> If you say so. But:
>>> However, can you recommend to me a Dual-Headed graphics card with 3D
>> support under linux that I can get for under 100euro, and has totally
>> open-source drivers? I looked, and failed.
>> If you have particular _very_ special needs, you could end up stuck.
>> Someone who merely needed good 3D under Linux would logically find any
> ATI Radeon that is not based on an R300 / RV350 / R350 chip. Add to
> that the requirement for dualhead support, and you're outside my
> personal experience. However, apparently not the experience of my
> former colleagues now running the DRI Project:
>>http://dri.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/moin.cgi/ATIRadeon#head-89c0f48c317dadce14e0446a0753d59c052ed5b4> Quoting:
>> Dualhead Radeons
>> All Radeons except the 7200 (r100) have two crtcs and a built-in
> LVDS/TMDS controller. Not all OEMs connect these to actual ports so you
> may see boards that only support 1 head.
>> If you want to use HW accelerated 3D on both heads of a dualheaded
> Radeon card, you will need to use the Radeon MergedFB [link] option by
> AlexDeucher [link].
>>> The fact of the matter is that at the moment if you want a decent
>> graphics
>> card under linux, you are stuck with NVIDIA or ATI with their binary
>> drivers.
>> Now, _that_ is completely and flamboyantly mistaken. For one thing,
> people who actually value _quality, sharp images_ and have no special
> need of 3D get Matrox cards, not either of the other two. Also:
>> For almost all users, "decent graphics card" doesn't even entail 3D at
> all, nor dual-head functionality.
"almost all users" obviously does not include gamers. When I am buying a
card, I really couldn't care less what the 2D perf is like, they are
pretty much all the same these days.
Matrox cards are pants for 3D games. I know coz I have one (a lowly G200),
and the 2D image/perf is no better than the gforce3 it replaced. In fact,
I would say that its not as good as the gforce!
>>> Such is the life of a poor student!
>> Poverty sucks, so my sympathies. But you'll want to make your purchase
> money count, at least. Defining "decent graphics card" as some high-end
> Nvidia thing carefully overspecified so as to talk yourself into needing
> to run proprietary, binary-only drivers in kernelspace is doing yourself
> no favour
To date I have had zero problems with (2.4 & 2.6) kernels and nvidia
closed drivers, but I take your point. But as gamers will be (primarily)
home users, I dont think that argument works in this scenario. In a
production environment, I would definitely go for another vendor with OSS
drivers. otherwise no support from Redhat and co.
> -- unless you actually _need_ those things you specified, in
> which case I suspect you'd still have done better with a card based on
> an rv280 or similar chip.
And how does the riva280 perform in 1280*1024*32bit*24bit and full details
in the latest 3D games? Thats a question, I would like to know as I am
planning to buy a new card for chrimbo.
What card should I go for? Crap image or less than 1280*1024 res will not
be acceptable. Ideally it should run games at a minimum of 60FPS in
1600*1200*32bit and look awesome.
--
Conor Wynne,
Dublin,
Irlande.
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