video card: comments please?

[Panu Matilainen]

Quoting "Mike A. Harris" <mharris at redhat.com>:

> On Wed, 22 Oct 2003, Noah Silva [Mailing list] wrote:
> 
> >> > MSI GFX FX5200-TD128 AGP8X
> >> > http://www.infocomputer.ca/Storefront/Item.asp?ItemID=1848
> >> >
> >> > Opinions, comments, please?
> >>
> >> I'm considering to buy a new graphics card, too. The MSI GFX is based on
> >> a nvidea chip. Im read a lot about problems with nvidea drivers. May be
> >> better to buy a ATI controller or a Matrox?
> >
> >The difference between an ATI and an NVIDIA is:
> >If you install linux out of the box, using open source drivers, most
> >Radeon cards are supported in 3D mode.
> 
> Correct.  Radeon 9100 and older are 3D supported.  Newer cards 
> that have support at all, are 2D supported only.

But even with 3D-supported cards there can be a huge performance difference vs
ATI binary drivers. I've Radeon 9100 and while some 3D games play with
decent/good fps there are others that absolutely *crawl* with the open source
driver. For example FlightGear is totally unplayable with the OS driver (as of
RHL 9, haven't tried FC yet on that box) but flies (no pun intended :) with ATI
binary driver. Of course it's because some 3D bits are software-only in the OS
driver but I had no idea the difference could be *so* dramatic for any single
game/3d application.

Just a datapoint, not complaining...

-- 
    - Panu -