Newbie interested in switching from NVIDIA to ATI card

[ANTant]

Hi. I am interested in switching from my NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti4200 to a
high end ATI video card for games. The biggest question I am concerned
is how are the driver support in Linux? I am still using Red Hat Linux
7.2 (compiled Kernel 2.4.20). I want to play 3D games, watch TV in and
out of my video card, etc. NVIDIA's support is awesome under Linux. I
heard bad support on ATI's cards in the past. How is it now?

I heard great things about ATI's new cards, especially for gaming. I am
debating whether to get an ATI card or NVIDIA GeForce FX, but I heard
bad things about the new GeForce cards. I am type of guy who likes
details cranked up max and get good FPS at 1280x1024 resolution.

If I do get an ATI card, then I have to decide if I really want to get
an All-In-Wonder card, or get a high-end card without video in stuff and
get a separate TV card for that so I don't have to upgrade that component
every year to keep up with the newest games.

My current computer setup (primary/gaming box) can be found here:
http://alpha.zimage.com/~ant/antfarm/about/computers.txt

Any suggestions? Thank you in advance.
--
"Individually, ants are stupid. Together, they're brilliant." --unknown
/\___/\
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[Lithurge]

(e-mail address removed) wrote in

Hi. I am interested in switching from my NVIDIA GeForce4
Ti4200 to a high end ATI video card for games. The biggest
question I am concerned is how are the driver support in
Linux? I am still using Red Hat Linux 7.2 (compiled Kernel
2.4.20). I want to play 3D games, watch TV in and out of my
video card, etc. NVIDIA's support is awesome under Linux. I
heard bad support on ATI's cards in the past. How is it
now?

I heard great things about ATI's new cards, especially for
gaming. I am debating whether to get an ATI card or NVIDIA
GeForce FX, but I heard bad things about the new GeForce
cards. I am type of guy who likes details cranked up max
and get good FPS at 1280x1024 resolution.

If I do get an ATI card, then I have to decide if I really
want to get an All-In-Wonder card, or get a high-end card
without video in stuff and get a separate TV card for that
so I don't have to upgrade that component every year to
keep up with the newest games.

My current computer setup (primary/gaming box) can be found
here:
http://alpha.zimage.com/~ant/antfarm/about/computers.txt

Any suggestions? Thank you in advance.

I wouldn't bother with a 9800 just yet, quick look at the
Linux drivers available at www.ati.com and they only have
drivers up to the 9700PRO (both AIW & non AIW).

Here's the official ATI faq, which doesn't look overly
promising, but then I've no idea what NVIDIA's official
stance is.

http://www.ati.com/support/faq/linux.html

This'll probab;y mean more to you than it does to me:

Radeon 9700: XFree86 drivers available on the ATI website
support hardware 3D acceleration (RPM format for i386 only at
this time).

 

[Ben Pope]

I wouldn't bother with a 9800 just yet, quick look at the
Linux drivers available at www.ati.com and they only have
drivers up to the 9700PRO (both AIW & non AIW).

Almost gauranteed to work... Although I haven't tied them yet.

Radeon 9700: XFree86 drivers available on the ATI website
support hardware 3D acceleration (RPM format for i386 only at
this time).

You can probably include rpm support for all linuxs

There is certainly radeon support in the kernel I've played with
(2.6.0-test3 and 4).

Ben

 

[ANTant]

Hi. I am interested in switching from my NVIDIA GeForce4

I wouldn't bother with a 9800 just yet, quick look at the
Linux drivers available at www.ati.com and they only have
drivers up to the 9700PRO (both AIW & non AIW).

How much faster is a 9700PRO vs. 9800. Maybe my system isn't
fast enough to use 9800 fully? My Ti4200 chugs along with
newer games at max settings.

Here's the official ATI faq, which doesn't look overly
promising, but then I've no idea what NVIDIA's official
stance is.

This'll probab;y mean more to you than it does to me:

Radeon 9700: XFree86 drivers available on the ATI website
support hardware 3D acceleration (RPM format for i386 only at
this time).

Is there a compilation version to compile with my Kernel? I
remember NVIDIA's RPMs didn't meet the dependencies so I had
to use its src.rpm, and recently they had its own installer that
could compile a driver for me. Can ATI do that too? I have a
bad feeling that I won't be able to use ATI's RPMs due to the
old age of Linux. I am planning not to upgrade the OS.

This is starting to look bad for ATI buy after reading
http://www.ati.com/support/faq/linux.html ...

DVD support (yes, I watch on TV in Linux):
"Currently, there are legal difficulties regarding DVD playback
in any Open Source environment such as Linux. OpenDVD.org
provides a detailed discussion on this topic. It is an excellent
resource for anyone trying to configure a Linux system for DVD
playback."

Is it hard to setup and how good is the DVD support? Is it
a Macrovision problem?


Also, http://gatos.sourceforge.net/supported_cards.php (TV in).
"At this moment all of currently produced ATI All-in-Wonder cards
use the newer Rage Theatre 200 chip which is not supported by
these drivers. The documentation is not available. If it does
become available, it would likely be at least 6 months until the
first usable code."


Maybe I should forget the All-In-Wonder card and just go to a
decent 3D card and get a separate TV card (doesn't need to be
fancy). Any suggestions on this?

Is there a FAQ or a list to compare all the newest ATI cards and
who makes them? There are so many models like NVIDIA's cards.

I forgot to note that I play games (e.g., RTCW, Q3A, etc.) under
Linux. Thanks for the quick feedbacks! I will probably buy a new
video card in about a month. Need to research first.
--
"Individually, ants are stupid. Together, they're brilliant." --unknown
/\___/\
/ /\ /\ \ Ant @ The Ant Farm: http://antfarm.ma.cx
| |o o| | E-mail: (e-mail address removed) or (e-mail address removed)
\ _ / Remove ANT if replying by e-mail from a newsgroup.
( )