Is ATI really on par with NVIDIA now?

[Ellipsys]

Nvidia, it isn't limited by DRI, will give you good performance.

Replace it with an ATi one in a few years

I'm kind of new so, what do you mean that Nvidia isn't limited by DRI? Is this related to the fact I hear the Nvidia closed source driver kind of...subjugates or takes over part of X and ATI "honors" the way things are supposed to be done?

Also, does everyone else agree with this? Nvidia for the time being? *le sigh* I hate to pay an extra couple hundred for minimal performance increase over 4780, and working Linux drivers. But...if that's what needs to happen..

[val-gaav]

I'm kind of new so, what do you mean that Nvidia isn't limited by DRI? Is this related to the fact I hear the Nvidia closed source driver kind of...subjugates or takes over part of X and ATI "honors" the way things are supposed to be done?

Yes that exactly is the problem ... So until dri2 you will have some glitches mainly with 3d desktop.

As for wine as you ask about it ... Wine is more nvidia friendly right now ... You can run it with games + fglrx with some hack in wine registry ... or so they say but well still nvidia drivers will give you more chances to get your games working...
Here is a good read about Wine + fglrx

http://www.phoronix.com/forums/showthread.php?t=10104&page=5

though you should also note that newest nvidia cards have also problems:

http://www.phoronix.com/forums/showthread.php?t=11044

[mtippett]

Yes that exactly is the problem ... So until dri2 you will have some glitches mainly with 3d desktop.

Just to clarify, there is nothing fundamentally stopping drivers from using DRI to achieve full COMPOSITE support (which is what people are really talking about when they talk about Compiz+Video, Compiz+3D, etc. Direct clients (Video, OGL, etc) currently ignore the redirected window and continue to render directly to the screen instead of the buffer.

There is sufficient infrastructure within DRI to allow any driver to do provide full COMPOSITE support. This is since DRI is basically an interface for communicating between X, DRM and the Client. Each driver has a shared area that is private. This can be used for whatever the driver requires. This is where the drivers can share information required to achieve COMPOSITE support.

Note however that for the Mesa in core XOrg drivers the developers will not want to do this on a per driver basis, but would rather provide it to all drivers at the same time. This is where DRI2 comes in. DRI2 provides a refresh of the interfaces with explicit knowledge of what is required for COMPOSITE support.

So for the OSS drivers to achieve full COMPOSITE support, you will need at least DRI2 and TTM. Depending on when the dust settles, this may also be in time with Gallium (the new Mesa) and also kernel modesetting.

Regards,

Matthew

[Pickup]

The Legacy

How about the old cards? Most of the work in the new drivers is spent for the newer and the less-newer cards and chipsets, but while people is developing a driver for those cards a brand new one comes out. And someone have to write a driver. So, I sense developement resources move continously to the newer and slowly drops the older, leaving drivers for the legacy stuff half-developed.

The question is: will a GPU - any GPU - be "fully supported"?

[null8]

I got me 4850 for around 150 euros to play some games and support AMD in it's open source efforts.
I completed crysis on it on high settings with directx9. I mostly use linux for work and I found the fglrx driver much better than the last time I tried it (in the age of radeon 1950pro). It even has 2d acceleration unlike my last geforce 8800gts. Even if there were, I am fed with the whole linux driver situation so I am dead serious of not buying nvidia ever unless they release the damn specifications. I also advise you to put your money where your mouth is, so if you want to use non-windows OS'es and want to have a complete driver in the long run - do something about it and buy an ati/intel card.

[Pickup]

I also advise you to put your money where your mouth is, so if you want to use non-windows OS'es and want to have a complete driver in the long run - do something about it and buy an ati/intel card.

An Intel card? Do Intel-based video cards (not mainboards with Intel graphic chips) exist?

[yoshi314]

eh. I've got an X1300 in my Thinkpad. It sucks. ACPI, video playback, and 3D? If I pick two of them, one of the available drivers will work. I've never had all three working satisfactorially for the two years I've had the laptop.

i have x1300 in my desktop pc and i have all three working nicely. (hint - try git snapshots of mesa and drm modules for nicely working 3d ;-) )

[d2kx]

i have x1300 in my desktop pc and i have all three working nicely. (hint - try git snapshots of mesa and drm modules for nicely working 3d ;-) )

Yeah, I recently tested Ubuntu 8.04.1 with the Xorg-Edgers packages and it was an amazing desktop experience in terms of Compiz, video support and 2D performance But I wouldn't recommend it for everyone yet (productivity) as I had some package conflicts.

[Vighy]

An Intel card? Do Intel-based video cards (not mainboards with Intel graphic chips) exist?

If there was, it would have been my next card

well I really don't know if they exist!

[charon]

If there was, it would have been my next card

well I really don't know if they exist!

Just wait for Larabee. Should arrive in Q2/09 (well, next year). But keep in mind that it is supposed to need around 300 W...