I think ATI have improved their drivers a lot. I've only seen them from a Windows perspective though. For linux I have tended to stick with Nvidia, but ATI may well be worth more consideration now.
I'm surprised that distros would load ATI 3D by default when they don't for Nvidia. There was a package available for Nvidia in the Ubuntu repositories (may have been in multiverse, can't remember). Worked nicely. I don't think it is because there is native ATI 3D support. I thought 3D for both was by proprietary binary installers only? Regards, Neil McAliece IM/IT Manager Murrumbidgee Division of General Practice Ph (02) 6953 6454 Fax (02) 6953 6653 web www.mdgp.net.au email [EMAIL PROTECTED] ----- Original Message ----- From: Greg Twyford <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: General Practice Computing Group Talk <[email protected]> Sent: Wednesday, December 07, 2005 10:13:14 Subject: Re: [GPCG_TALK] Re: Thinking thin Horst Herb wrote: > On Mon, 28 Nov 2005 12:06, Greg Twyford wrote: > >>>Currently I like the Nvidia based 6200 cards w/ 256 MB RAM- most brands >>>are fanless, yet the cards deliver more than sufficient grunt even at my >>>nowadays preferred resolution of 1920x1200, allow hardware accelerated >>>rotation (for those of us having swivel screens turning from landscape >>>into portrait) etc. at a A$110 price tag. >> >>Horst, >> >>For GP systems I specify a Gigabyte X-300 PCI-X Radeon card. > > > Why? (Because of their excellent card independent multi platform driver > *architecture* which never have been matched by ATI, I tend to stick to > nvidia chipsets) Horst, That's interesting, as I've had to install 3rd party 3D drivers for nVidia into Red Hat & Mandrake, while most flavours of Linux seem to have the ATI 3D drivers available natively. I have heard reports of criticism of ATI drivers in the past but their current Catalyst drivers seem very equivalent to the nVidia drivers in most respects, in Windows at least. I'm sure both brand of chips are up to the task, as long as the card has a passive heatsink. In SOHO server or workstation cases that are without VGA case fans there are some good 3rd party cooling solutions. I use various Antec cases, some with and some without VGA case fans, and replace the 8cm fans with Ceradyna ceramic bearing fans, which claim 300,000 hours MTBF. I use 3rd party slot-based extraction fans that use the Ceradyna fans, or the Zalman bracket that allows fans to be placed over the VGA heatsink, blowing down onto it. The Ceradyna fans are quiet at 2400rpm but the Zalman kits have a resistor fitting to reduce the fan speed to 1600 rpm, if the noise level is an issue. I've seen several el cheapo cases, with the internal air 'snorkel' over the CPU fan to allow it draw air from outside the case directly to the CPU fan, overheating recently because of a layer of dust and lint on the heatsink's upper surface. The snorkel seems to suck in the dust and lint much more than front air entry designs, especially those with filters. After all it is now the 'cooking' season and more PCs out there have P4 Prescott's and high-end AMD processors, which both produce serious heat, than ever before. Greg -- Greg Twyford Information Management & Technology Program Officer Canterbury Division of General Practice E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Ph.: 02 9787 9033 Fax: 02 9787 9200 PRIVATE & CONFIDENTIAL *********************************************************************** The information contained in this e-mail and their attached files, including replies and forwarded copies, are confidential and intended solely for the addressee(s) and may be legally privileged or prohibited from disclosure and unauthorised use. If you are not the intended recipient, any form of reproduction, dissemination, copying, disclosure, modification, distribution and/or publication or any action taken or omitted to be taken in reliance upon this message or its attachments is prohibited. All liability for viruses is excluded to the fullest extent permitted by law. *********************************************************************** _______________________________________________ Gpcg_talk mailing list [email protected] http://ozdocit.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/gpcg_talk _______________________________________________ Gpcg_talk mailing list [email protected] http://ozdocit.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/gpcg_talk
