[olug] FC4 and Matrox Drivers

[A-Wal]

My experience with nvidia has been wonderfully so far.  Every Linux 
flavor I've tried so far automatically detects and configures my nvidia 
gforce 3 perfectly.  The only thing I have to do is download the actual 
nvidia 3D drivers from the nvidia website.  The install on Suse is 
extremely easy with Yast, but the FC3 install is all command-line 
based.  If you don't mind changing a few config files by hand, then it's 
not that hard at all either.  I found a FAQ that outlined exactly what 
to do.  Their drivers have worked perfectly for me.  I installed Unreal 
Tournament 2004, and it actually gets twice the performance that it does 
in windows.  In Linux I can set UT2k4 video settings to max with very 
little lag, but in windows I have to cut them back to half for decent 
performance.

Phil Brutsche wrote:

> Jesse Regier wrote:
>
>> It looks like FC4 has major issues with the matrox video drivers and 
>> it gets pretty ugly with my G550.  So It looks like I'm in the market
>> for a new video card.  It wouldn't drive my Samsung 910t LCD monitor
>> at the full resolution in digital mode anyway.
>>
>> So what are people out there using?  I don't need high end 3D 
>> acceleration for games and such.  I just need a decently fast card 
>> that can do DVI out at 1280x1024.  I've always stayed away from the 
>> Nvidia cards because of the whole binary driver issue.
>>
>> Any suggestions?
>
>
> You mean... suggestions other than nVidia?
>
> Give up Linux as a desktop OS.
>
> Extereme and not what you want to hear, I know.
>
> If you have problems with with Matrox and nVidia, your only other real
> option is ATI... and the driver problems with modern ATI cards and Linux
> distributions make any concerns with binary drivers pale in comparison.
> For any "non-mainstream" OS (aka anything that's not Windows or Mac OS
> X) current nVidia-based cards are generally better supported than ATI
> cards are.
>
> So... Unless you want to get an older ATI card, such as an ATI RADEON
> 9000, I would suck it up and get an nVidia GeForce FX5200 or FX5600 (for
> PCI or AGP systems) or an nNvidia GeForce 6200 or 6600 (PCI Express).
>
> Since you mention that you don't necessarily need 3D acceleration there
> is the open-source "nv" X.org driver that (in my experience) provides
> more than adequate 2D acceleration for nVidia-based cards.
>
> Are their alternatives to the Matrox-nVidia-ATI trio? Yes. Google "XGI
> Volari".
>
> Will their performance and Linux support be up to par? Good question.
>
> Personally, I would go for the known quanity: nVidia.
>