Tom's Hardware Reviews ATI and Nvidia on Linux

Beuno writes "I stumbled upon a GeForce vs Radeon review on Tom's Hardware, which seems normal enough. The big surprise is that it was actually a comparison of those two video cards on Linux (Fedora Core 5). The review isn't as thorough as I would like, but it does review all aspects ranging from tools available, complexity of getting them to work and benchmarks on performance. To me, this is a clear signs of Linux finally making a long expected breakthrough into common desktops."

Comments

Compatibility...

[ChowRiit]

Maybe this trend will have all game manufacturers making their games Linux compatible too? (As opposed to having to run them through emulators like Wine and Cedega)...

I know I'd move properly from XP if this were the case, and I suspect a lot of gamers feel the same way - there are a large portion that only use XP because getting the games to run under Linux is such a hassle.

We can but hope...

Re:Compatibility...

[kfg]

. . .do you live on some other planet that has 24 months in a year?

No, he lives on a planet where 7 years have 84 months.

KFG

Re:Compatibility...

[julesh]

Emulation is when you would say, run a PPC program on i386 Processor. Itercepting system calls is not emulation.

Yes it is, at least if you do it in order to imitate a different system. The word "emulate" means "behave in a fashion that imitates". Stop trying to redefine it to some restrictive use that would be better of being called "simulation".

Re:Compatibility...

[redcane]

Wine/Cedega do not try to "equal or surpass" windows, because they are not attempting to be an operating system. They translate binaries from win32 to run under linux. They certainly don't try to do it by imitation, because that would imply they took a similar approach. In my view that approach is writing an operating system. ReactOS is an example of an emualator of windows.

Ah yes

[gowen]

Because hundreds of Desktop apps require 3D accelerated drivers.

Like erm ... err ... erm ... you know.
Oh, 3D rendering. I mean, everyone in my office spends all day doing 3D rendering.

Clue : if the speed at which windows are blitted to the screen is the rate determining step in you workflow, you're probably not getting paid enough.

Re:Linux on the desktop

[MrHanky]

Maybe because Linux uses less RAM than Windows XP, or uses virtual memory better? Nvidia's driver code should be more or less the same, and there's no chance that cedega speeds up directx by converting it to OpenGL. I've had very good experiences with running Championship Manager under wine, and that's just a huge database.

Re:Linux on desktops?

[MrCopilot]

In 2006 a Linux machine with a vidocard is a geek's hobby, a curiosity, nothing more.

Excellent troll my friend. Explain http://www.desktoplinux.com/index.html

Out of the 4 Desktops and 1 laptop in my home, 2 dual-boot, 3 are full time Linux.(All Debian) All of them gamers.

With an NVidia Graphics card Linux is a viable desktop. For work, web and Leisure.

Free Software is not a hobby, it is a way of life.

I look forward to the money I will save and you will spend on Vista. I look forward to the knowledge I will gain and you will be ignorant of. I look forward to modifying my system and my code to my liking, while you look forward to being locked out, broken apps and slashed features, and unsolvable crashes. (lest I forget the required reboots and reinstalls)

To each his own.

Re:Linux on the desktop

[Tim C]

Check your RAM usage - for a lot of modern games under Windows, goig from 512meg to 1gig makes a considerable difference. Going from (say) 250 meg free to 350meg free is likely to have a noticeable effect too. I'd imagine that your Linux install uses less RAM than your Windows one, assuming you have third party firewall and anti-virus software under Windows.