need good video card for XFree86

[Steve Bellovin]

Any suggestions on a good AGP video card? It needs to work well with
our favorite operating system, of course, or I wouldn't be posting
here, but it also needs to perform well when my son boots the video
game loader from Redmond.

--Steve Bellovin

[Jared D. McNeill]

I have a Diamond Viper V770 AGP, based on the nVidia RIVA TNT 2
chipset. I have the 16M version, and it works perfectly with XFree86 3.3.6
and 4.0. There are (half good) OpenGL drivers for the card in pkgsrc as
well, with utah-glx (Mesa-glx in pkgsrc), and the card performs extremely
well under Windows and Linux (with the nVidia XFree86 4.0 drivers).

Hope this helps,

Jared

On Mon, 17 Jul 2000, Steve Bellovin wrote:

> Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2000 13:12:37 -0400
> From: Steve Bellovin <s...@research.att.com>
> To: port...@netbsd.org
> Subject: need good video card for XFree86

[AnorEXia]

This is really relative, but the new Diamonds and ASUS are perfect
Check Ebay for ASUS, there're lots

[Chris Baird]

> I have a Diamond Viper V770 AGP, based on the nVidia RIVA TNT 2
> chipset. I have the 16M version, and it works perfectly with
> XFree86 3.3.6 and 4.0.

I can say the same thing for my ATI RagePro. I've never before had a
video card so trouble and "quibble" free-- XFree 3&4 work flawlessly at
all depths and sizes, svgalib-based programs work as designed, there's
glx, never had any weird/unexplained crashes or failures, etc. And it
was affordable too.

Under no circumstances should you buy an S3 "Savage"/Trio3D card. The
word "doorstop" comes to mind.

--
Chris Baird,, <c...@brushtail.apana.org.au>

[Piter G Oseneff]

I think that you will need any video card based on an nVidia TNT2 graphic processor.
It works fine under NetBSD and also M$ Windows 98/2000 as well.

Steve Bellovin (s...@research.att.com) wrote:
> Any suggestions on a good AGP video card? It needs to work well with
> our favorite operating system, of course, or I wouldn't be posting
> here, but it also needs to perform well when my son boots the video
> game loader from Redmond.
>
> --Steve Bellovin
>
>

--
Petr G Osenev
System Administrator , SITEK ITSP

[Andrew Gillham]

The only caveat with the nvidia cards would be the decided lack of OpenGL.
Once someone ports the Linux kernel module that is required, the newest
drivers should work. Until then the nvidia cards are not ideal for using
any kind of hardware GL under NetBSD. The Matrox G400 Max might be a better
choice considering the support for DRI under XFree86 4.0.1.

If you just want fast 2D under NetBSD and fast 2D/3D under your GUI Game
Loader, then the nvidia cards would be _ideal_ for you. I would suggest
checking with pricewatch.com as a lowend GeForce256 can be had for about $130
which would be a better deal than many TNT2 cards. Unless you get a TNT2-M64
which is basically the same speed as an original TNT card.

-Andrew

[Frank van der Linden]

On Mon, Jul 24, 2000 at 04:44:17PM -0400, Andrew Gillham wrote:
> The only caveat with the nvidia cards would be the decided lack of OpenGL.
> Once someone ports the Linux kernel module that is required, the newest
> drivers should work. Until then the nvidia cards are not ideal for using
> any kind of hardware GL under NetBSD. The Matrox G400 Max might be a better
> choice considering the support for DRI under XFree86 4.0.1.

Wait a minute.. I've been using XFree86 3.3.x with the code that nvidia
made available quite some time ago, compiled into a GLX extension module,
and a patched Mesa library to go along with it. I have a TNT2 card, and
it's working fine.. You must be talking about something different.

Maybe some kind of kernel module under Linux is required under 4.0,
but 3.3.x has been working fine for me with GL and a TNT2.

- Frank

[Scott Presnell]

Frank van der Linden wrote:
>
> On Mon, Jul 24, 2000 at 04:44:17PM -0400, Andrew Gillham wrote:
> > The only caveat with the nvidia cards would be the decided lack of OpenGL.
> > Once someone ports the Linux kernel module that is required, the newest
> > drivers should work. Until then the nvidia cards are not ideal for using
> > any kind of hardware GL under NetBSD. The Matrox G400 Max might be a better
> > choice considering the support for DRI under XFree86 4.0.1.
>
> Wait a minute.. I've been using XFree86 3.3.x with the code that nvidia
> made available quite some time ago, compiled into a GLX extension module,

I've also been using the GLX extension module for Xfree86 3.3.6 with a TNT
card. There are occasionally problems with the GLX code, but basically it
works.

FWIW, A PPro with Mesa/GLX XFree 3.3.6 w/TNT card beats the pants off a
SGI Indigo**2 (75Mhz R8000) with "Extreme" graphics, at least when playing
"tank." (but the SGI is more stable)

- Scott

[Andrew Gillham]

> On Mon, Jul 24, 2000 at 04:44:17PM -0400, Andrew Gillham wrote:
> > The only caveat with the nvidia cards would be the decided lack of OpenGL.
> > Once someone ports the Linux kernel module that is required, the newest
> > drivers should work. Until then the nvidia cards are not ideal for using
> > any kind of hardware GL under NetBSD. The Matrox G400 Max might be a better
> > choice considering the support for DRI under XFree86 4.0.1.
>
> Wait a minute.. I've been using XFree86 3.3.x with the code that nvidia
> made available quite some time ago, compiled into a GLX extension module,

> and a patched Mesa library to go along with it. I have a TNT2 card, and
> it's working fine.. You must be talking about something different.

Hmm, I did say "... are not ideal ..." I didn't mean to imply that the
GLX + 3.3.x combination didn't work, as I use it, but it is buggy and
not very fast for things that need a lot of OpenGL bandwidth. (like games,
but potentially 3D CAD, etc)

I would say for something looking for a new card that the current level
of support for nvidia is not very good. The matrox support appears to be
much better considering it is supported on 3.3.x with GLX and with DRI
under 4.0.1. Under 4.0.1 on NetBSD the nvidia cards are plain broken.

e.g. serious gamma problems that appear under wscons when switching between
virtual consoles (text and XFree86), and I have had several kernel panics
under 1.5_ALPHA where it dropped into ddb. This was of course worthless
considering I was still in X.

> Maybe some kind of kernel module under Linux is required under 4.0,
> but 3.3.x has been working fine for me with GL and a TNT2.

Well I personally hope to see 4.0.1 integrated at some point. The current
level of support with 4.0.1 and nvidia can barely be called such. At least
when considering 3D. (and why buy a TNT2 if you don't care about 3D)

Again, I'm just saying that a Matrox G400 might be a better card for a
new purchase, particularly with the dual head possibilities and the solid
support under 3.3.x and 4.0.1. (based on reviews, release notes and other
people's comments, I don't have one)

I have a STB Riva 128, STB TNT, generic TNT2-M64, and Diamond Viper 770
Ultra (TNT2 Ultra) so I would _love_ to see better nvidia support under
XFree86 4.0.1 and NetBSD. XFree86 4.0.1 is the future, so it is sad to
see this bold new release _lose_ significant functionality on NetBSD.
(at least for me)

-Andrew

[Jared D. McNeill]

On Mon, 24 Jul 2000, Scott Presnell wrote:
> > Wait a minute.. I've been using XFree86 3.3.x with the code that nvidia
> > made available quite some time ago, compiled into a GLX extension module,
>

> I've also been using the GLX extension module for Xfree86 3.3.6 with a TNT
> card. There are occasionally problems with the GLX code, but basically it
> works.

If you've ever used the XFree86 4.0 drivers from nVidia with a TNT2,
you'll notice a HUGE performance difference. It's not even close; the GLX
module for XFree86 3.3.6 (from Utah-GLX) is a joke. nVidia won't release
enough specs on the card to make usable drivers, that's why the Linux
drivers are binary-only.

Jared