Any Arch users advice on choosing a graphics card..?

[Kano]

@deanjo

The xvba libs have been there for long time, so in theory you could expect that somebody used em or not? And those have been shipped even before libvdpau was shipped. It's clear that a "normal" user could only use em via gb's xvba-video wrapper, but it shows that ati worked on similar things like nvidia about the same time. It is just very curious that they did NOT debug the issues which have been known for ages.

[deanjo]

@deanjo
It is just very curious that they did NOT debug the issues which have been known for ages.

Does that really surpise you?

[Kano]

Not really, the ATI Linux product manager (who is it now?) does not seem to have interest in simple video playback (xv) or video accelleration (xvba). The xv issue is as old as the R600 series so basically nobody expected that xvba would have been fixed soon. It would be interesting for the famous oem customers however, it is very unlikely that they use it now with Linux, more likely Win CE if they do.

[Panix]

"Much" is not the same as "all".

If you fail at reading such simple English sentences, no wonder that you are failing at installing a driver :P

Do you have problems reading sarcasm online?

It seems that whenever people with ATI cards have problems with their cards and the drivers, they are instantly labelled 'inexperienced' and doing something wrong.

Don't take my word for it, go to the Ubuntu, Fedora and OpenSUSE forums and ask in a post, whether people recommend ATI or Nvidia cards. Compare the numbers of those having problems with the ATI card versus the Nvidia card.

I know someone will suggest if it's working, they won't participate in the forum or post. But, surely, if someone has it working, they'll answer if they know the solution or can identify what's wrong.

I just don't want to commit to an ATI card and then have these same problems. Although, the low end card I'm considering is only $100, it's still a nuisance if there's an issue with the card/drivers. I know the new Evergreen cards still don't have a FOSS option and the 2D/3D Fglrx driver with that card seems to get mixed results. I want 3D and video (as many features as possible) capabilities so I'm indecisive of which to choose.

[bridgman]

Panix, whenever someone speaks up and says the hardware/software are working for them you make sarcastic comments about the uselessness of "works for me" responses. After a while I think people stop responding to you.

I don't really understand why you are agonizing over the purchase like this. If you feel more confident going with an NVidia product then just buy one.

[pingufunkybeat]

It's certainly your right to choose what you want to buy. But I recommend picking a small subset of cards, figuring out what you want to use them from (and thus what the card/drivers should support) and then checking whether this is supported.

Right now, you're waging a holy war on things you have never even used based on some internet forum posts.

You can always buy a card, see if it works, and if it doesn't give it back and get your money back.

Like I said, if you want VDPAU, you need nVidia. If you don't care about open source, you need nVidia. If you want to update your binary blob every time there is a change in xorg and kernel, then you need nVidia.

If you would like an open source solution, you need ATi. You need to check whether the drivers support what you need, or will support it soon (like Evergreen), and then go for it. Nouveau will probably never reach the state of ATi and Intel drivers, and nVidia will not have decent open 3d drivers for a long time.

If you decide to try ATi, get a distro with good driver support (like the latest Fedora) and drive away. If it doesn't work, return the card. Don't write about what you think would happen based on some Ubuntu forum post from 2009.

[aavci]

I recently purchased a laptop with HD 4650, running arch (with testing enabled), using open drivers (e.g xf86-video-ati).

2D, 3D, KMS, powersaving etc. works nicely. 3D may not the fastest but I can play Nexuiz without a problem.

So if you dont need too heavy 3D or VDPAU I suggest ATI.

[Vii7]

As an ATi HD 4xxx user, I would have to say nVidia for now - and maybe ATi for later. Maybe not proprietary drivers, but Open Source are starting to look pretty good, which means they're going in the right direction.

[Hans]

I would choose ATI, even though I also own a nvidia card. Especially because of the upcoming fglrx 10.6 driver.

With ATI you get fglrx and oss drivers. Fglrx is improving (wait till you see 10.6) and with 10.5 it works quite good with wine.

What you shouldn't do, is to choose a graphic card on the basis of xvba. Cmon, nobody has use of graphic accelerated decoding. The cpu decodes just fine. If someone are saying different, they might have a slow cpu or are trying to decode blueray rip movies (which you should run on a blueray player anyway).

[Kano]

You are really the first who prefers fglrx binary over nvidia binary.