PDA

View Full Version : [all variants] Hp nw8440 ati firegl v5200



chrisj78
April 18th, 2013, 12:43 PM
Hi all

I'm looking to move from windows to Ubuntu and from everything I've read it seems my graphics card may cause an issue for me. AMD no longer supports it and hasnt for years so it falls under their legacy drivers.

From some google searching I could probably get it run 2D but not 3D.

I do a lot of 3D work on my system (models, animation etc) so really need full 3D on my system.

The same google searches show that full support would be available but only on Ubuntu 8.10 or older. Being that we are currently on 12.10 is it really worth installing such and old version or should I just stick with windows?

If anyone knows of any more recent version that will work for me please let me know. Ubuntu is simply the one I'm farmiliar with but anything that works will do.

Thanks

Chris

Mark Phelps
April 18th, 2013, 01:52 PM
...I'm looking to move from windows to Ubuntu and from everything I've read it seems my graphics card may cause an issue for me. AMD no longer supports it and hasnt for years so it falls under their legacy drivers....

You've answered your own question -- to get the 3D you need, you will have to upgrade to a more modern card that IS supported. That means, at a minimum, an HD 5x-series card.

chrisj78
April 18th, 2013, 02:47 PM
Thanks for the info. In that case is it still possible to use older versions of Ubuntu such as 8.10 or older.

Sorry if the question seems stupid my knowledge of Linux is very limited.

Thanks

Mark Phelps
April 18th, 2013, 07:12 PM
Thanks for the info. In that case is it still possible to use older versions of Ubuntu such as 8.10 or older.

You can "use" an old version of Ubuntu for as long as you like ... however ... that version reached end-of-life years ago. This means no more security updates and, over time, new versions of apps probably won't work, either.

chrisj78
April 23rd, 2013, 04:29 PM
done some more searching and it shows on the xorg radeon wiki that my card is listed, it based on x1600 chipset, I've loaded the live version of 12.10 as I happened to have the disc laying around and everything seems to display just fine.

Is there something I should be doing to make sure that 3D is working?

chrisj78
April 24th, 2013, 10:19 AM
UPDATE

I ran ubuntu from the DVD last night in live mode and everything looked fine. I ran the unity support test and everything passed. Ran glxgears and was getting a constant 60 fps.

I downloaded Blender 3D and opened it no problem though didnt have time to open any models but the fact that Blender opened without any errors seems to be a good sign.

chrisj78
April 26th, 2013, 11:28 AM
Final Update.

Fully installed Ubuntu 12.10 and everything is running fine. I've been able to fully render 3D models in Blender.