AMD/ATI or Nvidia

[BuffaloX]

Sadly my old Geforce 7950 GX2 just burned out. :(
So I need a new graphics card.
Nvidia has always served me well with Linux, and ATI has not been so great.
Now AMD has opened specs for the AMD/ATI graphics cards, and open source drivers are better, plus the closed source drivers should be better too.

I'm considering GeForce 9800GT or Radeon 4850
The Radeon 4850 is a bit more expensive and a bit faster, but these are best value for money in my area.

3D is a must, I love Compiz and other 3D stuff.
Do the open source drivers for AMD work well with both 2D and 3D
Are the Open source AMD/ATI drivers easy to install?

In short which is best for Ubuntu Nvidia or AMD/ATI

PS I expect Open source driver to be slower than proprietary, but that's OK, as long as it works.

[mips]

nVidia drivers are still the best out there. ATI is going to take some time although they are getting better at a fast pace.

[Perfect Storm]

If you're gaming, Nvidia is still a must.

[marcgh]

I am using the ATI radeon 4850.

With the new drivers (catalyst) no more problems and full functionality!

Forgot to tell : games that I play :
Supertux2
OpenArena
American Army

[FuturePilot]

From my experience Nvidia still gives the best overall performance.

[Stalker72]

Nvidia. Enough said.

Stalker72

[eragon100]

Definitely Nvidia. Gaming works much better, they support video decoding on the GPU (AMD doesn't), compiz works fine while with AMD you often have video tearing if you enable compiz, so you are basically forced to disable it if you want to watch a video.

Also, wine has tons of problems with the ATI drivers (the other way around actually), it works 10000 times better with Nvidia.

Nvidia :wink:

[kk0sse54]

Nvidia, I used to curse my ati driver evertime I'd try out FreeBSD.

[Onoskelis]

The ATI 4850 is the best midrange card you can buy. It beats the 9800GT in every benchmark.

ATI drivers are fine. Linux isn't meant for gaming, so don't bother.

[Perfect Storm]

The ATI 4850 is the best midrange card you can buy. It beats the 9800GT in every benchmark.

ATI drivers are fine. Linux isn't meant for gaming, so don't bother.

That's a bunch of nonesens. People actually are gaming on Linux, including me.
So please speak for yourself, thanks.

[Twitch6000]

well if you want the newest graphics card of either one I would suggest trying ati only because I heard their newer cards work better then nvidia's newest cards.(this is only what I have heard)

Now if you want a mid level card I would get a nvidia 8series

[BuffaloX]

Thanks I think I'll go with ATI,
Because they at least have opened their specs.
I went for the 4830, because the difference in price to the 4850 is greater than the difference in performance.

I understand their drivers still have some quirks, but the tearing for video playback with compiz seems to be solved.
Well it's not a super duper card, but it seems to be able to handle games just fine.

3 years ago I swore NEVER to buy ATI again, but maybe I'm just stupid. :p

[bobmatino17]

ive used Nvidia all my life with linux(however short that may be) besides a Voodoo card once... Nvidia always worked great with my favorite games and compiz too, id keep using Nvidia.