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Typically NVIDIA QUADRO cards have been favoured because NVIDIA actually allow you to download drivers for linux which are relatively easy to install. More recently ATI have started releasing proprietry linux drivers for FireGL cards which offer a windows style installer - I haven't used this to install a stereo graphics card but it worked well on my laptop. Also I beleive NuVision sell a sync cable and doubler systems that in theory allows you to get stereo from any graphics card (they sit between graphics card and monitor and interlace above and below images doubling the refresh rate in the process)- this works with programs like Turbo/Frodo (apparently) and others. On the whole I like Quadro cards for stereo I have a 980XGL sitting in my now rather slow P4 2.8GHz, 1GB RAM system (running at 4XAGP not 8XAGP thanks to a very cheap motherboard) but does enable me to display rather large maps (in coot anyway) smoothly. You may have more trouble finding a suitable monitor to support the high refresh rates as due to the rise of TFT, high spec CRTs aren't being purchased by consumers and many companies are stopping producing them (I think Iiyama still do). Good luck Mike Quoting [EMAIL PROTECTED]: > *** For details on how to be removed from this list visit the *** > *** CCP4 home page http://www.ccp4.ac.uk *** > > > All, > > Perhaps a topic with partial overlap with ccp4. After searching the > ccp4bb for 'stereo' and 'graphics' I found lots of (valuable) > information about video screens. My question is about graphics cards. > We are going to update our computer facility for crystallography use. > > Sometime back (was it 2 years?) it appeared that a lot of > crystallographers liked the Nvidia Quadro graphics cards - I heard from > several people that they support stereo work well. Also, Gunnar > Olovsson summarized in December last year that the Quadro graphics > cards work well. But... I am surprised to see that these graphics cards > are not all that common anymore (I am saying that I did an internet > search to see who sells them and had to spend much more effort to find > them than I expected). It was easy to find the FX3450 for sale > (high-end, stereo capable, about US$1000) and the FX4500 (Ultra > High-end, about US$1800 (ouch!)), but not the more reasonable mid-range > cards (FX1400/1500). > > The above occurs, of course, because "mid-range" isn't mid-range > anymore but closer to out-dated, while the high-end cards are still > 'usable'. Sticking with Nvidia, for the argument, it appears that right > now the GeForce series of graphics is much more popular (for 'gaming' > and also less expensive). > > Do these work well (enough) for crystallography, by anyone's experience? > > Then on to the next thought (showing that perhaps I am old^H^H^H, er, > well you know...) is that today you can buy computers that are > especially configured for 3D gaming (they come ready-to-go with > graphics). Are these of any value in crystallographic model building > etc? It seems (more) ecomical to buy a computer for (say) $1000 that is > complete and attach a good CRT (as discussed a while back on this same > channel) rather than take an old (really! Five years or so! :-) > computer and buy a $1000 graphics card. > > Does anyone have experience with the ready-to-go systems? I'd prefer to > run a flavor of Linux (probably Fedora Core) and would we need graphics > that are supported with drivers for Linux. I'd prefer not to reinvent > the wheel and will summarize if anyone else has experience with > "graphics upgrades". > > Thanks, > > Mark > > Mark van der Woerd, PhD > Research Scientist > Dept. of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology > Colorado State University > Fort Collins, CO 80523 > Phone (970) 491-0469 > > > -- Michael Latchem X-ray Crystallography Group, Krebs institute for Biomolecular Research, Department of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, The University of Sheffield, Firth Court, Western Bank, Sheffield, S10 2TN.
