Got the chance to switch my ATI card for an nVidia one, should I take the chance?

[Extreme Coder]

I have an ATI Radeon 9200 SE (128 MB) which is my only source of problems on Linux. A friend of mine offered to take mine and give me his nVidia GeForce. He told me he doesn't know the exact name of the card, but he did know that it had 128 MB of VRAM. So should I take this chance, or is nVidia as much trouble as ATI on Linux? Do their drivers suck as much as ATI's? ( I do plan on playing 3D games, using Desktop Effects and playing media.)


Extreme Coder

[JimmyJames88]

Hell it's probably better than your 9200, might as well give it a try. I'm guessing if your friend is just giving it to you though its prolly an Geforce FX 5200 or so, yea 128 but still womps hehe.

[mstlyevil]

If it is a 6 series card you most definitely want to trade with him. The FX series has been dropped from Nvidia support so that may get a little iffy with drivers in the future. It still will probally be a better card than the ATI card.

[prizrak]

Generally nVidia drivers are quite a bit better. Find out what the model is and see if it would work with either the current or legacy GLX drivers.

[forrestcupp]

Flee from ATI. I had an awesome All-in-wonder X800 XL, and I'm selling it on ebay. Now I'm using my built in geforce 6100, which is very crappy compared to my AIW. But my awesome AIW doesn't work and my 6100 works flawlessly with 3d desktop and anything I throw at it.

[Extreme Coder]

I found out what his card was, it's a GeForce FX 5200, If it peforms better than my current card, will that be because:
1) ATI's drivers suck and nvidia's don't?
2) GeForce FX 5200 is more powerful than Radeon 9200 SE?
3) Both? :P

So I think I should go for the deal?

[mips]

I found out what his card was, it's a GeForce FX 5200,

So I think I should go for the deal?

Yes, answer to your question is '3- Both'.

http://www.devhardware.com/c/a/Video-Cards/FX-5200-vs-R9200/2/
http://www.ultimatehardware.net/280.htm

Now go and swap it, what are you waiting for ?

In case you are wondering it is supported by the latest nvidia driver, 9755.
http://www.nvidia.com/object/linux_display_ia32_1.0-9755.html
http://www.nvidia.com/object/IO_18897.html

[Extreme Coder]

Also add to the fact that I use the Radeon 9200 SE, not the ordinary one, which means that its 64-bit, not 128(much slower). That sets it then, no blocks are there anymore to Feisty :D
Thanks a lot mips and other guys, you've been a great help ;)

BTW, why was that guy keep saying that neither of them is good enough for a playable game? My card can play Warsow, UFO:AI, Second Life and American Army, all at very playable rates. That's what I like about Linux, I don't have to buy a $200+ video card to enjoy it fully ;)

Extreme Coder

[BarfBag]

DON'T GET THE 5200 FX! I used to have one with 256 MB of VRAM. Worst video card I've ever owned. Beryl was very unstable, and the 3D things weren't much better then some of the ATI I've seen.

[Extreme Coder]

DON'T GET THE 5200 FX! I used to have one with 256 MB of VRAM. Worst video card I've ever owned.
I'm not buying an FX 5200, I'm just trading my ATI Radeon 9200 SE for it.



Beryl was very unstable,
Beryl being unstable is the fault of Beryl itself, or your PC setup. And we all know how Beryl is unstable with ANY card ;)


and the 3D things weren't much better then some of the ATI I've seen.
My problem with my ATI card isn't being too slow or bad in 3D, its just that it takes too much hassle to set it up with FGLRX, its unsupported by ATI from a few versions ago, and that the latest FGLRX version for it that works cannot run on Feisty. Whereas nVidia cards generally take less hassle to get set up, are still supported by the latest nVidia drivers, and CAN work with Feisty. The fact that its a tiny bit more powerful is an added bonus. :D
Anyway the card is still coming next week, if you still want to convince me :D

Extreme Coder

[mips]

DON'T GET THE 5200 FX! I used to have one with 256 MB of VRAM. Worst video card I've ever owned. Beryl was very unstable, and the 3D things weren't much better then some of the ATI I've seen.

Beryl is beta software thus inherently unstable.

With nVidia he gets support with the latest up to date drivers.

nVidia is a breeze to setup, get going, especially in Feisty.

Either way, he is not spending any money, just doing a swap.

[mips]

Anyway the card is still coming next week, if you still want to convince me :D


When you get the card give us some feedback as to how things went. By the time you get the card Feisty will be out and installing the nvidia drivers in that involves a single click.

[NoVista]

Hey forrestcupp .. ..

I have the same ATI Wonder card as you, but agp.
I need to sell mine too.
Was curious how much you got for it on auction.

[Extreme Coder]

When you get the card give us some feedback as to how things went. By the time you get the card Feisty will be out and installing the nvidia drivers in that involves a single click.

Sure thing! :D
BTW mips, what card are you using?

[mips]

Sure thing! :D
BTW mips, what card are you using?

I'm fortunate to have a PCI-Express nVidia 6600 (Gigabyte GA-NX66128DP (http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/VGA/Products_Overview.aspx?ProductID=1217))

[patwack]

i thought the 9200 had full 3D acceleration with the free drivers, no?

[mips]

i thought the 9200 had full 3D acceleration with the free drivers, no?

Yes it does, but how well does it work under linux.

I actually own a 9600se, I developed such a allergy to it that I put it in my moms PC where it works fine under windows.

[patwack]

the last time i used one was about 6 months ago and if i remember correctly it had full support for direct rendering out of the box in edgy and it worked pretty well

[Extreme Coder]

While my current card works out of the box with Edgy and Feisty with 3D acceleration to some level, its 3D performance is very weak compared to fglrx. For example, in Warsow, I couldn't get it a semi-playable rate, While with fglrx it worked at a steady 30 fps rate with almost no drops.

BTW mips, your card is sold locally in a special offer for 110$. Don't know whether that's too overpriced or not.

Extreme Coder

[BarfBag]

I was in a hurry when I posted my opinion about the 5200 FX, so I'm going to rephrase.

I'm fully aware that Beryl is beta software. A little too aware. It was a lot worse when I had the 5200 FX, though. When transparency was off (transparent cube, etc.), it wasn't as bad. However, everything was just slow in general. I ended up upgrading to a 7600 GT, and haven't since looked back. It fixed all of the stability issues I was having with Beryl. I still have an occasional glitch, and it still hogs up just as much power - but it's almost (again - almost) bearable, while when I had the 5200 FX I despised it.

My friend has an ATI Radeon 9200. While the 5200 FX did slightly better with Beryl, games sucked big time. You'd think with 256 MB of VRAM it would run fairly smooth, but I couldn't even play Halo (in Windows); which was made before the video card.

I'm going to change my response. If you run a Linux only system, it's worth the upgrade. The Linux nVidia drivers are much better then ATI. You won't see anything but improvement. If you have a Windows partition that you use for games, I suggest you buy a more powerful nVidia card.

[maniacmusician]

When you get the card give us some feedback as to how things went. By the time you get the card Feisty will be out and installing the nvidia drivers in that involves a single click.
Is that only for Gnome or KDE as well?

[igknighted]

Is that only for Gnome or KDE as well?

In theory both, I think. However, restricted drivers manager is (IMO) the first thing to delete once you get your feisty system installed. Sure, when it works it is easy. But lots of times it doesn't work. And if you do the install yourself, use Envy, or even change Xorg.conf yourself in any way it screams at you until you run sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg. This was herd 4 or 5 I think, so it might have gotten better... but I don't need it so I disable it to save the risk and/or hassle.

[Compucore]

Well since we are on the subject of video cards here of ATI & Nvida. The FX 5200 from GEO forces I never had a problem with even under Hedge hog over here. Worked fine for me over here. I know I have two PCI Vodoo 1000 that I am thinking of using in one of the servers that still have 2 PCI 32 bit slslots available each running with 12 megs of ram. And I have had it hooked up with what looks like an IDE cable almost. Not eactly the same size but with teh greyish colour and the red marking on one size. Used it on one of my curent servers without a hitch. ANd runs nicely too. Its the old PCI accerelared cards.

Compucore

[mips]

Is that only for Gnome or KDE as well?

I know you are a KDE guy so you will be glad to know that I can verify that it works in Kubuntu with a single click as I have Kubuntu Feisty installed.

Does that give you a good feeling down the back of your spine ? :)

It gets even better, the same goes for codecs and the like like, just one click. If you have not installed them and you try to open something that requires these propr. things you will be prompted if you want to install them !

[hanzomon4]

I was going to buy a 5200 when I upgraded to dapper from breezy, Instead I bought a FX5500. This card is great and it was cheap. I've had beryl running without problems for months and I can play games without experiencing any slowdown. I say go for it..

[Extreme Coder]

When I want to buy a card, I would be aiming at something much higher( like a GeForce 7 or 8 series high-end card). But. I need what money I have now, so currently I just want something that can work with Feisty with the proprietary drivers( so I can use Compiz and my games) at the same/higher level of my Radeon 9200 SE. Thanks a lot BarfBag for clearing it up, but you also have to realize that my card is a SE edition, which means its 64-bit instead of 128, meaning that basically performance is halved.

BTW mips, did they add easy-codec installation, restricted manager and desktop effects to Kubuntu Feisty RC?

Extreme Coder

[mips]

BTW mips, did they add easy-codec installation, restricted manager and desktop effects to Kubuntu Feisty RC?


Dunno about RC. But the current version which is basically almost the final version has all the above things available as single click installs via the add/remove programs menu item.

[maniacmusician]

I know you are a KDE guy so you will be glad to know that I can verify that it works in Kubuntu with a single click as I have Kubuntu Feisty installed.

Does that give you a good feeling down the back of your spine ? :)

It gets even better, the same goes for codecs and the like like, just one click. If you have not installed them and you try to open something that requires these propr. things you will be prompted if you want to install them !
that's great. I don't see the restricted drivers manager in my menu though? I've been using feisty for a while, but it didn't install codecs for me automatically, I had to do that myself. I still have some files that won't play properly and I can't figure out why :) but I digress.

[mips]

that's great. I don't see the restricted drivers manager in my menu though?

Add/Remove Programs->Others->Ubuntu Restricted Extras
Add/Remove Programs->Settings->Restricted Drivers Manager

That should do the trick ?

[maniacmusician]

Ah, I see. Thanks.

[mips]

Ah, I see. Thanks.

For the DeCSS lib and w32codecs you have to use Medibuntu though.

[mikeymouse]

I am using a FX5200 Gforce in my pentium 4 and the card workes great with Ubuntu and anything else..
Now I am wondering.. I have the FX 5200 with 128 meg in my pentium 4.
I have an ATi radeon with 256 ram..in my Pentium D 930 and it works well with Ubuntu.
These cards are not interchangeable in my machines.. I do not know if you will have the same problem but i would check.
good luck
mikeymouse

[EdThaSlayer]

Get that nvidia card and prepare for a huge increase in the fps.

[maniacmusician]

For the DeCSS lib and w32codecs you have to use Medibuntu though.
yeah, I just realized what Medibuntu was earlier today. Till today, I had honestly thought that it was an Ubuntu project that was medicine-oriented. I can't believe I didn't know about it. It's going to be really helpful.

[mills]

iam completely clueless about cards but is ati 9200se really that bad?

i have exactly the same card and not one single problem with it. I've tried feisty for a bit and desktop effects worked perfectly and whats all this talk about drivers for?
everything worked out of the box for me, or was i just lucky?

[maniacmusician]

iam completely clueless about cards but is ati 9200se really that bad?

i have exactly the same card and not one single problem with it. I've tried feisty for a bit and desktop effects worked perfectly and whats all this talk about drivers for?
everything worked out of the box for me, or was i just lucky?
Are you using the open source drivers (the default ones) or the fglrx drivers (official ones from ATI?)

Very few ATI cards are well supported with the open source drivers (read: have fully functional direct rendering), and even fewer are well supported by the fglrx drivers. So I guess you did get lucky. You would still probably get bettter performance with an nVidia card.

[mills]

Are you using the open source drivers (the default ones) or the fglrx drivers (official ones from ATI?)

iam guessing i have the default drivers. like i said everything just worked when i booted up Ubuntu for the first time


Very few ATI cards are well supported with the open source drivers (read: have fully functional direct rendering), and even fewer are well supported by the fglrx drivers. So I guess you did get lucky. You would still probably get better performance with an nVidia card.

it wont be top of my shopping list since i don't appear to have a problem but if/when i do get a new card i'll play it safe and get an nVidia

ps; would it be obvious to me if i didn't have fully functional direct rendering?

[mips]

yeah, I just realized what Medibuntu was earlier today. Till today, I had honestly thought that it was an Ubuntu project that was medicine-oriented. I can't believe I didn't know about it. It's going to be really helpful.

Don't worry, you're not the only one :oops:

[mips]

iam guessing i have the default drivers. like i said everything just worked when i booted up Ubuntu for the first time

ps; would it be obvious to me if i didn't have fully functional direct rendering?

I suspect you don't have the restricted driver from ATI.

For those that want to try the ATI drivers provided by ATI in Dapper&Edgy please see:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=255929 (is the support thread for the link below)
http://albertomilone.com/driver.html (you will find Envy on this site)

If you are using Feisty it gets easier, you simply select Restricted Drivers from the Add/Remove Programs menu Item. So maybe it would be a better option to simply install Feisty.

All the above also applies to nVidia.