[gentoo-user] Gfx for Linux Gaming

[gentoo-user] Gfx for Linux Gaming

[Mark Knecht]

Hi,
   I know this question is vague but I'm not a gamer so excuse my
ignorance and thanks in advance.

   I'm building a machine that is somewhat over the top for power - i7
980x 6 core, hyperthreaded for 12 processing threads, lots of cache,
24GB DRAM, 1TB RAID0 and 500GB RAID1. The main job for this machine is
to run maybe 5 copies of Windows 7 ( 10 threads ) doing number
crunching and Gentoo-AMD64 as the host. (If I ever find Open Source to
do what I'm using Windows for but that's for another thread in the
future.)

   Anyway, the machine is coming together and I need to get a graphics
adaper. I don't plan on doing much gaming, at least right now, but if
I wanted to get __moderately__ high-end graphics performance under
Linux what would I buy? Generally I prefer Open Source drivers but I'm
not political about it and historically have had better results with
NVidia than ATI but I own both and both work.

   I don't want to go over the top price-wise as it's not the purpose
of this machine at all, but I might as well have a little fun once in
awhile if possible. Assume maybe $200 for the card unless there's
something to really be gained going up a bit more.

Cheers,
Mark

Re: [gentoo-user] Gfx for Linux Gaming

[Robert Bridge]

nVidia at the moment is a bit of a risk, as there is a whole raft of
issues going on with nVidia hardware. If their drivers work, they will
likely give better performance and features than AMDs options, and so
long as the hardware holds up. Read up on nVidia bumps issue for more
information.

However... AMD have an open-source strategy and an official
open-source driver stack. Their open-source drivers are good, and
getting better, but are not feature complete yet, nor really
competitive for performance in 3D games. I'm not aware of any major
issues surrounding AMD graphics, except the general complaints that
the FOSS drivers aren't yet good enough.

YMMV,
RobbieAB

Re: [gentoo-user] Gfx for Linux Gaming

[Volker Armin Hemmann]

5850 or 5870.

You have a hard time to get anything besides a 250 from Nvidia (and Charlie 
predicted and explained that ...). And a 250 is just a twice rebranded 
8800....

Re: [gentoo-user] Gfx for Linux Gaming

[Mark Knecht]

On Thu, Apr 8, 2010 at 4:21 PM, Robert Bridge <robert@robbieab.com> wrote:
> nVidia at the moment is a bit of a risk, as there is a whole raft of
> issues going on with nVidia hardware. If their drivers work, they will
> likely give better performance and features than AMDs options, and so
> long as the hardware holds up. Read up on nVidia bumps issue for more
> information.
>
> However... AMD have an open-source strategy and an official
> open-source driver stack. Their open-source drivers are good, and
> getting better, but are not feature complete yet, nor really
> competitive for performance in 3D games. I'm not aware of any major
> issues surrounding AMD graphics, except the general complaints that
> the FOSS drivers aren't yet good enough.
>
> YMMV,
> RobbieAB
>
>

Thanks for the pointer on the nvidia problem. I hadn't heard about that, and:

1) I've got a 2 year old out-of-warranty Compaq laptop that's having
trouble booting. As best I can tell it's not the disk and it's not
memory, so...
2) I just put a fanless 9500GT-based card in my wife's new machine

Guess I'm right in the thick of it as testing for lead vs eutectic
bumps is not something you can figure out with a piece of software...

I used to work in the semiconductor industry. The thing I'd worry
about is whether the company doing packaging for nvidia, and it's
almost certainly not nvidia themselves, have used these same high-lead
bumps that they sold nvidia. If they have then anyone's chips could
potentially have these same problems.

OK, so let's investigate AMD/ATI at bit more. Am I understanding
Volker's response that I want to look at the 5000 Series from ATI?

http://www.amd.com/us/products/desktop/graphics/ati-radeon-hd-5000/Pages/ati-radeon-hd-5000.aspx

Looking at NewEgg I think all the 5850 & 5870's are just more
expensive than I want to pay. There are some 5730's for around $240,
but tax and shipping is going to drive that over $300 which is still
pretty step for something I won't use much.

As I won't game and sometimes do music (writing, recording, listening,
etc.)  much I would appreciate quiet (i.e. - fanless) everyday whereas
gaming might happen just once in awhile. So far I haven't spotted any
5700 or 5800 that are fanless. I do see 5500 and 5600 devices:

5570
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131349

5670
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131348

Prices are acceptable on both of those, although I'm sure the
performance is probably lacking a bit. I'll have to look around at
relative benchmarks to understand anything about the performance
metrics.

Thanks,
Mark