Nvidia vs ATI

[mattmatteh]

I've been trying to find the answer to this same question: does NVidia or ATI provide a better driver for its cards under Linux?

i think it all depends on the card. i tried amd (bad gigabyte board so i didnt get far) and fglrx seemed to work well on 780g with integrated graphics. the open source driver worked, but no acceleration for 3d or video. i wanted to support amd for their open source effort. (off topic reason is that i am not impressed with amd south bridge and nivida seemed better) and with 780g there is tearing with video playback, but hear there is hope. i was willing to tollerate it for a short while till there was a fix.

matt

[EagleDM]

I'm in the same road as you, sure a NB is not the same thing as a 4870x2, thermally speaking and, for me, having a toaster inside my case is no joke

I really thanks AMD for their opensource effors, but, until I have a working powerplay in linux (either open or close) I'll switch to NVIDIA for now

[mattmatteh]

I'm in the same road as you, sure a NB is not the same thing as a 4870x2, thermally speaking and, for me, having a toaster inside my case is no joke

i dont have a toaster. infact i am going for the most efficient setup. fanless graphics card. would like a fanless cpu too.

[mlalkaka]

Right now however nvidia releases updates more frequently, has more features (OpenGL 3 and VDPAU, i'm not sure if fglrx has OpenGL 3) and better looking GUI for configuring the driver

I don't think this is true anymore. I would really look at AMD Linux 2008 Year in Review. This article has an awesome breakdown of the progress AMD has made in the past year. It has added support for lots of new features, and released more updates, more frequently, than NVIDIA. (See the NVIDIA Linux 2008 Year in Review.)

Another important thing to note is that right now i'm using jaunty + nvidia's 180.18 driver using a workaround i've found on the forums, while AFAIK ATI users are stuck with the open driver because fglrx doesn't work with the new xserver - intrepid all over again (i might be misinformed).

Again, I don't think this is true either: AMD Linux 2008 Year in Review. The article discusses testing all the drivers released in 2008 under Ubuntu 8.10, Intrepid Ibex.

If AMD starts releasing drivers that offer on-time support for distributions in their developing phase ... and maybe new features ... they'll make my decision easy

One more time: AMD Linux 2008 Year in Review. AMD released about 11 drivers versions in 2008 alone, and the drivers contained support for the latest and greatest graphics cards. In fact, on one occasion, they added support for a graphics card before the card was even released (according to the article).

I currently have an NVIDIA graphics card, because when I bought it, AMD didn't provide the support for GNU/Linux that they do now. However, now that their support is comparable, and arguably even better than that of NVIDIA, my decision is much more difficult.

Either way, keep it up, AMD and NVIDIA!

[alexv]

@mlalkaka

With "intrepid all over again" i meant that they didn't have a working fglrx driver for intrepid untill it was released. So whoever installed the alpha/beta was forced to use the open driver. The same thing is happening now with jaunty. While nvidia also don't have a OTB working driver for 9.04, their drivers could be forced to work with a simple hack and you get fast 3D and all sorts of other benefits...

I'm not downplaying AMD's progress, they're definitely heading in the right direction, and unless you're using unstable distributions you won't have to worry about driver support .

[hdas]

I might suggest you to get a NVidia GeForce 9800 GT. I got one, its a double decker EVGA, will run you about a little over 100 usd. Requires and external power supply, but shouldn't be too demanding. Runs very cool, never above 60-65 C. If you are not too hard on acoustics, the cooling should be ok for you. Performance is tremendous. Conservative cooling allows for some overclocking head room too.

If you are looking at half price, ~50 usd, and not after too much performance, 8600GT or 9600GT should be fine for you. I would say 8500GT and 9500GT are a bit low end for moderately high resolution gaming. And try get a card with 512MB GDDR3 memory.

The Nvidia driver support is tier 1 and nearly on par with windows. If blob doesnt bother you, it can't get much better.

Note : I personally have no idea about ATI cards. But I stay away from them like plague, looking at the issues with their linux drivers. Looks like the hardware is great though, and as mentioned, open source support may be there for you by another 2 years with xorg 8.0 . Note that their drivers do work for most basic functionality including basic 3d, but by and large it is half baked, notably video playback with composite and wine. The drivers effort is appreciable and on going, but any reasonable person would say that right now there is no competition between ATI and NVidia, and possible for another year or so. Also, for any long term concerns, Nvidia has been providing top quality drievrs for almost a decade. For more, see http://linuxhaters.blogspot.com/2008...en-source.html .

[RealNC]

I have an AMD/ATI card (HD4870) and I agree that everything I do with it in Linux is half-assed. It's crap with Wine, crap with Video, crap with composite, crap with the settings.

[Janusz11]

Yup. And I have just changed from an ATi Radeon HD4870 to a nVidia GTX 260 (the new series with 216 processor cores instead of 192 standard). ATi may have done a lot this year to add new features and further improve their driver. But they are still far away from the nVidia driver quality.

Btw., comparing the two articles it may indeed appear like that ATi did the better job this year. But then again, as Phoronix has pointed it out already: nVidia had all the stuff included in their driver already that ATi is still trying to get working (decent video support anyone?).

Anyway, I'm happy now with my new nVidia card (again, as it is the second time that I've switched from ATi to nVidia) and will surely look for another nVidia card again in the future if I plan to buy a new one.

[Dieselmachine]

I have an AMD/ATI card (HD4870) and I agree that everything I do with it in Linux is half-assed. It's crap with Wine, crap with Video, crap with composite, crap with the settings.

I just RMA'd my HD4870 to newegg because the thing is absolute garbage under linux. I worked for two weeks to get the damned thing up and running on my dual monitor system, and I finally gave up.

So I'm back on my geforce fx 5200, which is older than hell, but still manages to identify my monitors and use the correct resolutions. I'm looking into picking up a 9800GT with the refund from my RMA, but barring some amazing breakthrough, I am never buying ATI again.

If you aren't capable of producing working drivers, you should open source it so actual knowledgeable people can do the work.

[pchristy]

I built myself a new core-2 duo machine about 18 months ago, and equipped it with an ATi card because of their commitment to support open-source. However, its been an uphill struggle, and about 6 months ago, I gave up and went and bought an NVidia card to replace it.

I don't use the computer for games, but I DO do an awful lot of video work. Under the ATi card, flashplayer was AWFUL, with slow and strobing video. However, even this wasn't what finished it for me. I keep my machine fairly up-to-date, and every time a new kernel came along, it broke the ATi driver! By the time the ATi driver was fixed, another new kernel was coming out! So I was constantly stuck running an older version of the kernel than I wanted.

In contrast, the NVidia drivers didn't seem to suffer from this compatibility issue. Having said that, 2.6.28 has broken the official stable NVidia drivers, but at least they've released beta drivers that seem to work just fine!

I would love to support ATi - but until they get their driver in step with kernel releases, I'm going to have to stick with NVidia!

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Pete