I'd like a touble-free graphics card for OpenGL under Linux.

My rule of thumb for Linux is to avoid hardware that has been out for 
less than a year.  The XP FX5200 drivers are supposed to have issues, so 
I figure maybe the FX5200 Linux OpenGL drivers do too---I mean more 
issues than the drivers for the older chips.

It looks like the performance of the two chipsets is about the same:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/nv31-nv34.html
The FX5200 cards costs maybe $15 more.

But the GF4-MX440-8X cards seem to be kind of scarce.  www.newegg.com is 
out of stock of the brands I prefer, and I'm not finding them elsewhere 
easily ...

Please advise ...

Matt

On Tue, 19 Aug 2003 09:21:01 -0500, Matt <matt@themattfella.com>
wrote:

>I'd like a touble-free graphics card for OpenGL under Linux.
>
>My rule of thumb for Linux is to avoid hardware that has been out for 
>less than a year.  The XP FX5200 drivers are supposed to have issues, so 
>I figure maybe the FX5200 Linux OpenGL drivers do too---I mean more 
>issues than the drivers for the older chips.
>

I haven't heard anything about XP problems, sounds like urban legend
to me.

This may be more information than you want, but... Nvidia boards are
classified by different modes; for example, the FX5200 is an NV40
board, earlier boards have lower numbers. There is documentation on
the nVidia site about what it all means for OpenGL capabilities.
Well-behaved applications will detect what type of board you've got
and use appropriate/available extensions. Personally, I'd go with the
most recent board, just on general principles.

FYI, there's a new nVidia driver (45.32) for XP-- you might want to
look at the release notes to get an idea of what's been fixed and
what's going on with the different tracks.

Matt Feinstein

--
There is no virtue in believing something that can be proved to be true.

On Tue, 19 Aug 2003 11:06:09 -0500, Matt <matt@themattfella.com>
wrote:

>Matt Feinstein wrote:
>
>> Well-behaved applications will detect what type of board you've got
>> and use appropriate/available extensions. 
>
>I gather that the driver informs the app of the type of board and gets 
>angry if the app tries to use capabilities that the board doesn't have. 
>  And newer boards are more likely to have defects in their parts of the 
>drivers since those parts are newer.  No?
>

A program can (and should) query the driver about what extensions it
supports.

>> Personally, I'd go with the
>> most recent board, just on general principles.
>
>Well, I had to wait until maybe a year after the Intel 845 chipset came 
>out for patches to make it into the kernels supported by my distro. 
>Couldn't do disk DMA---was running at 3MB/sec until the kernel got 
>patched.  The chipset was already five months old when I bought my 
>Dell---figured that would be enough time.  But then the 845s are rather 
>obscure pieces of hardware---by the time I bought mine there were 
>probably only a million or so in use. :-)  I remember you recommending 
>the FX5200 in a previous post.  Are you a Linux user?
>

No, I'm an OpenGL guy (for the purposes of this discussion).  But an
image-processing group for which I do 3-D programming asked me
recently what video boards they should get for their dozen-or-so PCs
(including a few with Linux)-- so I have some knowledge about your
query. I recommended  getting FX5200s, which they did, and they are
all doing nicely.

Matt Feinstein

--
There is no virtue in believing something that can be proved to be true.

Matt Feinstein wrote:
> On Tue, 19 Aug 2003 11:06:09 -0500, Matt <matt@themattfella.com>
> wrote:
> 
> 
>>   Are you a Linux user?
>>
> 
> 
> No, I'm an OpenGL guy (for the purposes of this discussion).  But an
> image-processing group for which I do 3-D programming asked me
> recently what video boards they should get for their dozen-or-so PCs
> (including a few with Linux)-- so I have some knowledge about your
> query. I recommended  getting FX5200s, which they did, and they are
> all doing nicely.

Well that is encouraging!  Hopefully they were able to use the Nvidia 
Linux OpenGL driver right out of the box?  And can you recommend a 
certain make of card?

I will believe you for now and hope to prove it later.

In article <3F4266D2.8010508@themattfella.com>, Matt
<matt@themattfella.com> wrote:

>  Hopefully they were able to use the Nvidia 
> Linux OpenGL driver right out of the box?  And can you recommend a 
> certain make of card?
> 

'Out of the box' meaning 'downloaded from nvidia.com', apparently so.
As far as manufacturers go, I bought my own video card from PNY, but I
don't think there's much difference between nvidia board makers.

Matt Feinstein

--
There is no virtue in believing something that can be proved to be true.

Matt wrote:

> Matt Feinstein wrote:
> > On Tue, 19 Aug 2003 11:06:09 -0500, Matt <matt@themattfella.com>
> > wrote:
> >
> >
> >>   Are you a Linux user?
> >>
> >
> >
> > No, I'm an OpenGL guy (for the purposes of this discussion).  But an
> > image-processing group for which I do 3-D programming asked me
> > recently what video boards they should get for their dozen-or-so PCs
> > (including a few with Linux)-- so I have some knowledge about your
> > query. I recommended  getting FX5200s, which they did, and they are
> > all doing nicely.
>
> Well that is encouraging!  Hopefully they were able to use the Nvidia
> Linux OpenGL driver right out of the box?  And can you recommend a
> certain make of card?
>
> I will believe you for now and hope to prove it later.

Matt,

I use both a (Creative) Geforce 256, and a (MSI) FX5600 card under RedHat
9 using the Nvidia driver on two different machines, and GL works great on
both.

I ordered my MSI FX5600VTDR card from Newegg and had in my box two days
later with free shipping, for what that's worth.

Not sure what you mean by "right out of the box" though. You will have to
do some minor tweaking, there's no way around it. RedHat will need to be
installed via text mode, you'll need to configure the installer for a
"text mode" log in. then modify the XF86Config file to use the "nv" driver
(2D open-source driver), download Nvidia's closed source driver, install
it from the command line (without any X servers running), then you can
re-edit XF86Config to use the proper "nvidia" driver, edit /etc/inittab to
use a default runlevel of "5" (graphical login), and you'll be all set.
It's really trivial stuff, not at all as complicated as it sounds.

--Keith

Matt Feinstein wrote:

> In article <3F4266D2.8010508@themattfella.com>, Matt
> <matt@themattfella.com> wrote:
>
> >  Hopefully they were able to use the Nvidia
> > Linux OpenGL driver right out of the box?  And can you recommend a
> > certain make of card?
> >
>
> 'Out of the box' meaning 'downloaded from nvidia.com', apparently so.
> As far as manufacturers go, I bought my own video card from PNY, but I
> don't think there's much difference between nvidia board makers.
>

Actually, there can be a lot of difference in who makes he card.

Remember, that board design is more (a lot more) that just using super glue
to stick some chips on a board and hope it works even if they cut and paste
from a reference design. There's crosstalk, impedance control, proper use of
via stitching, decoupling capacitors, emi issues to take into account.
Select the chipset you want to use then go read as much as you can about
different boards that use it. I settled on the MSI because it gets good
reviews as to image quality, low audible noise (some boards use very noisy
fans that're prone to failure), good user feedback, outstanding software
bundle (hey, I use Windows on the machine too), etc. Your requirements may
differ. I hear that Asus makes very good graphics cards too.

You might want to read the latest reviews of graphics cards at Toms
Hardware. This roundup has a lot of reviews of the latest cards in it.

http://www6.tomshardware.com/graphic/20030714/index.html

--Keith

Matt wrote:

> I'd like a touble-free graphics card for OpenGL under Linux.
> 
> My rule of thumb for Linux is to avoid hardware that has been out for
> less than a year.  The XP FX5200 drivers are supposed to have issues, so
> I figure maybe the FX5200 Linux OpenGL drivers do too---I mean more
> issues than the drivers for the older chips.
> 
> It looks like the performance of the two chipsets is about the same:
> http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/nv31-nv34.html
> The FX5200 cards costs maybe $15 more.
> 
> But the GF4-MX440-8X cards seem to be kind of scarce.  www.newegg.com is
> out of stock of the brands I prefer, and I'm not finding them elsewhere
> easily ...
> 
> Please advise ...
> 
> Matt

I am using a MSI FX5600 256meg on Suse 8.1 and it is running great, GL i fine
and the speed is good in UT2003 all switched to max and runs like a dream (
Barton 2800, 1gig ocz cas 2 ram on nforce2ultra mobo ) 

-- 
Mark
Twixt hill and high water.
N.Wales, UK.
Email is spam trap try baskitcaise at gmx dot co dot uk

"Matt Feinstein" <nospam@here.com> wrote in message
news:p6e4kvcaq4i62d8eueqtovurtr54h1nvsv@4ax.com...
> This may be more information than you want, but... Nvidia boards are
> classified by different modes; for example, the FX5200 is an NV40
> board, earlier boards have lower numbers. There is documentation on

Actually, all of the GeForceFX boards are of the NV30 generation. There is
no NV40  :)

Jason A.

"Matt" <matt@themattfella.com> wrote in message
news:3F42324D.6090906@themattfella.com...
> I'd like a touble-free graphics card for OpenGL under Linux.
>
> My rule of thumb for Linux is to avoid hardware that has been out for
> less than a year.  The XP FX5200 drivers are supposed to have issues, so
> I figure maybe the FX5200 Linux OpenGL drivers do too---I mean more
> issues than the drivers for the older chips.
>
> It looks like the performance of the two chipsets is about the same:
> http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/nv31-nv34.html
> The FX5200 cards costs maybe $15 more.
>
> But the GF4-MX440-8X cards seem to be kind of scarce.  www.newegg.com is
> out of stock of the brands I prefer, and I'm not finding them elsewhere
> easily ...
>
> Please advise ...
>
> Matt
I run a MSI GFX 5600 on Mandrake 9.1. OpenGL apps run fine on my machine.

Keith Clark wrote:

> I use both a (Creative) Geforce 256, and a (MSI) FX5600 card under RedHat
> 9 using the Nvidia driver on two different machines, and GL works great on
> both.
> 

That inspires confidence.

> I ordered my MSI FX5600VTDR card from Newegg and had in my box two days
> later with free shipping, for what that's worth.
> 

I will probably go cheaper---probably an Abit FX5200 DT ($77 from newegg 
or googlegear), unless somebody points out some disadvantage of that card.

> Not sure what you mean by "right out of the box" though. You will have to
> do some minor tweaking, there's no way around it. RedHat will need to be
> installed via text mode, you'll need to configure the installer for a
> "text mode" log in. then modify the XF86Config file to use the "nv" driver
> (2D open-source driver), download Nvidia's closed source driver, install
> it from the command line (without any X servers running), then you can
> re-edit XF86Config to use the proper "nvidia" driver, edit /etc/inittab to
> use a default runlevel of "5" (graphical login), and you'll be all set.
> It's really trivial stuff, not at all as complicated as it sounds.
> 
> --Keith

Thanks for that nice explanation.  That doesn't sound too demanding.

So the "nvidia" driver is the OpenGL driver (and a kernel module) I guess.

Apparently Nvidia shuns rpm, apt, etc., so should I reinstall RH each 
time I install a new Nvidia OpenGL driver?

Matt

Matt wrote:

> Keith Clark wrote:
>
> > I use both a (Creative) Geforce 256, and a (MSI) FX5600 card under RedHat
> > 9 using the Nvidia driver on two different machines, and GL works great on
> > both.
> >
>
> That inspires confidence.

Hope so. :->

For what it's worth, I personally find GL games on the FX5600 to run faster
under Linux than they do under Windows (Unreal Tournament 2003).

>
>
> > I ordered my MSI FX5600VTDR card from Newegg and had in my box two days
> > later with free shipping, for what that's worth.
> >
>
> I will probably go cheaper---probably an Abit FX5200 DT ($77 from newegg
> or googlegear), unless somebody points out some disadvantage of that card.
>
> > Not sure what you mean by "right out of the box" though. You will have to
> > do some minor tweaking, there's no way around it. RedHat will need to be
> > installed via text mode, you'll need to configure the installer for a
> > "text mode" log in. then modify the XF86Config file to use the "nv" driver
> > (2D open-source driver), download Nvidia's closed source driver, install
> > it from the command line (without any X servers running), then you can
> > re-edit XF86Config to use the proper "nvidia" driver, edit /etc/inittab to
> > use a default runlevel of "5" (graphical login), and you'll be all set.
> > It's really trivial stuff, not at all as complicated as it sounds.
> >
> > --Keith
>
> Thanks for that nice explanation.  That doesn't sound too demanding.
>

It's really easy. If you can install programs from source you can do this.


>
> So the "nvidia" driver is the OpenGL driver (and a kernel module) I guess.
>

Yes. The Nvidia installer takes care of everything for you (except that you need
to check to see that XF86Config is configured to use "nvidia" as the driver and
not something else (in my case, the RedHat install configured it for the "vesa"
driver so I had to change it. Not a biggie, took a few seconds using vi.


>
> Apparently Nvidia shuns rpm, apt, etc., so should I reinstall RH each
> time I install a new Nvidia OpenGL driver?
>
> Matt

Matt,

All you need is the source tree for the kernel you're running which you can
easily get from RedHat in the form or an RPM.

The Nvidia installer will compile it's own kernel module every time you upgrade
the driver (or the kernel).

So no, there's no need to reinstall the OS for a driver upgrade.

Keith

Jason Allen wrote:
> "Matt Feinstein" <nospam@here.com> wrote in message
> news:p6e4kvcaq4i62d8eueqtovurtr54h1nvsv@4ax.com...
> 
>>This may be more information than you want, but... Nvidia boards are
>>classified by different modes; for example, the FX5200 is an NV40
>>board, earlier boards have lower numbers. There is documentation on
> 
> 
> Actually, all of the GeForceFX boards are of the NV30 generation. There is
> no NV40  :)
> 
> Jason A.
> 
> 
Right, the 5900 is nv35 and the 5600/5200 are nv34 according to Tom's 
Hardware.

> > > This may be more information than you want, but... Nvidia boards are
> > > classified by different modes; for example, the FX5200 is an NV40
> > > board, earlier boards have lower numbers. There is documentation on
> >
> > Actually, all of the GeForceFX boards are of the NV30 generation. There is
> > no NV40  :)
> >
> > Jason A.
>
> Right, the 5900 is nv35 and the 5600/5200 are nv34 according to Tom's
> Hardware.

The 5600 is NV31.

Andrew

>>Apparently Nvidia shuns rpm, apt, etc., so should I reinstall RH each
>>time I install a new Nvidia OpenGL driver?
>>
>>Matt
> 
> 
> Matt,
> 
> All you need is the source tree for the kernel you're running which you can
> easily get from RedHat in the form or an RPM.
> 
> The Nvidia installer will compile it's own kernel module every time you upgrade
> the driver (or the kernel).
> 
> So no, there's no need to reinstall the OS for a driver upgrade.
> 
> Keith

Okay, I'm stuck on this part:

"RedHat will need to be installed via text mode, you'll need to 
configure the installer for a "text mode" log in. "

I'm guessing that the essence is to achieve a text-mode login, and that 
installing via text mode is one way to do that.

Or is there actual benefit in reinstalling RH before the first Nvidia 
install?  Maybe it simplifies things somehow?

Matt

Andrew McDonald wrote:
>>>>This may be more information than you want, but... Nvidia boards are
>>>>classified by different modes; for example, the FX5200 is an NV40
>>>>board, earlier boards have lower numbers. There is documentation on
>>>
>>>Actually, all of the GeForceFX boards are of the NV30 generation. There is
>>>no NV40  :)
>>>
>>>Jason A.
>>
>>Right, the 5900 is nv35 and the 5600/5200 are nv34 according to Tom's
>>Hardware.
> 
> 
> The 5600 is NV31.
> 
> Andrew
> 
> 
Right, I tried to correct it. Must have clicked the wrong button.