[HLUG] OTish: Graphics Cards/Xorg usage/GPU upgrade

[matt at mattjones.me.uk]

AGP 8x are backwards compatible with 4x, but not with the 1x and 2x  
IIRC(Although some boards support all of them, which sounds like yours).

  I suspect that 4x interface would not be a particular issue, the 8x  
card would still provide a significant increase in graphics  
capability. A processor upgrade should be low cost as well, I picked  
up a 2.8ghz P4 from ebay for about £5, and this may help with the xorg  
problem (Not really a solution I know...)

I am not sure why xorg, running a similar amount of apps on my EEE,  
the xorg usage was never a problem, is there a common hardware between  
the reporters of the bug?

Installing Xfree86 is probably not a good idea, it won't upgrade  
cleanly with the distro, and since Hardy is coming out at the end of  
the month the problem may be fixed anyway.

The hardware upgrades should be pretty cheap, and more performance is  
not a bad thing. Surely going to fluxbuntu is fairly extreme, the full  
fat ubuntu runs very nicely on a 630mhz processor with 512mb ram.

Matt Jones

Quoting Ralph Jones <ralphkj at gmail.com>:

> Lo all,
>
> Just a quick question as regards graphics cards. I've just been browsing
> eBay to see what's available second-hand, and is it me, or are 128/256Mb
> AGP cards ridiculously cheap? Has everybody (who's anybody) now moved
> onto PCI-E cards?
>
> And more importantly, how 'backward-compatible' are AGP cards as regards
> speed? Will a 8x card still work in a mobo that only supports 1x/2x/4x
> cards? (albeit running at 4x max speed).
>
> The reason I ask, and and nicely brings this missive back on topic, is
> X.org.
>
> Most certainly since upgrading to Kubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy?) from the
> previous incarnation, I've found Xorg hogging the CPU (70-90%), as well
> as a majority of my RAM (20-30%), when running 2-3 sessions of Firefox +
> Evolution + Azureus/Frostwire + Icepodder. Doing a bit of googling shows
> me that a lot of people have registered this as a bug; some as an Ubuntu
> bug, some as an X.org bug, and some as a Firefox bug. I just hope they
> don't come up with three patches/upgrades, which conflict with each
> other further.
>
>
> So, I am faced with three options:
>
> a) at the beginning of the 21st century to modify the way I use my
> computer to suit hardware + software.
>
> b) upgrade my hardware to suit the requirements of 21st century
> computing.
>
> c) downgrade my software to suit my late 20th century hardware (Athlon
> XP1500/1048Mb RAM/32Mb ATi AGP card).
>
>
> Option a) got kicked out in the first round, I haven't time to
> reschedule my day to make time to suit.
>
> Option c) is something I will be looking at further; I've just
> downloaded Fluxbuntu to install on a rainy day and will be looking at
> DSL and Puppy as well. I am also looking into ditching FF and Evolution
> in favour of Kazekhase and Claws.
>
> Option b) is where I'd appreciate your ha'penny's worth. Will a
> seemingly cheap upgrade of my AGP graphics card take some of the strain
> off my CPU and RAM? I could also stick another 1Gb of RAM in there, but
> at the moment graphics cards seem to be dirt-cheaper than RAM.
>
> And it occurs to me that perhaps I should ditch X.org and install the
> current version version of XFree86? How easy/difficult would that be?
> Bearing in mind that I've never 'rolled' my own kernel.
>
> Your thoughts on this appreciated. And apologies for the missive getting
> out of hand - I only mail once a year, so tend to use my quota up in one
> go!
>
> Regards
> Ralph
>
>
>
> --
> Herefordshire LUG mailing list
> Web:  http://www.herefordshire.lug.org.uk
> List: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/herefordshire
>