On Fri, Feb 22, 2002 at 05:54:05PM +0000, Paul Millar wrote: > 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. >
I run Slackware 8.0 on my games box, self-compiled kernel 2.4.7 and on a Geforce 2 MX 200. For the last 2 weeks have been playing Wolfenstein quite happily. I did need to download the nvidia drivers and edit a couple of lines in my XF86Config but my only problem is the fact that the rest of my system isn't really fast enough (sound quality isn't that great, CPU usage is at 100% when playing the game as it's only a K6-2 500). So that only leaves the political argument - do you use closed-source drivers? -- I'm Keyser Soze...I'm Keyser Soze...I'm Keyser Soze and so's my wife! (Monty Python plays The Usual Suspects) -------------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.lug.org.uk http://www.linuxportal.co.uk http://www.linuxjob.co.uk http://www.linuxshop.co.uk --------------------------------------------------------------------
