Linux and Radeon

[AthlonInside]

MVidia has a really good support on Linux, even better, they now have a 'script style' installation where everyone using different linux and different nvidia graphic card can easily download the same file and run the same script and got the driver installed.

I am going to have a new PC and someone recommend me Radeon graphic card. I know it is good, but I want to make sure it is fully supported in Linux (red hat) and future driver update. Else I will prefer to go for NVidia.

Any comments?

[scottj]

oops. ignore this.

[mat_bastian]

[ati.com...]

I don't believe that ATI themselves write drivers for Linux, but they support and work closely with independant developers who do. So yes, you will find driver support out there, but perhaps not directly from ATI. I have heard the drivers for the new radeon cards for linux are more than adequate. Go ahead and purchase a radeon if you please.

[douglay]

I just set up a new system running Red Hat 9 with a Radeon 9000 Pro card. The installer successfully detected the card, and configured XFree86 to use the hardware-accelerated drivers provided by the DRI project ([dri.sourceforge.net ]). Without any post-install performance tweaks at all, I'm getting around 1640 FPS running the glxgears benchmarking utility. Probably not earth-shattering performance, but more than sufficient for my needs.

The DRI drivers are not the only alternative - you can also download free-as-in-beer binary drivers from the ATI site, and a company called Xi Graphics sells a line of commercial Linux/X drivers for the Radeon.

The availability of different driver options including a fully open-source option was one of the main reasons I selected ATI over Nvidia for the graphics card for my new system.

[Oaf357]

XFree86 supports all the latest ATI cards. There is a myriad of information at their site.

[AthlonInside]

So why do you guys pick Radeon over NVidia the very first place? Any special reason?

[Oaf357]

I just like ATI. Been using them too long without a problem to bail out on them now.

[mat_bastian]

I've used Nvidia up till my last purchase. I bought the 9000 Pro 128 mb card from ATI because, the performance at that price point - which was the same pricepoint as the Geforce MX - was lacking in the geforce not in the ATI card.

[mat_bastian]

also, it supports dual monitors operating at seperate resolutions.

That's a pretty high end perk in a budget card.