Re: 3D video card recommendations

[Nix <nix@esperi.org.uk>]

On 4 Nov 2005, Mark Knecht announced authoritatively:
> On 11/4/05, Steven Rostedt <rostedt@goodmis.org> wrote:
>> I'm currently putting together (ordering parts for) another machine. It
>> will be a AMD64 X2. Now I'm looking into a video card for this.  Up till
>> now, I've always used NVidia.  But I also want to test 3D acceleration
>> under Ingo's -rt patch.  So now I need something that does not have a
>> priority module.
>>
>> I'm not much of a gamer, although I do play every so often. So I don't
>> need the highest quality card, but I also want something that is still
>> pretty good. For example, I currently have a NVidia GeForce 6800 GT
>> card.  So I'm hoping to get something equivalent.
>>
>> I'm looking at the ATI Radeons.
>>
>> Any recommendations? (links to info would also be nice ;-)
> 
> Not a recommendation. Just a point to be aware of. The ATI Radeons, to
> get the best acceleration, seem to require that you use the ATI closed
> source drivers. Currently I haven't found an ATI closed source driver
> that supports 2.6.14. so I'm forced to use the Xorg radeon driver. I
> have no idea if this is very good. I don't think so as my glxgear
> numbers are pretty low. Much lower than the ATI driver running on
> 2.6.13-X.

Surely it depends on the Radeon. I get perfectly respectable numbers on
my Radeon 9250 (purchased because Dave Airlie said it was well-supported
by X.org :) ). It's not exactly Doom-playing quality, but it's good
enough for everything I'm doing with it, and it only cost thirty quid:
for that price you can afford to try it and see :)

(Later Radeons' 3D aren't fully supported yet in free drivers, as far as
I know.)

-- 
`Heinlein is quite competent at putting together sentences, but usually
he also puts together a plot to go with them.' --- Russ Allbery