Best Supported AGP Card.

[tenzero]

Hi there people,

I'm looking for comments on the currently best performing AGP card availlable for linux. Preferably with an open source driver.

My Nvidia 5600FX works great with the proprietary driver, but is a bit lacking in performance.

Obviously I'd like to support ATI/AMD for their truly open source driver efforts, but this is not absolute if better performance is availlable elsewhere.

cheers.
D.

[Melcar]

Well, if you really want to stick with open source drivers and still be able to enjoy 3D, an older ATI card would be the only way to go. Something from the R4XX and before generations. Beware, the radeon driver, while having functional 3D with some cards, may not have the speed you desire. With my 200M IGP the performance difference in 3D between radeon and fglrx is 50%. I have a 9800pro that I just put into a seperate rig that I plan to test, but I doubt it will fair much better. However, that rig (Athlon XP 1800+ w/ 512MB of RAM), can still play Nexuiz and Warsow on medium settings @ 1024x768 with very playable frames (60+ average).

[tenzero]

Thanks for the feedback. I am more interested in the current stuff ~ R600 and beyond. But I am aware they don't have good/any agp support so far.

I'd be interested to hear how people are doing, stability wise with their agp Radeons.

Also some kind of performance hint that I can compare with my 5600FX eg glx gears and some subjective feedback on desktop latency with compositing turned on -- either compiz or kde4.

Cheers.
D

Well, if you really want to stick with open source drivers and still be able to enjoy 3D, an older ATI card would be the only way to go. Something from the R4XX and before generations. Beware, the radeon driver, while having functional 3D with some cards, may not have the speed you desire. With my 200M IGP the performance difference in 3D between radeon and fglrx is 50%. I have a 9800pro that I just put into a seperate rig that I plan to test, but I doubt it will fair much better. However, that rig (Athlon XP 1800+ w/ 512MB of RAM), can still play Nexuiz and Warsow on medium settings @ 1024x768 with very playable frames (60+ average).

[Melcar]

With the newer stuff, the open source drivers will only give you 2D at most. You will have to stick with the proprietary drivers in that case. Last I heard (for ATI cards), AGP cards were a real pain to get working, but it seems to be resolved now with the latest drivers. Never herd of any issues with nvidia AGP cards.