Best nVIDIA entry-level GPU for X.org Nouveau in 14.04-LTS?
I have been testing an eMachines®/Acer® EL1210-09 (Advanced Micro Devices® Athlon 64® LE-1620; nVIDIA® MCP78S chipset/C77 GPU) upgraded with a Shuttle® PC6300001 power supply and Western Digital® 2.5" HDD in a custom shock mount under Ubuntu® 13.12a1, 14.01a2, 14.02b1, and 14.03b2 (Trusty Tahr™ development cycle), in anticipation of a mission as a projector driver; the basic system is stable in 14.04-LTS. To date, X.org Nouveau (package: xserver-xorg-video-nouveau) has run consistently with two video displays on one nVIDIA® GT218 GPU (in the PCIe x16 card slot) alone, but been unable to dual-head on this system between the C77 and the GT218, in these tests; and nVIDIA® GeForce® Software for LinUX 304.x (package: nvidia-304) has resulted in consistent KSOD's. Any attempt to use an ATi® half-height as the main GPU is contraindicated by a long history of hardware and driver conflicts between ATi Technologies and nVIDIA Corporation.
It appears that, due to the need to free the PCIe x1 slot on this system for a video input card, the operational solution will be an nVIDIA® NVS-Series half-height VDA based on either the GT218 (Tesla) or GF119 (Fermi) GPU; the NVS 400 (GK109 (Kepler) GPU), however, is less than ideal due to the use of quad mini-DisplayPort connections where I need dual analog XGA feeds in at least the short term. Although Phoronix® noted that the Nouveau Project has successfully reclocked the nVIDIA® GT216 GPU, no manufacturer uses the GT216 for the single-half-height-card solution I need for this system. On account of ongoing development of reclocking support for all nVIDIA® CUDA GPUs outside of the Maxwell architecture for LinUX Kernels 3.14-up, I have a new Kernel, probably 3.15-n-generic (probable metapackage: linux-image-generic-lts-utopic) wishlisted.
Between the GeForce® 8400 GS Rev. 3/210/GT 305 family and GT 520/610 family, which group performs more reliably? Links to reports would be appreciated.
Last edited by bcschmerker; April 25th, 2014 at 05:44 AM.
Reason: Ubuntu 14.10 official name.
nVIDIA® nForce® chipsets require discrete GPU's up to Pascal and appropriate nVIDIA Kernel modules.
Most intel® ExpressSets™ and AMD® RS-Series are fully supported in open source.
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