[Gllug] Linux graphics card

[Mike Brodbelt]

On Thu, 2004-06-10 at 10:29, Tethys wrote:
> Mike Brodbelt writes:

> The problem is, there *aren't* any well supported cards with open source
> drivers (modern cards, that is). The ATI 9200 is probably about as good
> as you get before having to resort to closed source drivers.

Yep - the second gen ATI cards do seem to be the best option. At least
ATI contribute code, and seem to have a reasonably good attitude. The
situation with 3D graphics cards is poor, and I can't help but think
that the mess is at least partly due to the hordes of people who quite
happily buy nVidia, and think they're doing us a favour by supplying
binary drivers. <rant mode="on">I tend to look at these as the poisoned
chalice, I'm afraid. I'm fed up of seeing hardware claiming linux
support that you then have to go digging through mailing lists to find
that the support is binary only, or consists of loading a windows driver
through an emulation layer. We really need an "open source driver" stamp
that makes buying hardware easy.</rant>

>  3D Labs cards
> have been supported, but they're very pricey, and even they have now gone
> the closed source router for recent cards AFAIK.
> 
> >If you don't need 3d, just buy a Matrox card.
> 
> Actually, even if you do need 3D, Matrox isn't a bad option. A G450 is
> quite capable of playing Q3 and Unreal Tournament under Linux at decent
> framerates. It can't do UT2004 due to the lack of texture compression,
> I think, but apart from that, it's a fine card.

I have a Matrox G400 Max card, which is essentially the same core as the
G450, without the TV out. I've had it for years, and it's a very nice
card. Q3A plays quite respectably on it, and the 2d output is very well
supported. It's a great shame that Matrox got so much more anal about
specs on their newer cards, like the Parhelia. With anything after the
G400 series you have to use their binary hal library, and I'm aware of
at least one bug that makes running a G550 with the DVI output
incompatible with working 3D.

Mike.

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