ATI/NVidia driver status?

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ATI/NVidia driver status?

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Tom Forsmo

Posted: Thu May 01, 2008 8:33 am

Guest

Hi

What is the current status of drivers for linux by ATI or NVidia?
I know they both provide proprietary drivers, but I am unsure how well
they work. The same goes for the open source driver, lacking information
and all that...

I am looking to buy a new graphics card for my Debian Opteron
workstation and my choices have come down to the following:

- Nvidia 8800 GTX
(the 9800 series is not supported by the proprietary drivers yet)
- ATI HD 3900

I am planning on running it with 1920x1200 resolution with KDE, emacs,
Konsole, web etc, no gaming or photo editing or stuff like that. (Gaming
will of course have to be done in Windows or Wii (or soon maybe; PS3))

Does the current drivers work for that? or will there be minor/major
problems?
Are the open source driver good/fast enough or must I use the
proprietary one?

regards

Tom

Bit Twister

Posted: Thu May 01, 2008 8:33 am

Guest

On Thu, 01 May 2008 15:33:30 +0200, Tom Forsmo wrote:

Quote:

ATI is in the process of opening up their source code. They have some third
party code in it so they just cannot open it up completely.
I am hoping the Open source driver can fully support my RS480 [Radeon
Xpress 200G Series] (on board) video hardware.

Does pretty good on most things but fails to run Flightgear on my
Mandriva installation.

Mark Hobley

Posted: Thu May 01, 2008 12:08 pm

Guest

In comp.os.linux.hardware Bit Twister <BitTwister@mouse-potato.com> wrote:

Quote:

ATI have released technical specifications for their latest cards, so it
should be possible to write an open source driver.

I would definitely go for an ATI card rather than an Nvidia.

Regards,

Mark.

--
Mark Hobley,
393 Quinton Road West,
Quinton, BIRMINGHAM.
B32 1QE.

Markus Kossmann

Posted: Thu May 01, 2008 12:25 pm

Guest

Tom Forsmo wrote:

Quote:

Tom Forsmo

Posted: Thu May 01, 2008 12:57 pm

Guest

(I know you changed the followup, but I dont want to segregate the
discussion, its still relevant to both groups)

Markus Kossmann wrote:

Quote:

- Nvidia 8800 GTX
(the 9800 series is not supported by the proprietary drivers yet)
There is 173.08 (beta) which supports GeForce 9800 GTX and GeForce 9800 GX2

Have you used the driver and do you know how stable it is? and is it
usable for ordinary desktop work in KDE?

tom

Markus Kossmann

Posted: Thu May 01, 2008 1:24 pm

Guest

Tom Forsmo wrote:

Quote:

(I know you changed the followup, but I dont want to segregate the
discussion, its still relevant to both groups)

Markus Kossmann wrote:

- Nvidia 8800 GTX
(the 9800 series is not supported by the proprietary drivers yet)
There is 173.08 (beta) which supports GeForce 9800 GTX and GeForce 9800
GX2

Have you used the driver and do you know how stable it is? and is it
usable for ordinary desktop work in KDE?

Well, I'am running it because I'am using a 2.6.25 kernel and not because I
need it for a 98xx card ( I'am actually running a 7800 GT) . I have seen no
problems so far for which I can blame 173.08.

And if you look into the nvnews forum (
http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=14) there aren't many
bugreports for 173.08.

The Doctor

Posted: Thu May 01, 2008 1:47 pm

Guest

On Thu, 01 May 2008 15:33:30 +0200, Tom Forsmo wrote:

Quote:

(Gaming
will of course have to be done in Windows or Wii (or soon maybe; PS3))

I don't see why all games should be played on other systems. Some people
in this group seem to be very anti-game on Linux but I like to use my
system for work and play!

I use the proprietary nVidia drivers, and run Quake 3 Arena, Quake 4 and
Doom 3 all in their Linux binaries. I also run Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
via Cedega and they all work excellently.

HTH,
--
Rob
To reply, remove zudo

Chris Cox

Posted: Fri May 02, 2008 1:14 pm

Guest

Aragorn wrote:

Quote:

Tom Forsmo wrote:

A last question and then some comments.
Is it still so that game producers prefer one card over another? At one
time I remember begin told that if I am planning on doing any gaming I
should buy an nVidia, because thats the cards the producers optimised
their games for. Any comments?

I wouldn't be able to comment on that as I'm not a gamer. Wink

Yet at this
very moment, I think nVidia and ATi are on par with eachother
performance-wise.

Provided that you have a working ATI card (one that works with the
ATI driver), the difference isn't as large as it used to be but
still can be as much as 10-40 fps in Nvidia's favor. And at least
with Nvidia, there's a greater chance that whatever you own will
work with regards to their driver.

Chris Cox

Posted: Fri May 02, 2008 1:17 pm

Guest

Mark Hobley wrote:

Quote:

In comp.os.linux.hardware Bit Twister <BitTwister@mouse-potato.com> wrote:

ATI is in the process of opening up their source code. They have some third
party code in it so they just cannot open it up completely.
I am hoping the Open source driver can fully support my RS480 [Radeon
Xpress 200G Series] (on board) video hardware.

ATI have released technical specifications for their latest cards, so it
should be possible to write an open source driver.

Someone can counter this... but AFAIK, ATI has only release some
of the information for only some of their cards. Seem to be
trickling out of ATI. Lots and lots and lots of work to do
before anything will be viable (IMHO).

Quote:

I would definitely go for an ATI card rather than an Nvidia.

Ok... but having owned ATI and Nvidia cards throughout the years,
ATI always gives me the most headaches... Nvidia can cause problems,
but usually when people try to run unsupported/beta/experimental
drivers (or they overclock).

ATI's architecture changes from generation to generation leaving
some parts in the dirt (so to speak).

Mark Hobley

Posted: Fri May 02, 2008 4:08 pm

Guest

In comp.os.linux.hardware Chris Cox <ccox_nopenotthis@airmail.net> wrote:

Quote:

Ok... but having owned ATI and Nvidia cards throughout the years,
ATI always gives me the most headaches...

I only use ATI cards here, and have had no problems with the open source
drivers.

Quote:

Nvidia can cause problems,

My experience with Nvidia is that the drivers are built for specific
kernel releases. Although I must admit, these are on third party
machines. I would never buy a video card that cannot be driven using my
own software, so I would never buy an Nvidia card for my own machine.

Mark.

--
Mark Hobley,
393 Quinton Road West,
Quinton, BIRMINGHAM.
B32 1QE.

Chris Cox...

Posted: Tue May 06, 2008 3:01 pm

Guest

Mark Hobley wrote:

Quote:

In comp.os.linux.hardware Chris Cox <ccox_nopenotthis at (no spam) airmail.net> wrote:

Ok... but having owned ATI and Nvidia cards throughout the years,
ATI always gives me the most headaches...

I only use ATI cards here, and have had no problems with the open source
drivers.

The open source drivers only support a limited subset of cards and
even then, no accelerated 3d on most (and 3d only very recently
anyhow).

Quote:

Nvidia can cause problems,

My experience with Nvidia is that the drivers are built for specific
kernel releases. Although I must admit, these are on third party
machines. I would never buy a video card that cannot be driven using my
own software, so I would never buy an Nvidia card for my own machine.

With Nvidia you build from scratch. I suppose you could trust them
for the very few binary builds they provide, but their installer is
very good at compiling from scratch against your kernel.

Chances are all of the software on your box is not owned by you. :)

I think what you meant to say is, you don't want to run anything
but GPL'd (or at least OSI approved) open source software.

And that was my point with regards to Nvidia today. Nvidia is
closed source, but with a pretty well built kernel installer.
End result is a pretty functional and fast fully accelerated
openGL driver. Same CANNOT be said about ATI today. And
AFAIK, not ever, since I do not believe the goal is to support
the whole gambit of ATI architectures out there... but probably
only something relatively contemporary (but possibly NOT
the very latest and greatest... sigh).

I'm glad that you have chosen (and it's somehwhat of a crap shoot)
compatible ATI cards all of this time. Certainly I run many
radeons here... and some with ATI's proprietary (closed source)
driver (due to lack of support ... that is completely
non-functional support of the open source radeon driver).

With that said, the open source nv driver does seem to support
a lot more Nvidia boards than the the open source radeon
driver supports ATI boards.... so as long as 3d isn't interesting
(your case), you probably have the option of going either way.

It is hoped that eventually an open source ATI driver will have
fully accelerated openGL/3d for at least a good portion of
ATI's radeon series... but only time will tell.

Darren Salt...

Posted: Tue May 06, 2008 4:13 pm

Guest

I demand that Chris Cox may or may not have trolled...

Quote:

Mark Hobley wrote:
In comp.os.linux.hardware Chris Cox <ccox_nopenotthis at (no spam) airmail.net> wrote:
Ok... but having owned ATI and Nvidia cards throughout the years,
ATI always gives me the most headaches...
I only use ATI cards here, and have had no problems with the open source
drivers.

The open source drivers only support a limited subset of cards and even
then, no accelerated 3d on most (and 3d only very recently anyhow).

Chris Cox...

Posted: Tue May 06, 2008 6:44 pm

Guest

Darren Salt wrote:

Quote:

I demand that Chris Cox may or may not have trolled...

Mark Hobley wrote:
In comp.os.linux.hardware Chris Cox <ccox_nopenotthis at (no spam) airmail.net> wrote:
Ok... but having owned ATI and Nvidia cards throughout the years,
ATI always gives me the most headaches...
I only use ATI cards here, and have had no problems with the open source
drivers.

The open source drivers only support a limited subset of cards and even
then, no accelerated 3d on most (and 3d only very recently anyhow).

That would be "r5xx and r6xx cards, ignoring the older ones", right?

Are you talking about the very recent advancement in having some
3d support? If so, I can't remember which cards were supported... but
still, it's progress. And yes, I know, the support is very limited....
at least today (that is limited 3d).

I'm hoping we'll see the first viable FOSS set of drivers for
accelerated 3d (that is, something that runs at least games made
5 years ago reasonably well). But today... if you want that...
Nvidia works the best.

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