Trying to choose between AMD or Nvidia

[Melcar]

Nvidia drivers support redirecting opengl through compiz and the ATI drivers don't. This is enough to make me buy Nvidia over ATI. And yes, I know this is a xorg problem and not necessarily a driver problem, but Nvidia has figured out a way to make it work.

If I'm not mistaken, it's because the nvidia drivers do not go through the xserver. It's a design decision from the developers, but you're right, it doesn't really matter from the end user's point of view, since for them, it either works or doesn't.

[edged]

Hey 'username' are you serious or having fun at others' expense

So you didn't state what you expect from the card? What are you going to use it for?

@flames, lol

There's no need to get so worked up about this. Not everyone uses their computers for the same purposes, and quite frankly I've had less problems with my current ATI card than I did with my last NVidia! hah

[sloggerKhan]

my take...

At this point I have a desktop with an nVidia 8600 gt and an ati x700 mobility.

My take at this point is that I'd nVidia on laptops, but at this points I think ATI might have become a better desktop choice. My reasoning for this: The nVidia driver is clearly much better at switching display modes and displays live, which is of huge importance for laptop users. However, so far as video playback goes, I've really found the latest fglrx driver to be amazing. With opengl overlay you can't tell video is being scaled. With the xv overlay it's still good quality and has much lower CPU usage. Especially considering that the nvidia driver hasn't implemented (to my knowledge) acceleration for most hi-def formats (h264?), I really find the ATI driver a good choice for desktop where you don't need to mode change much. By using xv to overlay video, you can run compiz without the flickering. That still leaves games, which might be a reason to not run compiz. But overall, at this point, having used both, I'm at lot more optimistic about future developments for the ATI drivers.

[grigi]

I can't say I agree with the above post. I have an ATI x1600mobility notebook. a colleague has a NVIDIA-based notebook (Quadro 135). both are pretty much identical 15.4" 1680x1050 2GB ram, (Actually the NVIDIA notebook has a Core 2 Duo, whilst my ATI has only a Core Duo), and the NVIDIA notebook has absolutely HORRIBLE power saving abilities.

Lets see: ATI: ~3hours versus NVIDIA: ~1.5 hours.
I have a 5400MAH battery and my colleague battery is 7800MAH, so he should be getting better battery life!

I mean, on a notebook, when performance is comparable, I'd go for better battery life anyday.

[sloggerKhan]

you have a point, and I don't have experience with the battery end of things, however, I'm also not sure a quadro is the right think to compare to a mobility radeon. I mean a quadro is workstation graphics.

[teo_m]

I have to make an ATI/NVidia choice too...

I have a dilemma too. I bought a Dell XPS M1530 with an NVidia 8600M-GT and the only problem I noticed was the fact that the Magic Lamp effect under CompizFusion was unusably slow. Unfortunately, the whole notebook had a lot of problems, like grainy screen, cpu whine, raised keyboard, so I had to return it, got back my money and now I'm in the market again. I found something that I think could be a good deal for these two laptops, the first with an ATI and the second with an NVidia:

• HP 8510p GR539AW: C2D T7700, WSXGA+, RAM 2GB, 120GB SATA, ATI HD2600 Mobility 256MB ~1500?
• HP 8510w GC113EA: C2D T7500, WSXGA+, RAM 2GB, 120GB SATA, NVidia Quadro FX 570M 256MB ~1480?

As you see, there isn't much difference between the two notebooks, visually they are identical. Considering the small price difference, the slight difference in CPU clock, the fact that the Quadro FX 570M is performance-wise something like the Geforce 8600M-GT, and the current (and future) state of drivers, which one would you pick?
I've been using Compiz constantly on my old Intel GMA950 and I need the snappiest experience possible. The 8600M-GT was less smooth than the 950 but still bearable, how does Compiz generally behave on the cards in the two notebooks?