Video card Questions and Clarifications

rcxAsh

At the moment, my computer has the onboard "Intel 810 E Whitney three chip AGPset with 2D/3D graphics controller" (quote from my mother board's manual). However, I'm thinking about installing a better PCI video card, because my mother board does not have an AGP slot. (However, I'm confused as to what "embedded 3D AGP VGA" is supposed to mean, which is also stated in the manual, because there is no AGP slot... I assume that it's for the i810 chip..?) Anyways, the fact is that I have no AGP slot and thus can only get a PCI card.. The one that I'm thinking about at the moment is the XFX GeForce 4 MX440SE 64MB PCI Video Card.

Now I'm pretty sure that this card is compatible and works with Linux as I searched for the string, "MX440SE" in this forum and it returned hits. However, since buying a card is a relatively expensive thing (I don't want to be stuck with a $100 card I can't use), I just want to ask how well does this card perform in Linux? Is it as easy to setup as my i810 chip was to setup, or will it require a lot of "hacking"?

Also, I assume that most people here are now using AGP cards, and in the past, I found that I had to compile agpgart support into my kernel to get my i810 working. However, since this card is a PCI card, would anything change? What is the setup like for a PCI card? If I do install this card, I assume that the only things I would have to do to get it working are to firstly recompile my kernel to make sure that the proper drivers are supported, emerge the nvidia drivers, and then modify my xf86config file?

Also, I think that I have read around that for cards that use Nvidia drivers, there are two routes to take, one being to use the xfree drivers, and two being to use Linux drivers supplied by Nvidia. Thus, I am confused as to which route to take.

So firstly, could some one comment on the GeForce 4 MX440SE 64MB PCI Video Card and how it works with Linux. I mainly want to know if it works and how well. The part about installing it, I'm sure that there is a Gentoo howto somewhere. I probably won't be getting the card till later anyways. But I wouldn't mind a brief outline.

Secondly, I just want to clarify, this card is a "stand alone" card, right? On the link that I posted above, the site says that the card is a "2D/3D accelerator." (in the past, I have found that FutureShop's website doesn't always give accurate information about their products, or actually just vauge and inconsistent information) Is it an accelerator then? (eg, a cable goes from the system's actual video card into this card, and then the monitor connects to this card.) I currently have an old Voodoo2 accelerator (not video card) and there doesn't seem to be any support for that in Linux (so I'm worried that installing this card if it is just an accelerator would be a pain). Therefore, if this card is truly just an accelerator (could someone please confirm), what does that do for installing it in Linux?

If I searched long enough, I probably could find some information about my questions. The problem is that I think that there is an AGP version of this card (it's slightly different, but has the same name) and in my search results, people usually didn't specify whether it was the AGP or PCI card. Therefore, I am worried that the information for the AGP card will not apply to the PCI card. And since I do not yet even have this card, I want to know for sure that people have gotten it to work in Linux without too much pain.

The main reason for this long post with lots of questions is that I don't want to buy a card I can't use to the best of its ability. I want to make sure that I don't waste my money! I can't afford to do that!

Thanks in advance...
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rcxAsh

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Sat Jul 19, 2003 8:57 pm Post subject:

rcxAsh,

You need to examine your motives for moveing from embedded AGP to PCI video.

Embedded AGP comes in two flavuors. Those that use main memory for the video RAM and those that have dedicated video RAM.

If you have the latter, you have a real AGP video card. Its just laid flat on your motherboard, so you can't take it out to change it. Don't bother with a PCI graphics card. The bus bandwith is much lower. Your built in AGP is as good as it gets until you get a new motherboard.

If your pixel buffer in in main memory (you will be able to choose how much main memory in the BIOS), you have half a real AGP card. Video refresh gets priority for memory access and applications that are memory bound take a big hit. If you have one of these setups and you run memory bandwith hungry applications then it may be worth getting a PCI video card.
It depends on the apps you run and the video performence you need.

I can't help out with the specifics of the card you have selected - I've never used it.

As for getting it going under X. Use the X drivers to get you started, when it works, play with other drivers. If they break, you can always go back to your old XF86config file.

Regards,

NeddySeagoon
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

rcxAsh · Posted: Sat Jul 19, 2003 9:44 pm Post subject:

Thanks for the reply NeddySeagoon, I never knew that before.

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Sun Jul 20, 2003 12:58 pm Post subject:

rcxAsh,

On a linux box, I don't know how to tell for sure which type of video you have.
You could try less /proc/meminfo. If MemTotal is much less than your 192Mb, then you may well have shared memory graphics.

The choice between 32Mb and 64Mb in your BIOS could be for the AGP window to allocate main memory for texture maps. Does changing between the 32Mb and 64Mb settings make a difference to MemTolat in less /proc/meminfo. If it does, thats another indicator of shared memory video.

Normally with shared memory video, the BIOS contains an option as to how much memory to allocate to video. Sometimes to turn it off too.

The video BIOS cachable option is a legacy from DOS. After booting, the BIOS on the video card is not used, so this setting makes no difference. It will make DOS run faster though.

Think about your frame rates too. If you get 200 fps and your monitor is only showing 75fps then you only get to see 75 frames of the 200 you render. You won't have speed or rendering problems until the frame rate drops below the monitor verical refresh rate. More is just wasted (but its good for a brag).

What sort of motherboard or PC do you have?
I may be able to find the specification on the Web.

Regards,

NeddySeagoon.
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

rcxAsh · Posted: Mon Jul 21, 2003 12:13 am Post subject:

Hi NeddySeagoon,

Thanks for replying again. /proc/meminfo's MemTotal is 189 624 KB. The total Mem is 194 174 976 bytes. Selecting either 32MB or 64MB in the On-Chip Video Window Size does not seem to change the MemTotal value.

Malakin · Posted: Mon Jul 21, 2003 12:54 am Post subject:

Here's the exact same video card for less money and no mail-in rebates to screw around with:
http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/searchtools/item-Details.asp?EdpNo=471609&sku=P450-7109
It's exactly the same model "PVT97LQT" as the one Future Shop is selling.

Here's one that's even cheaper and doesn't have a fan, it's an SDR model though so it's going to be slower:
http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/searchtools/item-Details.asp?EdpNo=294125&sku=P56-2635

Tigerdirect ships out of the US so they're a little slow but I've never had a problem with them. I emailed them about something once and they actually called me back on the phone.

Onboard video will use either PCI or AGP, doesn't matter if you have the slots or not. Same thing with onboard sound, networking etc, these all use PCI, it's just like they're a pci card except they're integrated into the motherboard instead.

The PCI version MX440 works fine in Linux.

This card is a full 2d/3d card that replaces your current video, it does not "add" to your current video like a voodoo 2 would.

It's almost always shared memory on 810 boards, wouldn't really matter though as all 810 3d is very slow. A PCI MX440 would be much faster.

If you look at this review you'll see an ancient TNT 1 with over double the 3d performance of an 810 board with the integrated graphics:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/chipsets/display/intel810.html
I can't find anything that compares a TNT 1 to anything recent but a Geforce 4 MX440 is probably going to be 10X+ faster then integrated graphics on an 810. Being on a PCI bus will slow things down a little but it's not going to make a huge difference in most games.

Instead of throwing a hundred bucks at a pci card maybe it's time for an upgrade. Whereabouts do you live?

rcxAsh · Posted: Mon Jul 21, 2003 2:31 am Post subject:

Hi Malakin,

Thanks for your reply! You answered mostly all that I wanted to know. Thanks for the links too!

Malakin · Posted: Mon Jul 21, 2003 7:00 pm Post subject:

The PNY card you found looks better to me. Same price but it also has composite tv out and it doesn't have a fan. Personally I think no fan is always better then using a fan if the part doesn't require a fan, less noise and one less moving part to worry about.

I'm more familiar with PNY then with XFX.
Here's PNY's page on the part:
http://www.pny.com/products/verto/geForce4/mx440sepci.asp

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Tue Jul 22, 2003 6:38 pm Post subject:

rcxAsh,

In Windows 98 Start|Settings|Control Panel|System shows you the installed memory on the General tab.

If this is your full installed memory, you have a real AGP card laid out on the motherboard.
If its less than your installed memory, the difference is used for the graphics card frame buffer. That is you have a graphics shares main memory.

The i810 supports an optional 4Mb video memory - so its up to the motherboard designer which sort you get. 4Mb is not a lot by todays standards.

You say you want to play modern games - is your Celeron CPU really up to it?
Only some of the poor performace is down to the video card.

Regards,

NeddySeagoon
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

rcxAsh · Posted: Thu Jul 24, 2003 6:37 pm Post subject:

Well, I decided to get the XFX Geforce4 MX440SE with DDR (since I wouldn't have had to pay for shipping and handling and other possible customs fees). anyways, and it works a lot better than my orginal onboard i810, even though this is a PCI card. I can play games that I couldn't before, and other games that I could run before run much nicer. In glxgears, I'm getting a full 1000 more frames (but I haven't tried any extra options in my xf86config file, so it could get better still?). So far, I think that I will keep it. I still have 30 days to test it before I can't return it anymore, however.

Regarding whether or not my Celeron processor is up to gaming, all I can say is that at least I now have a better chance of playing newer games in an at least playable state (certain games were unplayable because they were too slow). Having a slow processor and a slow graphics chip didn't help much.

Thanks for all your help NeddySeagoon and Malakin.
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rcxAsh