On Fri, 22 Feb 2002, Aedan McGhie/Scotland wrote: > I was toying with putting a better video card in my Linux box since > the wean finds an 8MB card doesn't play his Windows games smoothly > enough. > > Are there any of Priceless's current offerings I should dodge or will > any old AGP card be fine.
Personally, I'd advise against nVidia based cards. I don't like their binary-only policy as it has inconvenienced me. I have an old TNT card at home which does me fine, but I can't use its 3D acceleration as nVidia won't release enough information for XFree86 developers and my setup is too non-standard for their binary-only drivers (ie I roll my own kernel). If I try to use their drivers I get all manner of weird behaviour, from random system-clock jumps (just for a split-second) to hard system lockups. I'd go for a Matrox or an ATI (Radeon/Prophet) instead. I've got a mobile Radeon working on a laptop quite recently, complete with 3D acceleration. That said, AFAIK nVidia cards have a slight speed advantage over competitors (how much depends on the game). So if you're upgrading for performance reasons, you should look at a recent review in Tom's Hardware Guide (or equiv) and base your decision on that. Also, check whether upgrading the graphics card will actually help. Is the CPU maxed out when the game's running? In complex rendered scenes you may find the CPU speed (or memory bandwidth) is the limiting factor. You could try overclocking the CPU / Front-Side-Bus (if your mobo supports it) to see if that helps. If so then upgrading the Gfx card probably won't help much. >From a Linux view-point, if you're running an out-of-the-box distro then all graphics cards should work (but check the driver status page at www.xfree86.org first). If you fancy fiddling with the computer (like compiling your own kernel) then avoid nVidia cards. HTH Paul. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Paul Millar yo-yo, n. : Particle Physics Theory Group Something that is occasionally Department of Physics and Astronomy up but normally down. University of Glasgow, (see also Computer) Glasgow G12 8QQ, [EMAIL PROTECTED] Scotland +44 (0)141 330 4717 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -------------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.lug.org.uk http://www.linuxportal.co.uk http://www.linuxjob.co.uk http://www.linuxshop.co.uk --------------------------------------------------------------------
