BATTLEGROUND: ATI Vs. NV drivers on linux

DaDead · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 11 Feb 2004 Posts: 75

i think ati better get their asses in line and work on better linux drivers, what do you think?
i think im going Nvidia for my next card because from what i hear/see the drivers kick fucking ass

eldiablo · Posted: Fri Jul 16, 2004 11:26 pm Post subject:

I have an nVidia card my self, an TI4600. I'm pretty happy with it, i feel that it is fast and stable under linux.
But ATI gave out their specs(wow) for some older cards, up to Radeon 9200, and the actively merged it into Xfree86.
So 9200 is clearly the best supported card out there.
I have never had my own ati card, so i can't tell you about what i think personally about them.
nVidia is rather slow in their development, it took weeks(months) before they got 4k stack support, so i ain't to pleased with them.
So, i think that both of them are just as bad as the other.
_________________
Always running the most experimental

GenKreton · Posted: Sat Jul 17, 2004 4:05 am Post subject:

They both have their weak points but I own a radeon (64mb one) in my laptop and an nvidia card in my desktop (ti4600) and I have had a MUCH better experience with the nvidia card.

Phenomic69 · n00b Joined: 20 Jun 2003 Posts: 56

NVidia definentaly. They have been making their own drivers for linux for a while and they always seem to work well once they are set up. My friend had the hardest time getting his radeon to work.

d4rk74m4 · Arch/Herd Tester Joined: 22 Feb 2004 Posts: 151

This is a no-brainer. NVIDIA all the way.

I made the mistake of purchasing a radeon 9600pro thinking (after reading some interviews with ATI on the net) that ATI would be taking linux support seriously. Since I've had the card the only improvements in the fglrx drivers seem to be from patches that people in the community have written to actually get the drivers to work. It seems ATI have been taking the patches, applying them, and then bumping the version number.

I could go on about the numerous problems I've encountered with ATI's fglrx drivers but a quick forums search should tell anyone what they need to know.

freelight · Posted: Sat Jul 17, 2004 5:27 am Post subject:

ATI's Linux drivers are a half-assed hack. I have a Radeon 9500, and when I use the fglrx drivers, OpenGL works well enough most of the time (though it is significantly slower than it is in Windows), but I can't even switch to 16-bit mode. ZSNES likes 16-bit mode, and VMware often needs support for 8 and 16 bit for full-screen viewing, and I can't do these things because ATI hasn't bothered to enable something as simple as this in their drivers.
I never had problems with my onboard GeForce2, on the other hand. Nvidia's drivers are great. But I use my ATI card for gaming, and switching cards is a pain, so I have to deal with ATI's crap most of the time.