Ive about had it with AT "bloody" I

[mdraicch]

Hi to all,

Yes as the title says Ive had it with ATI, I would like to move on to KDE 4 but ATI can't handle compiz and videos and, OH God, so many other things that ATI don't do well, including breathing and thinking at the same time.

I was looking at the 8800 gtx/s, which seems to be equivalent to a 4850, but the power requirements are huge some 400 watts. I don't play games but I do graphics and video.

Can someone suggest a card that would be capable of taking advantage of some of NVIDIA's advancements in LINUX, but not use so much power??

If I have to upgrade the power supply, I will.

Regards
Muzza

[RealNC]

The 8800 is slower than the 4850. The 9800 is faster.

400W is a myth ;) Not even SLI/Crossfire uses that much.

[bridgman]

It's probably saying that you need a 400W power supply, not 400W for the card.

Don't just go by the wattage rating though, make sure you have enough current in the 12V rail to feed whatever card you use.

[StringCheesian]

I'm happy with my 9600gt. KDE 4 runs great. I haven't tried the video acceleration stuff.

BTW: Energy efficiency and no gaming sounds like a job for a more modest graphics card. Any 9x00 card would be ideal for KDE4.

nVidia's driver does have bugs - see the official support forum for NVIDIA Linux (http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=14).

Suspend to ram has been broken before, and the latest versions seems to crash Firefox on some systems if cairo is using glitz. But I've experienced nothing as bad as the no video with compiz thing AMD users talk about.

[energyman]

what do you care about broken-compiz? KDE 4.2 has its own composite window manager - kwin. Which works great with ati (except manual windows resizing which is slow).

[mits]

well, if xv working properly is your concern, you could always use kde 4 and switch off desktop effects for the time being...
but afaik fglrx 9.1 will bring support for xv + compositing (yay! - I've been waiting a year++ for this)

[energyman]

with 9.1 and9.2 leaked:
xv works. With composite and without.

before that:
xv worked, but nothing should disturb the video window or it would start flickering.

[RealNC]

NVidia had this working correctly for ages.

[energyman]

yeah, for ages. It was so great that 6 month ago I sold my 8600GT and got a HD3870. Because 2d was completly unusable with nvidia. 'For ages' my ass.

[RealNC]

The crapload of YouTube videos that have been constantly been produced the last couple of years, featuring compiz on NVidia cards prove you wrong.

[mdraicch]

thanks to all for your help, this gives me an idea of what i should do.

when I tried kde 4 it was the first that came out with suse, and all I got was flicker, perhaps 4.2 is better now. My other concern was that with each release of an ATI driver, the card seems to slow down, glxgears and fgl_glxgears drop dramatically, to the point where i am now at 190 for 3d and 350 for 2d, comming from earlier releases of 500 for 3d and 2000 for 2d.

Now, Im not a techo and I am assuming that glxgears shows 2d and fgl_glxgears shows 3d, if it doesen't well tough, these are still the figures and they are not very good.

ATI is great for windows, but not linux, and as long as they keep using those dribbling retards to code the drivers, it will never be.

regards
mario

[RealNC]

Actually if you read my other thread, I'm whining also about ATI not being great on Windows either :P AMD must get their act together. I have an ATI (4870) and unfortunately, I recommend NVidia for both Windows as well as Linux even if they're not open source friendly. They "just work".

[energyman]

no, they don't.
a) videos lie
b) on OLD hardware like 6XXX or 7XXX 2d was ok - and compiz bearable.
But until late in 2008 2d on NIVIDA 8XXX and 9XXX series hardware was unusable slow. A pure suckfest. And compiz? POS nothing else to add.

[EagleDM]

I beg to differ, currently, I have both, NVIDIA AND ATI machines working at the Lab and I can assure you, the AMD machine (Radeon HD4870X2) is working wonderful on Windows Vista, not so the NVIDIA machine where I detected a couple of serious bugs (I'm using the GTX295 as I write).


Actually, I prefer Linux on NVIDIA and Windows on ATI.

[tball]

My ATI HD3650 is astonishing fast ind kde4 (My nvidia weren't). But yes, Im running without compositing. Will turn it on when video on compositing is better. But its close! 2009 will be the year when fglrx no longer sucks.

Acutally Im sure of that. With the 9.1 I am able to play source games in wine, WITH directx9+ highest setting (not with HDR and antialising though).

Ati suck? I don't think so. Just wait a couple of month, and I think the last bugs have been adressed.

PLZ try kde4 without compositing with fglrx. Ill tell you. Its as fast as in windows.

[EagleDM]

I actually have BOTH cards, so I pretty much expect it to NOT suck because I love both tecnologies (GT200 and RV770) so, time will tell.

Definetly with the new Xserver and DRI2 ATI will be more usable and far more pleasant than it is now.

[izual]

Well I don't care about desktop bling but I have to admit, my 2D performance of KDE4.1.3 on my 4670 is very³ bad!
But that seems to be a fglrx R7xx issue if I look on that flrx/radeonhd comparison.

[mdraicch]

Just bloody typical isn't it, just as you make up your mind to get an NVIDIA card, ATI bring out a driver (9.1) that seems to work reasonably well.

I'm a little apprehensive now about changing cards given that NVIDIA may not be as solid as I first thought. Fundamentally I am still an OPEN-SOURCE lover and prefer to go that way, and NVIDIA still hasn't come to the party.

I have been looking around for NVIDIA cards anything from 9x00 to 8x00 just to give it a try and have been suitably impressed as to how well they are holding their prices, I wonder if ATI cards will go the same way.

NVIDIA were pushed into a corner by ATI and were caught with their pants down when ATI released their new range of video cards. In response to this NVIDIA cut prices and began releasing drivers for LINUX more regularly, along with bringing out new features. Very impressive as their driver release seemed to be more stable that ATI, given the speed with which they released. But the talk is now that NVIDIA will go broke. Any opinions on this??

regards
muzza

[deanjo]

But the talk is now that NVIDIA will go broke. Any opinions on this??

regards
muzza

Very doubtful. Not sure where your hearing that talk from but Nvidia can weather out this global crash more easily then AMD. Forbes list nv at moderate buy or hold vs ATI's moderate sell or hold.

[jonnycat26]

Just bloody typical isn't it, just as you make up your mind to get an NVIDIA card, ATI bring out a driver (9.1) that seems to work reasonably well.


The thing is though, you never know what a new catalyst release will bring.

As good as 9.1 was, and it was OK... nothing compared to NVidia's releases, 9.2 is a complete suckfest. Or at least, it's a complete suckfest for me.

Crashes starting X, playback of XV video will still lock the computer if I switch it to fullscreen, crashes when I switch to a VT.

I've never seen NVidia drivers regress. But that's just me.