ATI vs NVIDIA in linux

gentood · Apprentice Joined: 16 Mar 2004 Posts: 157 Location: Sweden

What I want to see is real benchmark comparison between ati cards and nvidia cards.. We all know that nvidia gets high as hell with glxgears compared to ati, but I dont really know if that says alot..

So anyone that has tried out ati/nvidia card with a benchmark tool, please post it here with all the info:

* which benchmarking tool used
* Which graphics card
* computer specs
* kernel version
* xorg version
* drivers version

Cheers
gentood

Ctrl+Alt+Del · Guru Joined: 04 Jul 2004 Posts: 326 Location: .de

I switched from an Ati X800 to a GF6600 (yes, i downgraded) a few months ago and noticed a slight increase in fps when playing doom3 (maybe in the range of 15-20%) and one hell of a boost when playing Tribes2 or Legends (~300%). T2 and Legends are both running on the torque engine which isn't exactly a top priority for most gamers, so i wouldn't take take them into account unless you're actually playing one of these games.
I never bothered with benchmarks.
The main reason as to why i will probably never buy an ati card again, is not so much the lack of performance but rather their general bugginess when running proprietary drivers, which is requirement for newer cards.
6 Months after the X800 was on the market, ati's latest driver did not support 3D at all, refused to cooperate with framebuffers and were not able to generate more than 60Hz at 1280x960. To many downsides for my taste to even start comparing performance.

gentood · Apprentice Joined: 16 Mar 2004 Posts: 157 Location: Sweden

Thanx for the input, really good information in my point of view.

Hopefully if you still have your x800 left maybe you can try it out with the new xorg 7.0.. alot of changes are made in that for Ati. This info would be highly appreciated.

Cheers
Gentood

Plastic · l33t Joined: 24 Mar 2004 Posts: 649

nVIDIA tends to be the better option for Linux because:
a. nVIDIA does a beter job with OpenGL
b. nVIDIA devotes more time to Linux support and makes very good Linux drivers
c. ATi's linux drivers used to suck, but they have gotten a little better in recent month's. They are still not up to the quality of nVIDIA yet.

xbb · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 26 Nov 2005 Posts: 85

xanas3712 · Guru Joined: 15 Oct 2004 Posts: 455

7800 GT now, had an ATI 9800 Pro before. I'm much happier with the nvidia card, but it's also 2 generations ahead.

I had used a same generation nvidia card once on the same system for a bit (5950) and it was about 10-15 fps faster.

This was using unreal tournament 2004.

SuperDindon · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 01 Sep 2005 Posts: 125

I still support ATI because proprietary drivers suck BUT ATI is nicer with free o/s, don't count too much on nVidia to release their drivers source a day, they had NEVER opened any specification or driver for any of their devices ( nForce 1/2/3/4, TNT 1/2, and all above ), while ATI provided free o/s drivers and specifications until nVidia made their closed one
Note that ATI said that they were working on a new OpenGL driver that will be released in a few months. I don't believe it too much, they had already promised a lot of things on Linux and Windows but nothing has been done
Performance are not so bad though, but drivers are buggy, incomplete, there is still a lot to be done

Plastic · l33t Joined: 24 Mar 2004 Posts: 649

felicehome · Apprentice Joined: 30 Sep 2004 Posts: 217

After nearly three years of hassle with my ATI 9700pro, I sold it to a friend 3 month ago and bought a Nvidia 6800. At least 3 month ago with the newest ATI drivers at that time, it was really a big big change. Not only performance (don't know how they are compareable in performance at all). Every thing that didn't work with ATI works with Nvidia like a charm now.

1.) Xinerama with Twinview (ATIs BigDesktop didn't support Xinerama at that time don't know if that changed).
2.) I can now use Xv with multiple programs (e.g. playing different videos with mplayer at the same time).
3.) Many games like doom3 or UT2004 were slow as hell compared to windows version.
4.) Had constantly graphical glitches in Maya with my Radeon
.
.
.

So I also think raw performance isn't the first priority comparing Nvidia and Ati with Linux. I'm really happy with my Nvidia now. Mostly because I couldn't really take advantage of my two monitors. It's really almost unusable without Xinerama at least for me.

I really don't want to start a flame war here. But I was really pissed with ATI's drivers. I bought that Radeon 9700pro when it was released for a few month spending nearly 400$. It was the fastest graphic card at that time and performance was all I wanted at that time. I just took a brief look at ATI's website to check if there are Linux drivers at all. And I expected them to work, especially there were only a few minor known bugs in the README at ATI. Why not trust them?
As the ATI trouble began, I read a whole lot of pledges from ATI Linux supporters (don't want to name them) at guru3d. Things like "It's only a matter of a few month for really good drivers", "We doubled our developer team", "We will release new drivers every 2 month". Well none of those pledges became reality. And what are new drivers worth every 2 month (2.5 - 3 month in reality), when there are only minor (and I really mean minor) changes. Sometimes new drivers where even worse.
But me, credent as I am believed those pledges and kept my ATI. Things didn't got better for nearly 3 years.
A friend of mine told me the recent drivers are a step in the right direction. But they were not for years!!!!
Now I sold this crap to a friend of mine using Windows for 20 bucks.
I hope I will soon get over the fact that I paid ATI 380 bucks for nothing!!! Relly frustrating. Will never buy an ATI again. NEVER ever even if they will get 3 times as fast as Nvidia.

These are just my two cents for the topic "Performance"

Don't get me wrong ATI develops great Graphic cards and they run well with Windows.

Greetings Felice

Cheers

gentood · Apprentice Joined: 16 Mar 2004 Posts: 157 Location: Sweden

Seems like it was as I thought it was.. nvidia Rulez in linux. Anyway good for me

. Now I am certain not to get a ATI card..
Yet I still await the new Xorg 7.0 and really expect some changes there..

Ctrl+Alt+Del · Guru Joined: 04 Jul 2004 Posts: 326 Location: .de

I sold my X800 with considerable loss and feel very much like felicehome.
I don't like how Nvidia (or ati for that matter) deals with OSS, but at least they sell a working product.
As for hoping for OSS-Drivers: quite unlikely unless they are reverse-engineered, the moment ati or nvidia were to open their specs or release their sources, one will sue the other to hell for braking their patents.

zendmaster · Posted: Fri Dec 09, 2005 9:01 pm Post subject:

I had an ATI 9700 for a year and half and fought with Drivers all the time. A year ago I switched to a geforce 6800gt and never looked back. Nvidia has been bliss.

Aynjell · Veteran Joined: 28 Jun 2004 Posts: 1117

If you guys want a really good card for the money, buy a 6800GS. AGP and PCI-E flavours will be available by christmas, and at least the PCi-E version is a 110nm core. The perks are as follows:

256MB GDDR3 Memory
5vp, 12pp (Like a 6800NU, As of now, the AGP flavour may be found to be unlockable, PCI-E flavour is not)
425Mhz on the core, equivelent to an Ultra
1100Mhz on the Memory

It comes out at 1fps slower than a 6800GT in most games and will cost almsot 2/3 the price. If you are running this poll for what to buy, then a 6800GS is the right answer. GeForce 7 is largely useless for a long time, as my 128MB 6800NU at 405 core can play Quake 4 VERY comfortably.
_________________
CPU: 3800+ X2 (2.5Ghz)
GPU: eVGA 7600GT (640/1700)
MOBO: DFI SLI-DR (Surprisingly good!)
RAM: 2 x OCZ Gold 1024 DDR500 3-4-3-7 (2048)
HDD: Western Digital Raptor

Matteo Azzali · Retired Dev Joined: 23 Sep 2004 Posts: 1133

mantasman · n00b Joined: 04 Jun 2005 Posts: 31

i used to be ati user for more than 2 years. but i just switched to linux. and i think nvidia is MUCH better in linux. for example:
colin mcrea rally 2004/2005 - works on nvidia only
richard burns rally - works on nvidia only
need for speed (u, u2, mw) - works on nvidia only
ea sports titles - works on nvidia only
farcry - nvidia only
sid meiers the pirates - much better on nvidia systems
gta 3/vc/sa = nvidia only

and much more not on this list...

nukem996 · l33t Joined: 13 Nov 2003 Posts: 776

From what ive read(this includes people from ATI) ATI's driver development on ANY OS sucks. Untill ATI steps up their driver department they will always fall behind nvidia. nvidia is becomming more and more open source friendly, I know my mobo(Asus A8N-SLI Primium nForce4) worked out of the box with the nForce4 SATA, and IDE. Ive heard the on board sound works as well as the ethernet card, while those are reverse engeered they still work with an open source driver.

Aries-Belgium · Posted: Tue Dec 13, 2005 12:27 am Post subject:

I'm planning to buy a new computer in a few months with an asus motherboard with a Geforce 6100 onboard.
Does the nvidia driver and Linux support onboard gpu's?

In the future, I will buy a more powerfull graphical card and then I would also go for Nvidia.

nukem996 · l33t Joined: 13 Nov 2003 Posts: 776

Aynjell · Veteran Joined: 28 Jun 2004 Posts: 1117

Hrm, looks like it's time to buy that TForce mobo.
_________________
CPU: 3800+ X2 (2.5Ghz)
GPU: eVGA 7600GT (640/1700)
MOBO: DFI SLI-DR (Surprisingly good!)
RAM: 2 x OCZ Gold 1024 DDR500 3-4-3-7 (2048)
HDD: Western Digital Raptor

Jengu · Guru Joined: 28 Oct 2004 Posts: 384

The changes in Xorg 6.9/7.0 have no effect if you use the ATI proprietary (fglrx) drivers. The 'big changes' as regards radeons are progress on the open source driver. r300 chips (Radeon 9500 up I think) are now experimentally supported (read: the driver is there but it's rough around the edges and performance is bad).

nukem996 · l33t Joined: 13 Nov 2003 Posts: 776

I remember reading from Zander(works for nvidia posts on nvnews.net) that nvidia submitted a bunch of patches that are in X.org 7.0 which fix many nvidia driver problems. FYI X.org 7.0 comes out wed.

Matteo Azzali · Retired Dev Joined: 23 Sep 2004 Posts: 1133

joey_knisch · n00b Joined: 08 Apr 2004 Posts: 58

nukem996 · l33t Joined: 13 Nov 2003 Posts: 776

popcan · n00b Joined: 27 Nov 2004 Posts: 33 Location: bath, ny

ATI's binary drivers suck in comparison to nvidia. ATI also admits to having a terrible openGL performance, devoting their time only to working on direct3d, with *no* plans at all to improve openGL (this information stated by the city of heroes development team a few weeks ago).

never buy ATI.

nvidia has repeatedly shown strong support of both windows and linux drivers, which balances out their lack of open specifications to me.

/stops beating dead horse