Which antique card is better with linux?

[Dustin2128]

First off, sorry for spamming the cafe, but I'm on vacation and bored. Anyway, I've got an old PIII 650MHz with 384Mb RAM and a choice in video cards. The distro I'm running is debian 6 (stable). I've got two agp cards I can use with it if I don't buy the Ti4200: An ATi Rage 128 and a voodoo 3. I don't think either of those have official linux drivers, so which one would run more stably?

[lykwydchykyn]

It's probably a toss-up, but I have several old laptops with Rage graphics chips doing just fine with the default ati driver (that's the one built in to the kernel, not the proprietary one from ATI).

I'd say try that one first, and if you have problems trade it out for the other.

[forrestcupp]

It's probably a toss-up, but I have several old laptops with Rage graphics chips doing just fine with the default ati driver (that's the one built in to the kernel, not the proprietary one from ATI).

I'd say try that one first, and if you have problems trade it out for the other.

I agree. But if you're just messing around with it, why not try out the voodoo card and tell us what happens? You can always switch it out, and it would be pretty interesting to know what happens with a voodoo.

I have fond memories of when Voodoo reigned with its awesome 3DFX.

[lykwydchykyn]

For the record, there *is* a display driver for the Voodoo, it should be installed automatically with xorg. Sometimes it's surprising what some of these old cards can do under Linux.

[Dustin2128]

It'd be fun to see compiz running on a voodoo 3. I plan on putting that card in a classic gaming machine though for glide stuff. Ironically, when I google compiz fusion voodoo 3, it leads me back to a thread I posted asking if it would work! :lolflag:

[forrestcupp]

I'm betting Compiz wouldn't work on it. I could be wrong, though. Let us know.

If I remember correctly, Voodoo cards didn't even run full OpenGL; they ran their own miniGL.

[mips]

I'd go for the nVidia Ti4200. I recon you would get better driver support.

[Dustin2128]

I'd go for the nVidia Ti4200. I recon you would get better driver support.
I know but I've got a phobia about spending money. I've got another 4200 lying around the house and I can verify that they're good cards though. I'd love to buy a Ti4600, if I could find one. Thing about old AGP cards is that they're illogically expensive online or they have illogically expensive shipping (looking at a 10$ Ti4600 atm with 15$ shipping- it weighs maybe half a pound, and I live within 100 Miles of the seller!!).

[LowSky]

Wasn't Voodoo purchased by Nvidia... maybe the drivers correlate?

I dont know....

[Dustin2128]

Wasn't Voodoo purchased by Nvidia... maybe the drivers correlate?

I dont know....
It bankrupted in 2002 and a lot of technologies like SLI were purchased by nvidia. However, by at least 1999, nvidia cards were starting to outperform voodoos in all areas. nVidia's SLI isn't even related to 3dfx's and with the inferiority of the cards by the time of the buyout, I doubt the architectures are even related at all. I'm probably going to end up buying a decent AGP card like a 6600 GT to stick in the P4 that has the Ti4200 so I can give it to my brother, which frees me to transfer the Ti4200 to the computer in question. As for performance so far, the R128 is OK, but the mouse cursor flickers. Haven't tried the voodoo yet.