups at all, frame rate seems better than
> in Windoze although I haven't done a scientific study, mouse seems smoother.
> Although I have to say I'm running w/o sound (don't have card in the box,
> will do soon, I'll report back...)

My Duron machine with a GF2MX (original, before they changed to producing
the 200 and 400 varieties) runs RedHat 7.2 (their custom 2.4.9 kernel)
with latest NVidia drivers and is similarly stable. I did a comparison a
while back and performance under windows was better, but now they're
pretty even (subjectively, and looking as normal FPS in Quake3). As a
fairly serious Quake3 player, that's normally the only thing I
stress it with. Mouse is an odd thing... the X input stuff feels different
from Windows, and there've been changes as to how system sensitivity and
acceleration settings affect Quake3's. I used to find that whilst
performance under Linux was easily good enough, I couldn't play seriously
because I couldn't get my sensitivity right. When I recently gave it 
another go however, the "feel" in Linux suits me (though I'm going to need 
to practice a bit to get used to it). I think this is due to changes both 
in Quake3's input code and as XFree 4 has developed.

> I think NVidia are real assholes for not releasing source code or specs, but
> I think it is just a manoevre (sp? I'm had a few.. :), they are just flexing
> their muscles. They are not too stupid to see that this damages them I
> think. Linux people are buying Matrox and other cards because of it. But
> IMvvHO the NVidia cards are better than the Matrox ones, I think Matrox got
> ahead at one point about 5 years ago just before 3dfx came on the scene but
> IMO they have been trailing since.

I've had quite a few Matrox cards and they've always had rock solid 2D
performance. The G400 I have is definitely nicer than my GF2MX say (I
think some of the more recent NVidia offerings have improved on 2D, but
I'm sure Matrox have done similarly). 3D performance is quite another 
matter sadly... which is why I have my GF2. The 3D on the G400 is OK for 
some things but really doesn't cut it (yes it plays Quake3, but you can 
really notice the difference on a better card - and due to the annoying 
way the Quake3 engine works, having high FPS (higher than is possible with 
the G400) is neccessary for certain movement and jumps). I know this 
doesn't bother most people, but it does me. :)

It's a pity - if Matrox's 3D was better they'd be excellent choices just 
on all round performance. I like supporting them because they do actually 
open source a lot of their drivers and seem to have pretty good support 
for Linux overall. I know things aren't perfect (dual head stuff for 
example, and their binary XFree module), but they're better than a lot of 
others and hopefully we can entince them to improve even further.

Cheers

-- 
Stuart

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