Linux Linux GFX and state of drivers

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archish

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Well this thread maybe useful for people who are planning to purchase a system for linux use only and which GFX card to choose mainly ATI, NVIDIA or Intel.

My main aim of summarizing this is to decide and choose which one to pick for my next system purchase :P I am mostly biased towards ubuntu distro so if there are any comments specific to that then those are as well welcome.

I would categorize the the GFX based on these parameters:

  • Drivers
  • Features Supported in Linux compared to Windoze counterpart
  • Performance
Well I am yet googling as much info as I can but would love in if others can chip in with more details. I have a lappy based on NVIDIA Chipset so I have better experience with nvidia.

nVidia
Drivers:
Proprietary Binary Drivers, More of take or leave solution but still the decent one out there when it comes to performance and supported hardware. Small nags such as poor 2D performance are there but most of them can live with it.
nouveau OSS Drivers, still long way to go before it can replace the nvidia drivers. This will be WIP for long time i guess. wont be discussing about this further as there still lot to be done.

Features:

Nvidia proprietary binary drivers support most of the features as windoze drivers. The GPU PureVideo, Acceleration of videos is supported via VDPAU. mplayer, xine and others support VDPAU.

I find this very handy for decoding those 1080p H.264 encoded movies which my dual core proccy struggles to do.
Performance:
Not much of a gamer so cant comment much on this. Research pending :P

Misc

People using Wine for running Windows game stick with nVidia card as the performance is better thanks to the better quality of drivers.

KMS will not be supported on NVIDIA cards as the drivers are closed source and nvidia has no plans to do so in future, KMS through nouveau is possible but not worth atm.
ATI

Drivers
Catalyst Proprietary Binary Drivers-fglrx Open source drivers radeon, radeonhd
I find most issues with ATI being buggy drivers. Would love to hear directly from an ATI user on his success or failure using ATI GFX cards.
Features
Most of the features same as Windoze counterpart.
ATI AVIVO Acceleration of videos is supported via XvBA, mplayer, xine n others.

Performance
Majority have problem with poor performance and garbled display, needs to be verified in detail.
Poor 2D performance of Catalyst drivers compared to Open source one.

Intel
Drivers
Intel has active open source driver development with support for all of GMA series, exception being GMA 500.

Features
Supports most of the features as windoze drivers.Need to check more on this :)
Intel Clear Video, Acceleration of videos is supported in linux. Need to check on supported software, mplayer supports?
Performance
The OS Drivers have very good 2D and decent 3D Performance. (More info needs to be checked on performance front)

Misc
KMS is already supported so more reason to rejoice as a Intel GFX user.
Now let me come to my purchase decision question :ashamed:
I am not much into gaming so can live with good 2D performance and decent 3D performance, Hardware decoding of video stream is a must!
My aim was to check out if there was any good alternatives out there for nvidia, I was mainly interested in ATI as I thought they were better compared to nvidia in performance front but after searching around now I am skeptical. Since intel on board solution is most common if there is working solution for Intel Clear video in linux wont mind taking that route also! So start pouring ur comments all linux users :tongue:

PS: I think i should be more optimistic on the pouring part :rofl:
 
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ATI AVIVO Acceleration of videos is supported via XvBA, mplayer, xine n others.
Click to expand...

Wrong ! Sure they have XvBA but non of the application utilize it as there are no whitepapers available. If you have considering the ATI GL option or similar the performance becomes pathetic after switching to ATI drivers

ATI + Ubuntu = phail. Ubuntu neither comes with radeonhd nor it works with fglrx :P

I don't know what 2d issues you are considering but nvidia has the best set of drivers for linux. Ubuntu and Intel is also a led down due to performance issue.

The only downsite I see in nv is lack of KMS.But they will add it sooner or later. ATI still hasn't supported kernel 2.6.30 so compiling and installing new drivers becomes risky and chances of getting system downl is very likely.

I would say get an nvidia graphics card, They are much better with drivers.
 
+1 i also did some research more than a year ago when buying my current desktop and decided to get nvidia card and standard intel branded mobo to avoid linux hassles as much as possible :)
 
Dark Star said:
Wrong ! Sure they have XvBA but non of the application utilize it as there are no whitepapers available. If you have considering the ATI GL option or similar the performance becomes pathetic after switching to ATI drivers

ATI + Ubuntu = phail. Ubuntu neither comes with radeonhd nor it works with fglrx :P
Click to expand...

hmm so basically ATI right now in Linux is like just 2d with big pain to install the drivers? I was hoping for XvBA atleast, many good cheap lappies out there have ATI card installed :@
 
I dont see the problem with ATI and ubuntu. have been running on a 690G , and no issues. not with compiz, not with Max payne 1 & 2 on wine !
 
ATI drivers have improved but there are still hell lot of problems with them . Sleep won't work most probably, sometimes u ctrl-alt-f1 and back to f7 and ur system might crash.. i get all these problems in Ubuntu 9.04. On top of that iy tou run VMware ... video in guest machines are very bad too and lags alot. If you can live without beryl, the open source ATI drivers that comes preinstalled perform way better for normal usage+movies and stuff .
 
come to think of it, video did lag with compiz. But i thought that wasnt the graphics drivers fault :ashamed:.

And I dont set my sytem to sleep..
 
greenhorn said:
Intrepid. I do have many issues with networking and pulseaudio, but gfx is not one of them :)
Click to expand...

No sir , we are talking about Jaunty /:)

sometimes u ctrl-alt-f1 and back to f7 and ur system might crash
Click to expand...

I never had experience this but yes the system hangs some times :@ and they haven't fixed the flickering of videos with IGPs :@
 
after intrepid, I've learnt my lesson.If you have one and only one OS, then better stick to the LTS releases. The other releases are nice if you want 'bleeding edge' stuff, but not exactly very practical.

So No Jaunty for me :)
 
even im fine with ATi + Ubuntu ...

had absolutely no issue uptill catalyst 9-9.1 i guess.. then 2-3versions had some issues...

have to try the latest one.

about gaming...via wine...

always had improper gfx with fifa..

cz worked absolutely fine.

have heard that nvidia driver support for linux is the best but haven't ever tried it on my own.

On the other hand... i have had issues trying to figure out how to make catalyst work on OpenSuSe, mandriva and Sabayon...mostly because im used to ubuntu. (again.. 8.10 worked best for me.. 9.04had issues...will update it and try again.)

Although ATi driver support for linux isn'y so great now...i'm satisfied with they way they have improved it so far and they are making efforts to improve it by keeping it open.

I am facing absolutely no issues with Compiz-fusion effect and Desktop Environment with ATi... all issues mentioned were with games via wine..
 
I have tried Intel drivers and NVIDIA drivers on Opensuse 10.3, 11.0 and 11.1 as i have onboard as well as a nvidia graphics card. I haven't experienced any problems with Compiz or Kwin4 using nvidia drivers. Yes Kwin performance sucked in initial KDE4 stages due to some nvidia driver issues but all has been solved now. imho if you want to use linux and a graphics card then nvidia ftw!
 
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