VIA Launches A Graphics Card. Will It Work With Linux?

[LinuxID10T]

Doesn't anyone remember the benchmark of S3's latest generation of cards being faster on Linux than Windows? I am not saying I would buy them. However, several of you are just plain wrong. The latest generation has good blob support, even though the open drivers are quite scary to deal with. It does have VDPAU and 3D acceleration. The question is "is it worth the money?" Unfortunately, the answer is no.

[DeepDayze]

Even though it might be interesting from a power usage p.o.v. and possibly suitable for HTPC it is not interesting due to a lack of drivers or specifications. Looking at VIAs history (windows and linux side) I'll better stay far away from this.
Even if there was a bibary blob driver the quality would be horrible. And we never really saw any working free driver or specifications suitable for the devs to make their own.

Via's chips are definitely horrible under Windows and not just Linux (think their old MVP chipsets) It's all just cheap, weak hardware not really worth bothering with.

[Adarion]

Even though it might be interesting from a power usage p.o.v. and possibly suitable for HTPC it is not interesting due to a lack of drivers or specifications. Looking at VIAs history (windows and linux side) I'll better stay far away from this.
Even if there was a bibary blob driver the quality would be horrible. And we never really saw any working free driver or specifications suitable for the devs to make their own.

[efikkan]

With no linux blobs for the 5000 series how is it that it can support vdpau?

It's the embedded version of the Chrome 500 series. Let's hope they finish the drivers soon.

[deanjo]

The GPU supports VDPAU and it is present in the driver for the S3 Chrome 500 series, but I haven't tested if it actually works.

With no linux blobs for the 5000 series how is it that it can support vdpau?

[efikkan]

If they actually managed to create decent GNU/Linux drivers and maybe made them open source, then I think this would be an OK HTPC/low end card. The GPU supports VDPAU and it is present in the driver for the S3 Chrome 500 series, but I haven't tested if it actually works. AMD still lacks video acceleration.

[BlackStar]

Via's drivers suck. Stay far away if you wish to keep your sanity.

Yes, fglrx is a piece of cake compared to that steaming pile.

[efikkan]

It's disappointing there is no support for OpenGL 3.3.

[curaga]

The comments there say that it really only works on ancient software. So: No thanks for me.

Well I would certainly hope that they have released an updated driver after Feb 2009

[deanjo]

5) Video acceleration not working for h264 [email protected] Videos?

http://www.sintel.org/download/

(the 1080p mp4 trailer)

That trailer is high@ l 5.0. Big jump in capabilities between 5.0 and 5.1.