[TriLUG] Video card recommendations?

[John Matthews]

On Thu, 2002-02-28 at 09:14, Al Koscielny wrote:
> I'm looking for an AGP video card, to replace the old Riva TNT2 that 
> developed an ugly streak problem. 
> 
> ATI Radeon cards are about $40-50 plus S&H. Any suggestions for cards in this 
> price range?

What are you looking for in a card?

- gaming or 3D capabilities
- crisp 2D at high resolutions
- dual head
- DVI connector
- free software drivers
- lowest price possible, regardless of abilities

Depending on your preferences, the card recommendations can change.

I'm using a Radeon 64Mb DDR and it works wonderfully with Red Hat's
XFree86 4.2 packages, including 3D acceleration. I'm pleased with the
2D, although there are times when I wish it were better. (May be a
problem with my KVM.) NVIDIA cards are very fast doing 3D, but have
non-free software 3D drivers that many people blame when they run into
trouble. However, NVIDIA cards are made by different manufacturers and
the quality of 2D may vary from vendor to vendor. Matrox has free and
non-free drivers, and is generally very good at crisp 2D output;
however, their 3D is fairly slow. Kyro cards just got a 3D driver based
on DRI, but which is not free software. I don't know anything about
their 2D or 3D performance yet, but I do have a Kyro card to test with.

HTH.

Regards,
matt

-- 
Matt Matthews     \ ph: 919.660.2811        \ Use GNU/Linux  _o) w00t
Duke Univ., Postdoc\ jvmatthe at math.duke.edu  \____________   /\\
Dept. of Mathematics\ http://www.math.duke.edu/~jvmatthe/ \ _\_V