Getting a new GPU: NVidia or ATI.

[ViperScull]

Lately, the old times of gaming have returned because of Enemy Territory. So, as always, i want more. I wanna try occasionaly the latter games coming out in Windows... Modern Warfare, Street Fighter IV, and so on...

Problem is, I am going to spend most of the Pc time over Ubuntu, and although ATI has been shaping up lately on its drivers (i have ATI HD4200 now), probably NVidia's drivers are one step ahead. I use compiz and privative drivers and at the moment I have no problem at all with the HD4200, but i don't know how the HD5 series will work over Linux. I wanna look to the future also, cause radeonhd is improving fast (heard great things about kernel 2.6.33), and who knows? maybe within a year ati drivers take the lead.

Anyway, the options i have on mind are NVidia GT240 and ATI HD5670.
The ATI card has more performance (about 15%-20%), , and costs 10$ more. HD56XX has no support yet, probably with the release of Catalyst 10.1 next week it will.


What would you do?

Cheers.

[cascade9]

I'd never get a video card that isnt supported yet. Never.

There is a 3rd option- get a 9800GT. Faster than the HD5670, and I've seen them in the same price range as the HD5670.

[BigSilly]

There is a 3rd option- get a 9800GT. Faster than the HD5670...

I didn't know that. I have a 9800GT. The Asus EN9800GT to be exact. I love it tbh. It's great on both Windows 7 and Linux. :)

[wc4f]

I'm running Ubuntu 10.04 with an Nvidia GT240 and Nvidia's proprietary driver (version 195.36.15) right now on an old Dell Inspiron 530N...with zero problems. There were some hiccups getting stuff installed, but it's all good now.

[Tikkyca]

I'm running Ubuntu 10.04 with an Nvidia GT240 and Nvidia's proprietary driver (version 195.36.15) right now on an old Dell Inspiron 530N...with zero problems. There were some hiccups getting stuff installed, but it's all good now.

Great card,thinking about buying one...

[ELD]

I'd never get a video card that isnt supported yet. Never.

There is a 3rd option- get a 9800GT. Faster than the HD5670, and I've seen them in the same price range as the HD5670.

a HD5670 is two series ahead of the 9800GT, out of the two of them go for the ATi HD card. It will be a lot better value for money. Plus ATi supports open source.

[Wally_dog]

I have a 9800GT, and to be honest, it's awesome. Plays everything in Windows perfectly, and it works 100% perfect in every Linux distro I've used. I'd recommend it :)

[DeusExM1]

if i was you i would do some research on the 5xxx series. i heard the linux drivers are fine, and those cards are pretty damn amazing.

[handy]

The Evergreen open-source support is coming along fast since AMD opened up the tech' info'.

http://www.x.org/wiki/RadeonFeature

Catalyst is ok at the moment, so you can use that until the open-source drivers meet your standards, which will take until at least 10.10 (depending on which kernel Ubuntu uses, but more likely the release after that. So could be looking at a year for good open-source support.

You can shorten that time if you choose to use the xorg-edgers ppa & a -git kernel.

Have a look at the first post here (a long way down in the OP is a Ubuntu Stuff section that with info' on using xorg-edgers & associated stuff) & maybe as many as the last 5 or 10 pages of this thread:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1238129

[itendo]

i could be wrong but it looks like the 5670 is built on a 128-bit architecture. granted the speed and clock may be amazing, but i had terrible benchmarks throwing two 4670s into Crossfire relative to the single (256-bit) 4870. since the 9800gt is 256-bit i would run that card based on the other recommendations above.

on the software side of things, i have been unsatisfied with ATI in linux and unless they step up i cant buy their cards anymore. personally i dont think they will step up. they let problems like RTM in anti-virus trip up full-screen applications go unpatched for a long time. and that was in windows. why would they branch out into a new territory with anything more than a wink and a nudge?

[ELD]

ATi have been fine under Linux for me, as for crossfire that would be going overboard for Linux, i could never see a need for two graphics cards on Linux. I could be wrong but i don't know of any game under Linux that would need it.

[Artificial Intelligence]

Space Invaders?







:popcorn:

[ELD]

Space Invaders?







:popcorn:

My bad, yeah the only game you will need two GPU's, damn aliens.

[handy]

@itendo: AMD/ATi are stepping up big time. The huge progress in the open-source packages is (apart from the team developing) due to AMD opening up the tech' info' on their GPUs & also helping out with some of the coding.

Power management is being incorporated now, in kernel .34, & continual 3D speed & quality improvements are happening fast. (I use kernel .34-git & the associated packages required for ATi GPU support, the 2D is excellent the 3D quality is usually superb & as with the speed varies in relation to the 3D engine being used though not as with the 3D speed that is also effected by the complexity of the graphics.)

Quakeio engined games are already running really well at high resolutions, & the Evergreen support is racing along, since AMD fairly recently released the documentation for the current series of GPUs.

Again I post this link, perhaps someone will look at it this time?:

http://www.x.org/wiki/RadeonFeature

[Artificial Intelligence]

<devils advocate>Is it a good idea to say getting an ATI when the driver is not yet up to pare with Nvidia? The user might get disappointed, when encountering problems or speed and features are not the same as if he chooses a Nvidia card. Wouldn't it be better to promote ATI cards the day the driver is as good'n'easy as Nvidias?

</devils advocate>

[myromance123]

I have to agree with AI on that.

The end user does not expect progress, the end user expects a complete and fully functional final product.

[sxmaxchine]

i would get the ati card because i like ati more then nvidia and it is a stronger card, however if the new drivers wont support the card then id get the nvidia

[cascade9]

a HD5670 is two series ahead of the 9800GT, out of the two of them go for the ATi HD card. It will be a lot better value for money. Plus ATi supports open source.

Two series ahead means little IMO. The 5670 is a mid-range card, the 9800 was a top-end card. They are pretty similar in perfromance-

http://xtreview.com/addcomment-id-11175-view-AMD-Radeon-HD-5670-benchmarks.html

I'm pretty sure that when I posted 'you could get a 9800GT' they were the same price. Now the 5670 has droped a bit, and the 9800 hasnt droped as mich, the 5670 is probably is slightly better value for money. Ever so slightly slower (depending on benchmark/game), but also uses less power and makes less heat.

i could be wrong but it looks like the 5670 is built on a 128-bit architecture. granted the speed and clock may be amazing, but i had terrible benchmarks throwing two 4670s into Crossfire relative to the single (256-bit) 4870. since the 9800gt is 256-bit i would run that card based on the other recommendations above.

Just like the 'generation' game the 'xxx-bit' game is fun if you like numbers, but not as important as you might think- the 128bit 5670 is on a par with the 256bit 9800.

Crossfire- Dont like it myself, and the only situations I can see it being useful in is 'I already have one pretty old card and dont want to buy a much better newer one' and 'I'm a massive gamer and dual-boot with windows' . Aside from that its not worth the bother (and not even then IMO)

Again I post this link, perhaps someone will look at it this time?:

http://www.x.org/wiki/RadeonFeature

Still too many 'WIP' and 'Mostly' entries for my liking, but its moving on along. :)

I'm be trying the free radeon out in the next few days when I try to get the old 9600XT going again.

[handy]

I'm just informing people that the ATi situation is in a process of rapid change; the unreliable support from ATi & AMD/ATi re. the proprietary drivers has rightly given the ATi GPUs a very poor name in Linux.

Currently the Catalyst drivers & the beta for the next version in particular are the best that AMD/ATi have ever produced, & by a long shot (from what I read on the Arch forum).

The open-source situation is a complete turn around from what it was 8 months ago (when work had already started using the portion of tech' info' already released by AMD).

The newly released Catalyst is the best yet, the open-source situation is an unstoppable train of improvement, though it may take until kernel .35 before the many are satisfied.

As I have said previously, for those that want to buy an ATi card, if the open-source solution isn't satisfactory, the closed Catalyst solution is working very well, so you can use one whilst you wait for the other to meet your requirements.

It's nice that nVidia is there too. :)

[Edit:]

Still too many 'WIP' and 'Mostly' entries for my liking, but its moving on along.

What I like, is how quickly things change on that X.org page I linked to. :)


I'm be trying the free radeon out in the next few days when I try to get the old 9600XT going again.

Let us know how you find it?

[cascade9]

I pretty much agree Handy.

For me, one of the major issues wth ATI was the 'orphaning' of older cards- which the free radeon drivers is (hopefully!) going to fix.

Without ATI, nVidia would be much more annoying..and vice-versa. Its just a pity that SiS, and worse yet, matrox, pretty much dropped out of the market. If I had my way, Matrox, SiS, Tseng Labs, S3 and 3DFX and a few others would still be around (yes, I know, ATI bought Tseng Labs, and nVidia bought 3DFX)

BTW, yeah, I know matrox still exists, but lets face it, parhelia was the last time they even tried, and they are still selling G550s (which are just upgraded g450s, which are just upgraded g400s, which are a major revision of g200- released in 1998!)

[Artificial Intelligence]

Nice to hear, handy ^_^

I really hope the ATI driver comes out nicely, nvidia needs the competition and Linux users needs drivers that makes the experience a pleasant ride. I know that you use Arch Linux, handy. Which are rolling release distro, so you (can) get all the latest kernels versus an Ubuntu user who can distro upgrade every six months. What I'm saying is, it's difficult for a newcomer if people are advocating ATI cards because the driver is great with version X of the kernel when kernel X is not available for Ubuntu yet :KS

[handy]

Nice to hear, handy ^_^

I really hope the ATI driver comes out nicely, nvidia needs the competition and Linux users needs drivers that makes the experience a pleasant ride. I know that you use Arch Linux, handy. Which are rolling release distro, so you (can) get all the latest kernels versus an Ubuntu user who can distro upgrade every six months. What I'm saying is, it's difficult for a newcomer if people are advocating ATI cards because the driver is great with version X of the kernel when kernel X is not available for Ubuntu yet :KS

Yes, I agree with you A.I., I try not to make the situation out as something it isn't. :)

I lifted the following from a long way down the first post here:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1238129

it is not suitable for new Linux users, but it is not really very hard to do either:


Ubuntu stuff:
===================================

For Ubuntu users, I've modified info' from a post by Nerd King, & placed it below. This is a how-to for upgrading your kernel & the other packages required, to those that will always be newer than any supplied in the most current Ubuntu version:

The Procedure:

1. System -> Hardware Drivers -> Deactivate any ATI drivers and restart

2. Go to http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/
& pick the version of the kernel you want to use, be careful with your choice, having a read of this thread will help you with that choice. (I am on Arch & using the current kernel .34-git & the -git versions of the other required packages with no problems. So keeping an eye on the last parts of this thread should let you know just what should be safe to use.)

3. Download and execute the following (in this order, switch to 64 if need be)
- linux-headers...all.deb
- linux-headers..generic..i386.deb
- linux-image....i386.deb

4. Restart

5. Add the xorg-edgers PPA (https://launchpad.net/~xorg-edgers/+archive/ppa), update, upgrade.

6. Reboot.

7. Profit.
===================================

[doas777]

This is a complex question as it seems that both are getting worse in the last 6 months rather than better. I've had nothing but problems with teh several ATI cards I have around (HD4200 and HD3870). they arenot supported by anything except the proprietary driver straight from ATI, and I have to rerun the installer with every kernel update. I get a black screen after reboot about 30% of the time after a kernel update.

never had these kinds of trouble with nvidia; the only issue I've had is that all the Geforce8000 series cards (at least 8200 - 8600) do not have overscan/underscan control capability for TV outs.

[handy]

This is a complex question as it seems that both are getting worse in the last 6 months rather than better. I've had nothing but problems with teh several ATI cards I have around (HD4200 and HD3870). they arenot supported by anything except the proprietary driver straight from ATI, and I have to rerun the installer with every kernel update. I get a black screen after reboot about 30% of the time after a kernel update.

Speaking as an Arch user, the Catalyst drivers have been a total pain for roughly the last 6 months, as they haven't been compatible with the version beyond 1.6 of the xorg-server (until the release that is out for Ubuntu 10.4). So Arch users have had to block approx' 6 packages from upgrading via the rolling release system, (including xorg-server) if they wanted to use Catalyst.

The new release of Catalyst will support xorg-server 1.7, which is little consolation for cutting edge users as 1.8 is due out in a few weeks or thereabouts.

What the Arch guys have been doing is using the Catalyst-beta version & compiling it to use 1.8 which works. So hopefully the AMD/ATi guys will incorporate the small change required so that it will just work with xorg-server 1.8 out of the box?

Apart from the above shenanigans, the Arch guys have found that the Catalyst-beta is really a great performer in both 2D & 3D, though it still has the odd bugs that effect some users, of course.

Re. the open-source solution, it just keeps on getting better, with very few regressions. The changes that happen over a period of a month are really phenomenal. imho anyway. ;)

It is probably easier for me to play on the cutting edge as an Arch user. There is a great thread & bunch of very knowledgeable regulars that are dedicated to getting the best out of what is available on the ATi GPU open-source front.

The nightlies are closely followed & tested, if it looks good then it ends up in Perry3D's compiled repo for us (which saves all that time compiling & patching). This all certainly makes it easy for me to ride on the back of their knowledge & work...


never had these kinds of trouble with nvidia; the only issue I've had is that all the Geforce8000 series cards (at least 8200 - 8600) do not have overscan/underscan control capability for TV outs.

I have had trouble with nVidia in the past, though they eventually fixed it.

Unfortunately with Linux, the combination of hardware/firmware that we are using still causes problems.

I agree with you, at this stage, for most people, the nVidia solution is still the easiest way.

[haddog]

nVidia seems to be the easiest to get hardware acceleration working with, though I have gotten pretty good with the ATI's also.

[DeusExM1]

ATI offers best bang for buck right now... Although i would probably wait for prices to all just a little bit.

[tekkidd]

Nvidia: They have the best support for linux

[tekkidd]

Nvidia: They have the best support for linux

My school runs on debian and i was they got some ati cards.

It took me and the IT like 10 hours working on it only to finnaly find out the drivers didnt work. We got some nvidia cards and got them working in 5 min

[handy]

Somewhat related as far as drivers are concerned xorg-server 1.8 is on its way:

http://www.mail-archive.com/arch-dev-public@archlinux.org/msg12804.html

[Edit:] This gives some more details re. xorg-server 1.8's changes:

http://linux.softpedia.com/get/System/Hardware/Xorg-server-30226.shtml

[aklo]

I support Nvidia.

It just works..for me....just install the driver and i'm good to go.

I'm using 8800gt.

[cascade9]

I'm be trying the free radeon out in the next few days when I try to get the old 9600XT going again.Let us know how you find it?

Just tried it (with sidux) and it seemed pretty good. Nice to just have everything work out of the box, no need to sod around with drivers at all (but still have better video than intel).

BTW, what version is the xorg-video-ati driver up to anyway? I had a look around but couldnt find the newest version number in my looking.

[MindFusion]

I'd personally never go for a ATI-card, since Nvidia has way more support than ATI does..

[dahli.llama]

I really have to say Nvidia right now. ATI is getting better, but the driver support just isn't there yet.

Just some anecdotal evidence from my machine. I installed a clean version of Ubuntu 9.10 this last weekend. I installed WINE and then World of Warcraft. I was using my ATI HD4850 card with proprietary drivers and I could barely get 15 FPS in the populated areas. Even with graphics on low in unpopulated areas, the framerates were poor. I then installed a Geforce 8800GTS that I has sitting around. I fired up Ubuntu, installed the Nvidia drivers and jumped into WoW. Now in the populated areas with nearly maxed graphics I was getting 30+ FPS. In lesser populated areas I was easily getting 50-60 FPS.

I'm really hoping that ATI support improves, because they do make some very nice cards, but right now Nvidia drivers in Linux still are a ways ahead.

[Viiral]

NVidia :KS

I ordered "XFX GeForce GTS 250 1GB PhysX CUDA" yesterday.

[Arthur_D]

NVidia :KS

I ordered "XFX GeForce GTS 250 1GB PhysX CUDA" yesterday.
I have almost the same card, except it's an MSI Geforce GTS 250. It runs exceptionally well, under both Linux and Windows. I'm getting several hundred FPS in some of the Linux games, and Burnout Paradise looks and runs totally smooth under Windows XP.

So congrats with the decision; I'm certain you will be happy with it. :)

[clutch|]

For my current build, I went with a GTS 250. Haven't had a single problem linux-wise with it yet, its cheap, and it will run the games you mentioned no problem. Combined with an i5-750 chip it can do 125fps rock solid with everything maxed in CoD4, CoD2, and Nexuiz. Other games I play on it include Bioshock 1&2, Fallout 3, Dragon Age, and Mirror's Edge and I haven't had to turn down a setting yet.

Keep in mind though that those numbers are all at 1024x786, which is native for me, but most people probably don't use an ancient CRT like I got stuck with.

[Artificial Intelligence]

Got myself a gtx 285 with 1GB :guitar:

[efikkan]

If you asked me a few years ago, I would say nVidia instantly.

Today I would claim the simple answer is nVidia got good drivers and AMD/ATI got ok drivers. The major issue for Catalyst is performance and lack of video acceleration. Both got a lot of bugs (in Windows too).


As of Catalyst 10.2, the windows driver got superior performance to the GNU/Linux driver.

As a developer the Catalyst driver annoys me a lot. The Catalyst bundled with Ubuntu 9.10 only supported old OpenGL 2.1, didn't support AA and got problems with vsync. Catalyst 9.12 and 10.1 was delivered with defective GLSL-compilers, I can't understand how this is even possible. Over 9/10 OpenGL failed on these drivers, do they even test their drivers before shipping? In Catalyst 10.2 I had to create a work around to access the tessellator extensions, since the driver failed to load it.

But it seems like ATI is finally improving their OpenGL support. Believe or not, but they were the first ones to add OpenGL 4.0 support. (I don't got any SM5 hardware to test it myself) Let's all hope AMD/ATI got actual support this time. Recently they have been late to add support, and when they finally did it took 2-3 months to get it working.

If you want performance or any modern graphics features, just forget the open source drivers for both AMD/ATI and nVidia. They are built upon mesa and is a complete mess. If you are planning on spending on a new graphics card and use these drivers, then don't buy an expensive one, because that's a waste of money. If these drives ever get decent performance in the next years they will still lag months or years behind the proprietary driver's features. Our best hope is that nVidia and AMD/ATI someday will make their drivers free, until then use the proprietary ones if you want performance and/or features.


As of today, I would claim nVidia is still the safe choise. But maybe someday ATI releases good drivers and then perhaps offers more value. For Windows AMD/ATI tends to offer more value.

[handy]

Just tried it (with sidux) and it seemed pretty good. Nice to just have everything work out of the box, no need to sod around with drivers at all (but still have better video than intel).

Cool.

All of us ATi GPU users are so looking forward to the continual easy installation/upgrading of perpetually up to date support. As opposed to the unreliable/inconsistent crap that the fglrx/Catalyst support has fed us forever.


BTW, what version is the xorg-video-ati driver up to anyway? I had a look around but couldnt find the newest version number in my looking.

xf86-video-ati-git 20100405-1

Last Updated: Mon, 05 Apr 2010 20:01:45, though I guess that, that is pretty obvious from its name. ;)

This is the version that I am using until the next useful update arrives in Perry3D's pre-compiled repo.

[handy]

If you asked me a few years ago, I would say nVidia instantly.

Me too, up until roughly 8 months ago, when I started to understand what was going on re. the open-source support for the ATi GPUs. & saw that AMD was releasing its tech' info' for the ATi GPUs to the world (now it has released it for all of their GPUs).


As of Catalyst 10.2, the windows driver got superior performance to the GNU/Linux driver.

The guys using Catalyst 10.4-beta over on the Arch forums are really happy with it (first time I have ever seen such a response for the fglrx/Catalys drivers). It is by far the best ATi GPU driver release. The guys there have even got it working with the pre-release xorg-server 1.8.


If you want performance or any modern graphics features, just forget the open source drivers for both AMD/ATI and nVidia. They are built upon mesa and is a complete mess.

I have to disagree with you. You have obviously not been keeping up with the incredibly fast development (primarily due to the AMD release of the tech' info' as well as their contribution to coding solutions for current problems).


If you are planning on spending on a new graphics card and use these drivers, then don't buy an expensive one, because that's a waste of money.

If you are referring to AMD/ATi card & the open-source drivers? Then due to the release of the tech' info' for the Evergreen (current) serries of ATi GPUs, the support is developing incredibly quickly.


If these drives ever get decent performance in the next years they will still lag months or years behind the proprietary driver's features.

Again, I think that you are very wrong. What will eventually happen, is that the drivers will be kept completely up to date with the kernel (as they are supported there too) & X.org & the other system files necessary.


Our best hope is that nVidia and AMD/ATI someday will make their drivers free, until then use the proprietary ones if you want performance and/or features.

Perhaps what AMD/ATi are doing by releasing the tech' info' for their GPU's & helping with the coding, IS the major part of their plan to make their drivers free?


As of today, I would claim nVidia is still the safe choise. But maybe someday ATI releases good drivers and then perhaps offers more value. For Windows AMD/ATI tends to offer more value.

I agree, at the moment nVidia is the easiest solution, but their days are numbered & the number of those days is shrinking very fast indeed. :D

[efikkan]

Check your facts.
I know AMD is releasing these tech documents, but Evergreen has been around for a while now, and the support in the open drives is not complete. Even support for OpenGL 3.0+ is far from complete. I think you should take a look at benchmarks comparing the open and proprietary drivers, phoronix does this from time to time. You'll notice that the proprietary drivers for AMD/ATI has about 5-8x performance and nVidia about 10x compared to the free drivers The difference is larger with nVidia because they don't release documentation, but there is still a factor difference i performance, and that is significant! This means a lower mid-range gpu with proprietary drivers will easily beat a high-end gpu with open drivers, that's why it's a waste of money.

I did have big hopes for the open drivers when AMD/ATI started to release documentation, but I got disappointed when I checked how they are building these open drivers. Unfortunately they are using mesa and gallium3d, don't get me wrong, gallium3d sounds like a good idea, but gpus are very different, so an attempt to get a common backend, but the performance is suffering from this. But the largest problem is the mess called mesa, have you even looked at this code? As long the developers are following this path the open drivers will lag behind the proprietary, although the performance gap may decrease a little the next years, there will still be a significant performance difference. I with they made a good OpenGL(OpenCL, etc.)-driver instead. As for now, the open source drivers are not good enough, and I recommend the proprietary drivers.

[handy]

I believe that mesa is scheduled for extinction.

Anyway, I have said what I have to say to you.

You seem to have unfortunately closed your mind on the subject; so let it be & let time do its thing.

It all comes out in the wash.

Peace. :)

[quadomatic]

Hmmm...ATI has been the best value for video cards for a good deal of time now. According to what's been said here, ATI performance has been increasing.

I used to use an ATI card, so I know that things were getting better. But, though ATI's drivers are getting better, is WINE's support for using ATI cards getting better? Honestly, the intel graphics chipset in my laptop has better support in WINE than my ATI card had.

[del_diablo]

is WINE's support for using ATI cards getting better?

Yupp

[5dolla]

while wine's support for ati is getting better, get a nvidia imo. You never
want to be in a position of waiting for improvement. Nvidia drivers are atm
way superior than the ati offering. and the 9800gt is great. lets put it this way.
I have a 4870 1gb ati card and my 9800gt 512 out performs it in every game i
play in wine on linux.

[quadomatic]

I have a 4870 1gb ati card and my 9800gt 512 out performs it in every game i
play in wine on linux.

Wow...that's actually pretty ridiculous. The 4870 should be destroying the 9800GT...

[AllRadioisDead]

The ATI drivers are a joke. Getting a Nvidia card was the best decision I've made. I run a GTS250 and It performs amazingly, I'm yet to find a problem with it.

[Sages]

I run a nvida Geforce GT 240 1gig and it is soooo damn good on windows :O but on linux my wow hardly brakes past 40fsp on high... altho on low it runs over 120fps.. So for me it might be my pent 4 cpu. But i would always go with nvidia over ati! hell ps3 use NVIDIA! :D

[Artificial Intelligence]

I run a nvida Geforce GT 240 1gig and it is soooo damn good on windows :O but on linux my wow hardly brakes past 40fsp on high... altho on low it runs over 120fps.. So for me it might be my pent 4 cpu. But i would always go with nvidia over ati! hell ps3 use NVIDIA! :D

Which driver do you use (version)?

[efikkan]

while wine's support for ati is getting better, get a nvidia imo. You never
want to be in a position of waiting for improvement. Nvidia drivers are atm
way superior than the ati offering. and the 9800gt is great. lets put it this way.
I have a 4870 1gb ati card and my 9800gt 512 out performs it in every game i
play in wine on linux. That's probably true. On my 4870 1GB, catalyst 10.2 for Windows (XP) got about twice the performance or more than the GNU/Linux version of Catalyst 10.2. on the demos I tested. It seems like AMD/ATI don't share too much of the OpenGL code in their driver between platforms. nVidia do claim they share most of the code between the platforms, and their performance is great. If the performance loss for AMD/ATO was 10-15% then it's lack of optimization, but when it's a factor difference it's something wrong.

(note: I could have tested more demos/games)

[5dolla]

Wow...that's actually pretty ridiculous. The 4870 should be destroying the 9800GT...

ya tell me about it lol. I wish i could pop that sweet ati card in and call it a day.

[Dreamer-of-Days]

The ATI drivers are a joke. Getting a Nvidia card was the best decision I've made. I run a GTS250 and It performs amazingly, I'm yet to find a problem with it.

I was looking at the gts250 to upgrade from my OLD x1650 and was wondering if the 1)proprietary drivers existed and 2)supported all the goodies like compiz and what-not in 9.10. I've enjoyed my ATI over the years, but they wanna stop giving me driver support for even their newer cards, then I'll stop giving them my munnies. It's annoying when I try to show off all the aesthetically pleasing aspects of linux when my bloody ATI can't even run 3D effects.

[Artificial Intelligence]

The 195.xx driver supports, this driver will be available as standard of the nvidia driver. There's a PPA for the driver for ubuntu 9.10

GeForce 200 series:
GTX 285, GTX 295, GTX 280, GTX 275, G210, 210, GTS 250, GT 220, GTX 260

GeForce 200M series:
GT 230M, GTX 280M, GT 240M, GTX 260M

GeForce 100 series:
GT 140, GT 120, G 100, GT 130

GeForce 100M series:
G 102M, GT 120M, GT 130M, G 110M, G 103M, G 105M

GeForce 9 series:
9800 GTX/GTX+, 9500 GS, 9600 GT, 9600 GSO 512, 9400, 9300 SE, 9600 GSO, 9300 GS, 9800 GT, 9800 GX2, 9500 GT, 9200, 9400 GT, 9300 GE, 9600 GS, 9300, 9100

GeForce 9M series:
9300M G, 9100M G, 9800M GS, 9400M G, 9600M GT, 9700M GTS, 9600M GS, 9500M GS, 9800M GTX, 9700M GT, 9400M, 9650M GS, 9800M GT, 9200M GS, 9650M GT, 9500M G, 9800M GTS, 9300M GS

GeForce 8 series:
8800 Ultra, 8600 GS, 8200 / nForce 730a, 8800 GTS 512, 8800 GTS, 8400 SE, 8300 GS, 8400 GS, 8600 GT, 8300, 8400, 8100 / nForce 720a, 8800 GS, 8800 GT, 8600 GTS, 8200, 8800 GTX, 8500 GT

GeForce 8M series:
8600M GT, 8400M G, 8800M GTX, 8400M GS, 8200M G, 8800M GS, 8400M GT, 8700M GT

GeForce 7 series:
7900 GT/GTO, 7950 GX2, 7950 GT, 7800 SLI, 7550 LE, 7800 GTX, 7300 GT, 7500 LE, 7100 / NVIDIA nForce 620i, 7350 LE, 7025 / NVIDIA nForce 630a, 7600 LE, 7900 GS, 7050 PV / NVIDIA nForce 630a, 7100 GS, 7050 / NVIDIA nForce 630i, 7150 / NVIDIA nForce 630i, 7650 GS, 7300 LE, 7100 / NVIDIA nForce 630i, 7300 GS, 7600 GT, 7800 GS, 7900 GTX, 7600 GS, 7300 SE / 7200 GS, 7050 / NVIDIA nForce 610i

GeForce Go 7 series:
Go 7800 GTX, Go 7900 GTX, Go 7950 GTX, Go 7900 GS

GeForce 6 series:
6100, 6600 GT, 6600, 6150SE nForce 430, 6200, 6200SE TurboCache, 6250, 6100 nForce 400, 6800, 6200 TurboCache, 6700 XL, 6600 VE, 6610 XL, 6800 GS, 6600 LE, 6100 nForce 405, 6150LE / Quadro NVS 210S, 6100 nForce 420, 6150, 6800 GT, 6800 LE, 6200 LE, 6800 XT, 6800 GS/XT, 6200 A-LE, 6150 LE, 6800 Ultra, 6500, 6800 XE

Quadro FX series:
FX 5500, FX 4500, FX 3800, FX 3700, FX 570, FX 3500, FX 4700 X2, FX 3400/4400, CX, FX 560, FX 350, FX 5800, FX 4000, FX 4600, FX 3450, FX 1500, FX 4800, FX 1700, FX 540, FX 370 Low Profile, FX 580, FX 1400, FX 380, FX 1800, FX 550, FX 4500 X2, FX 5600, FX 370

Quadro FX Notebook series:
FX 370M, FX 1600M, FX 570M, FX 360M, FX 3600M, FX 2700M, FX 1700M

Quadro NVS series:
NVS 280, NVS 210, NVS 450, NVS 290, NVS 285, NVS 440, NVS 420, NVS 295

ION series:
ION

GPU Computing Processor series:
Tesla C1060

[cascade9]

I was looking at the gts250 to upgrade from my OLD x1650 and was wondering if the 1)proprietary drivers existed and 2)supported all the goodies like compiz and what-not in 9.10.

Like Artificial Intelligence said, its supported by the newest drivers- the 195.xx drivers. Its been supported a lot longer than though, the gTS250 is very..er.. 'mature'. GTS250 = a slightly revised GT9800 = a slightly revised 8800GT!

BTW, that driver list is depressing. Still no support for the GT230, GT240, or the 300 series at all. I'm wondering if when nVidia finally get the 4xx seires out, if there is going to be another driver break (like from 173.xx when it became FX only, and the newer cards moved on to 180, then 185/190/195 drivers).

[myromance123]

From my past experience, and looking at all the posts here Nvidia is truly the better option (be it for now or possibly even in the future).

I used to be an ATI fan several years ago (loved the price and performance). After setting up my first Ubuntu machine with an X550 card and having the screen flicker like mad or just go black even after hours of reinstalling the drivers ( I was a beginner then) I got myself a slightly better card, still ATI. X1650. Black screen went away, still was the worst decision since screen kept flickering (with the open and closed drivers). It continued on with newer Ubuntu versions.

Got my first Nvidia card (after I was recommended to from appdb), a 9400GT and - I have to say- OH MY GOSH! It just works with every Ubuntu and gets better.
Darn easy to install the proprietary drivers too, although every kernel update is a nuisance.

Afterwards I got a laptop, made sure it had an Nvidia card (9300M GS) and yep still works like a freakin charm.

Nvidia have won me over. Its a sad state ATI is in. It does show though, that they are not really that interested in Linux. If this market mattered, they would have seriously pulled up their socks.

[mastablasta]

Nvidia have won me over. Its a sad state ATI is in. It does show though, that they are not really that interested in Linux. If this market mattered, they would have seriously pulled up their socks.

from what i read on history the ATI suddenly decided to close itself in and stopped working with community. don't know how would that help them... Now they are doing drivers on their own and not so good ones.

on the other hand I tried an old ATI card works well&no issues. I also tried newer card with liveCD and i have to say that problems were with a card with X in front of name. this was only live cd so no propper driver yet installed. while a bit newer radeon 4000something card worked perfectly. so i have to say from what i tried i had no big issues with ATI cards. i plan to upgrade the old ATI rage to Radeon 9600XT.

I did have it with old S3 card - OS GUI keeps crashing be it gnome. KDE or X. Haven't tried lubuntu (waiting for it to be released and i hope it will work later on...).

still it does seem Nvidia at the moment has better linux support. butd espite this people also have problmes with nvidia in linux (at least from what i can see on forums).

[handy]

...
Its a sad state ATI is in. It does show though, that they are not really that interested in Linux. If this market mattered, they would have seriously pulled up their socks.

To make that statement you are showing your ignorance of the current state re. AMD/ATi.

AMD have given the technical information regarding ALL of their GPUs to the open-source community.

AMD are helping the open-source community develop the open-source drivers, by coding their way through some of the problems.

AMD/ATi GPU support in Linux is improving so fast it it astonishing.

But to know these things you need to spend a couple of hours researching the topic. I've been following it fairly closely since well before last August, the changes I have experienced in the support for my R600 series card are phenomenal. The 2D is the best there is, & the 3D is now totally useful on many games at high res' with lot's of action.

So, to sum up, your statement is completely incorrect.

Only people who want top 3D frame rates NOW & those not prepared to use the development packages (as kernel .34-git has power management, amongst other things) are whining about how bad ATi is & are making the BIG mistake of saying that's how it will stay.

Admittedly, Ubuntu will not be one of the distros to benefit from these open-source improvements early, as it uses packages in its releases that are already quite old in relation to what the development community calls a stable release.

It is only the adventurous Ubuntu users that are now using development packages & tasting the improvements that are already at our disposal.

See this thread if you want to know more about this topic:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1238129

[mastablasta]

But to know these things you need to spend a couple of hours researching the topic. I've been following it fairly closely since well before last August, the changes I have experienced in the support for my R600 series card are phenomenal. The 2D is the best there is, & the 3D is now totally useful on many games at high res' with lot's of action.



heh it seems i've been reading old news sources as well.

you bring great news to me as i have ATI all over the place (Nvidia is on motherboards as "backup"...). I did notice that everyhting works with LiveCD however what i have to say is that i use relatively old card (1 or 2 year old) and i never tested intense games with it on linux (though in windows it works fantastic).

[handy]

...
you bring great news to me as i have ATI all over the place (Nvidia is on motherboards as "backup"...). I did notice that everyhting works with LiveCD however what i have to say is that i use relatively old card (1 or 2 year old) and i never tested intense games with it on linux (though in windows it works fantastic).

Some game engines still aren't functioning at a playable speed yet (but it will come), so if you had a range of games to test you will find some (like Nexuiz) are much slower than others (like any game based on quakeio engine), Glest works fine now for me, even though the update that did that for me did not increase my glxgears fps at all.

I'm using an HD2600Pro.

[efikkan]

Let me tell you something about graphics driver development. Both AMD/ATI and nVIdia start writing their drivers over a year before the final product is released, even long before they get the first batch from TSMC. This way they got working fully featured drivers at release date (but perhaps buggy).

This brings us to the first with the open source drivers. They will always lag behind because the spesifications are released after the products (even though Novell get them a little earlier than the public). The second problem is the developers has chosen to write the driver using mesa and gallium3d, and as long they are following this path the driver will not compete with the proprietary drivers in performance. The third problem is the developers have too different opinions, and there is far too few who wants to make an effort to create the solution.

I really wish a larger company would finance a good bunch of developers to write a new driver with strait guidelines. Perhaps a company like Google or even Canonical.

As of today the open source drivers is still lacking OpenGL 3.0 support, and supports old OpenGL 2.1 (2006). Last time I checked, we lived in 2010, and there is quite a lot of features to implement.

Unfortunately open source drivers and available spesifications does not mean good drivers, but of course it helps. But you need to understand it's quite different to make a driver for a webcam or a wireless adapter than several different gpus. Just look at the proprietary drivers, they are some of the largest pieces of software in a desktop computer. I really wish the open source drivers were the best, but open source does not weigh up against severe performance loss and lack of features.


When I was talking about AMD/ATI may be offering better value in the future, I was thinking about the proprietary drivers wich are improving. Maybe in 1-2 years or so they will be able to compete with nVidia in performance. But as of today, there should be no doubt that nVidia offers the best value for GNU/Linux users.

[handy]

As I said before, mesa is scheduled for extinction.

The problem that we have had to put up with, with the ATi closed support, is that AMD only support a few distros, (Ubuntu being one of them) so other distros such as Arch, that use cutting edge stable packages have a LOT of problems with Catalyst, due to (as has been the problem over the last 6 months with xorg-server) Catalyst not supporting current packages, including kernels.

This problem will disappear with the open-source drivers. As far as the advantages that the closed drivers have re. pre-release development for GPUs; that may well be so, but as it stands such technology is a waste for people that don't use windows anyway, as the native games don't need all of that GPU power & we can't play the most demanding 3D games under Wine/Crossover.

Also, as I watch the speed that the drivers are being developed for the Evergreen series (which only recently had its tech' info' released) It won't take very long for open-source support to be created once AMD release the relevant info' anyway.

The open-source developers are passionate, they aren't doing a 9 to 5er.

[myromance123]

Let me tell you something about graphics driver development. Both AMD/ATI and nVIdia start writing their drivers over a year before the final product is released, even long before they get the first batch from TSMC. This way they got working fully featured drivers at release date (but perhaps buggy).

This is exactly what I am getting at.

I can see that you are an ATI supporter handy, I was before as well. Nothing wrong there.

If the improvements of driver support can only be seen by "the adventurous Ubuntu users", then it is clearly not that big of an improvement. To get my card running before properly I was "adventurous" and gave up because it was almost unusable! With Nvidia you don't actually have to be.

If ATI was some small time business I would think they are jumping leaps and bounds now but they are big time players on par with Nvidia. End users expect 3D graphics capability NOW from a 3D performing card. When ATI get to that level it will be good news, which I hope they do.

It does show though, that they are not really that interested in Linux. If this market mattered, they would have seriously pulled up their socks.

I'm just stating the obvious viewpoint from my user end view. Aren't your statements the same?

but as it stands such technology is a waste for people that don't use windows anyway, as the native games don't need all of that GPU power & we can't play the most demanding 3D games under Wine/Crossover.
I guess you haven't heard of S2games or the Penumbra series...

[handy]

I'm losing faith in my ability to communicate.

Oh well, hopefully you'll see get my meaning as the year roles by. :popcorn:

[myromance123]

Well I didn't mean to fight or anything, just put up my experience :)

Hope no harm was done.
Sorry if I'm not fully understanding you.

[handy]

Well I didn't mean to fight or anything, just put up my experience :)

Hope no harm was done.
Sorry if I'm not fully understanding you.

There is no harm done. It is fun sharing ideas & investigating different points of view.

All very enjoyable. :)

[yozgoesdigital]

Any new insights after the release of Lucid?
With the new catalysts 10.4 driver and I believe also new nvidia drivers?

[urbanus]

I can explain this very briefly!

Platform: Ubuntu/Kubuntu 10.04
Drivers: The binary closed source ones

ATI HD4870x2 & HD3850 AGP:
- VIDEO TEARING

Nvidia GeForce 9650M GT:
- NO VIDEO TEARING


Summary:
Go for Nvidia people!!!

Sure theres the open source version of the driver, and those don't have video tearing, they also don't have 3D performance, you could just as well stick with a built in Intel graphical card instead. Also my 4870x2 "died" while gaming with the open source driver. I had to "force an unexpected reboot":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpcQ4wmeJaI

Ati & Linux don't mix all that great!

[hellknight_mnd]

Get NVIDIA.. I've been using NVIDIA cards since last 5 years ...

XFX Fx5200 - No problem whatsoever under any distro
XFX 8600 GT - No problem whatsoever under any distro
then, this april i switched to XFX 4870 1 GB...

It gave me a lot of trouble.. It wasn't supported by Fedora 12... X.Org conflicted with the crappy drivers.. isn't compatible with Arch too.. Works fine on Ubuntu 10.04 with Catalyst though..

Still, NVIDIA has VDPAU under their sleeve.. it can decode H.264 & HD videos smoothly.. whereas.. there is no support like this on ATI front.. Moreover, CUDA has more promising apps than OpenCL and ATI Stream..

So, get yourself a NVIDIA card, believe me, you'll thank NVIDIA... Don't go for ATI..