[GLLUG] New Video Card Advice

[C. Ulrich]

On Thu, 2003-10-30 at 09:32, Brian Hoort wrote:
> So I've got everything else ordered, but I must admit, I'm just totally out 
> of the loop on video cards these days.  I'm needing a primer.  I've done a 
> little searching, including the archive of this list, and didn't really 
> find that much current info.  The best msg on the archive is copied at 
> bottom of this message.

Your best bet would be to check out the mainstream hardware review
sites, decide which cards sound good and then narrow down your options
by figuring out which ones are well supported in XFree86.

> I've put a lot of effort into making this thing quiet.  The last thing I 
> want to do is put a video board with a jet-engine sounding fan on it into 
> it.  Fanless would be better.  The MB supports AGP 8x, but it looks like 
> Linux doesn't, currently?

Even if Linux doesn't support 8X (not sure if it does or not), it will
automatically scale back to 4X and be usuable, just maybe not *quite* as
fast.

> I haven't had time to play a game in years.  So I don't need the latest 
> gamer board.  That said, I'd like to find the time again, and don't want to 
> put a board that can't handle any game in there.  As you can see, I'll 
> probably keep this computer till I'm too old to fart without assistance so 
> let's get something at least decent by todays standards in there.

Well, give your definition of decent. :P I define "decent" as in "it
better at least be able to play Quake III." Thus, I can get away with
any old crappy $35 nVidia card from two years ago. Others will probably
say that any "decent" card should be able to play any game currently on
the store shelves. In that case, be prepared to shell out at least $250
and kiss your "fanless" wish goodbye.

> I'm having trouble finding the current driver situation on drivers.  It 
> looks like NVidia has good support for linux, you have to compile them, but 
> they're proprietary?

Yes, they're proprietary. When you "compile" the nvidia drivers, you're
really just compiling the wrapper around the binary kernel module to
make it compatible with your particular kernel. If you're running a
stock Red Hat system with an unmodified kernel, for instance, you can
just download the RPM and not have to compile a thing. For what it's
worth, nVidia drivers have almost always worked well and are updated
fairly regularly. There are even FreeBSD drivers that work great.

> ATI seems to be the other company, and they're more open to Linux, but 
> according to the most recent info on our list, they don't work.

ATI has historically offered little to no help to Linux developers
wishing to write drivers for their cards, despite what their press
releases may say. I have always avoided ATI cards like the plague. ATI
has usually designed good cards at an affordable price, but their tech
support is nearly non-existant, the drivers bundled with the cards
rarely ever worked properly, and updated drivers were known to perform
worse than the originals or completely trash the whole system without
warning. As an example, one of my good friends bought a Rage 128 once
(against my advice) for the sole purpose of playing Quake, by far the
most popular game of the time. Over the 3 years that he had the card,
ATI never produced a single driver for that card that allowed it to play
Quake properly. ATI started to improve their image a bit when the Radeon
cards first emerged, but it seems like they're gradually settling back
into the old ATI that I remember.

> My priorities for video are thus:
> 1. Works Well in Linux, without weeks of troubleshooting and list help.  I 
> just don't have time right now to be building the thing, let alone, 
> fiddling to get it to work.
> 2. Quiet -- hopefully fanless
> 3. Cost - I am a cheap bastard.  I see on pricewatch boards start at $50 
> and rapidly go up.  A $100 would be nice, and would probably get me a year 
> old gamer card w/ 64 RAM?
> 4. Support a company with good Linux relations (openness)
> 
> Let's hear it!
> 
> PS.  Sorry for posting this hardware dribble.  I know it gets tiresome.
> 
> Thanks for the assistance, Brian

I could offer you a spare 64MB DDR GeForce2 MX200. It's AGP 4X I believe
and has DVI output. (SVGA with an included adapter.) There is no fan, so
it's completely noiseless. This seems to meet your requirements, but it
may not be able to play some of the newer games on the shelves. I know
for a fact that it runs Quake III, Alice, Unreal Tournament, and Return
to Castle Wolfenstein quite well. Mail me off-list if you're interested
buying it or trading for it.

Charles Ulrich