best video card for use with open source drivers?

[Kevin Kofler]

Dr. Michael J. Chudobiak <mjc <at> avtechpulse.com> writes:
> So... does anyone have suggestions for the "best" AGP video card / 
> driver combo for 3D gaming (say torcs, for sake of argument), if you're 
> restricted to the open source drivers?

* You have already mentioned Intel ("no plug-in cards", which is the main issue 
with their offerings, though they are a good choice for those buying a new 
computer).
* NVidia cards have no 3D hardware acceleration support whatsoever in the Free 
Software drivers.
* As far as I know, the same goes for current offerings from Matrox and others.

This leaves ATI, so here's the situation with ATI cards:
* Up to the Radeon 9250, these cards are well-supported and should work.
* From the Radeon 9500 up to the Radeon X850, you're entering dangerous 
territory: there's now 3D support for these (in current FC5+updates - 3D 
support for these cards was disabled in FC5 as released because of bugs, so 
make sure you get the updates which reenable it and hopefully fix the bugs - 
note that you'll get a more recent version of the driver if you use Rawhide or 
the AIGLX repository for FC5), but it is new, so it might not work as well as 
the <=9250 cards.
* Everything beyond X850 has no 3D hardware acceleration support whatsoever in 
the Free Software drivers.
See: http://dri.freedesktop.org/wiki/ATIRadeon

        Kevin Kofler