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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."
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...
No thanks... I'll wait for the 300 page Toms Hardware revi-oh. I see.
Global symbol "$deity" requires explicit package name at line 2. - If only $scripture started "use strict;"
This is all very well but Linux's big breakthrough on the desktop won't come until we can play Duke Nukem Forever on Linux.
To me, this is a clear signs of Linux finally making a long expected breakthrough into common desktops.
Yes, how can anyone doubt that 2007 will be the year of linux on the desktop?
Generally performance running games on Linux has been a mixed bag (on the same hardware).
NWN, WoW and UT have all been slightly faster than the Windows version, and crashes have been less of a problem (ctrl-alt-f1, kill task, no need to reboot - which _is_ required for some reason under Windows as games seem to offer best performance off a fresh reboot... resource recovery problems in the DirectX subsystem maybe?)
On the other hand EVE runs slower, with more graphical artifacts. Yes I'm aware that this is because it doesn't play that nicely with WINE and the fact that it runs in a playable fashion is a small miracle. It is still the case that if you want the best performance then you have to play it on Windows, for now.
Think of the Children; Sleep with your Sister
...on their face. Most laptops with ATI Mobility Express chipsets can't use the onboard video memory. ATI broke this a year ago and has not fixed it.
So don't trust ATI for Linux capabilities on notebooks.
Maybe Toms Hardware can do a notebook comparison since they've already done the desktop. I'm pretty sure that would expose this failure to far more than the few who already are aware of this. And just maybe, it'll get ATI to fix this.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
They even mentioned DRI.
Yup, I agree. No comparison yet. I advise all my clients not to buy ATI. They will not respond to requests for support, and refuse to acknowlege any bugs. They disgust me.
I've always used nVidia cards, which have always worked well for me under Linux. I've never tried getting an ATI card to work because I've never heard anything other than it was sheer agony to use an ATI card under Linux.
In general, this is fine. If a hardware vendor doesn't support my OS, then I will buy from a vendor who does. In this case, nVidia hovers between "almost as good as" and "slightly better than" ATI, depending on who has most recently released a new video card, so it's not a big compromise.
I do find ATIs lack of Linux support to be disappointing now however, because those of us interested on running Linux on an intel mac are stuck with a choice between ATI and an embedded crappy video card.
Incidentally, has anyone had any luck getting Linux to dual boot with OS X on one of the newer iMacs? I'm interested in getting one, but until Autodesk offers an Intel Mac version of Maya I'm stuck on Linux (and actually, even if there were an Intel Mac version, I'm not sure I want to pay the fee to transfer my license from Linux to Mac) so I can't justify getting a new machine unless it can run Linux well with good 3D support.
Famous Last Words: "hmm...wikipedia says it's edible"
Because hundreds of Desktop apps require 3D accelerated drivers.
... err ... erm ... you know.
Like erm
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.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
From TFA: "Acquiring Nvidia drivers seldom entails more than consulting a package repository for your Linux distribution of choice, and instructing local package management facilities to fetch, build, and install all required files and dependencies."
i on_notes.html#nVidia... just wanted to get the message out there to protect the penguins
Well, support for Nvidia isn't supported on FC5 because it is non-free, so you won't find it in the standard repositories using yum... if you add livna you can do "yum install kmod-nvidia -y" which will handle it all... but it is important not to use the Nvidia ones because they overwrite sections of your X and can cause problems, especially if you change you card later. More info can be found here; http://stanton-finley.net/fedora_core_5_installat
*''I can't believe it's not a hyperlink.''
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.
OSGGFG - Open Source Gamers Guide to Free Games
You can always get good info on hardware under linux on Phoronix. They've got lots of experience with linux builds and games and wine to give good information.
This seems like a good on-topic thread in which to mention the freedesktop.org (X.org folks) effort to write a 100% open source 3D driver for the NVidia cards -- nouveau
http://nouveau.freedesktop.org/wiki/
If you're an owner of an nVidia card, please do all you can to help contribute! They appear to be suprisingly far along.
--
Slashcode bug # 497457 - unfixed since December 2001 - Go look it up!
o/~ Join us now and share the software
There are other reasons to buy nVidia. They actually support OTHER open source operating systems. (FreeBSD, Solaris) I can play some games under FreeBSD 6 like Enemy Territory quite nicely using the nvidia binary drivers. The binary drivers got me to buy my first nVidia card ever. I'm rather impressed with it considering its not even one of their more recent cards (only fx5200). xorg support sucks above 9200 chipsets as their is no 3d acceleration. I only wish nvidia made their own video cards like ati does. I've had bad luck with some oem cards. (one nvidia and several ati)
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