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ATI cards


energymedia
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I am looking at purchasing an ATI video card and wonder what everyone thinks about them. Good/Bad and the ugly stories are what I am looking for. I am looking to do some gaming so I would like to hear from gamers in particular (which is why I am posting here).

 

What ATI card should I look at is also what I am wanting to hear.

 

Thanks

Edited by energymedia
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The ATI vs NVIDIA arguement on this board has got quite heated at times. I've got an ATI card and have always prefered them to NVIDIA, but thats just me. There are drivers included with MDK 9.2 for the Radeonbut they only really do 2D. You'll have to download and install ATI's own Linux drivers to use the card properly. The general feeling seems to be that they are slightly harder to set up when compared to Nvidia's, but they do work well once installed. If you are a MDK Club member you can download all the packages pre-made for you.

 

Final note, if you have an AMD Athlon64 or Operton delay getting an ATI card as they haven't released 64bit drivers yet.

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Until ATI improve their linux support, I won't be buying ATI cards (unless I am stuck such as buying a laptop with built in Radeon). I heard of nothing but grief from setting up newer ATI cards in linux. Yeah it works after tweaking around, but isn't this the age of simple configuration? :)

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I've never used an Nvidia card, but I've also never had any real problems getting the ATI card s that I have/have had to work properly - I've had 3 so far including the two I have now: 9800 pro and a mobility (9700 I think but I'm not sure)

 

I've seen loads of posts with people having Nvidia problems - so I reckon that, at worst, they are about the same.

 

Reckon there's probably a decent element of personal preference involved.

 

One thing I do think is that ATI offer better value for money in terms of performance for your cash...

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Hrmm....

 

I am a Linux n00b, but recently upgraded my vid card from a *dare I say it* Intel on-board 32mb chip to the ATI All-In-Wonder 9600 pro. In windows, the install was a little tricky, but in linux, it was easy as hell!

 

I just d/led the drivers, put them on CD, switched to Linux and followed the prompts. It took about 3 minuts to install :D .

 

I don't really know what games everyone plays, but for the flight simulators I spend my time on, the ATI works better than the Geforce. (I know this, because the store had a demo of Combat Flight Simulator 3) The only thing you need to worry about with the 9600 and, I suppose the 9800 is the heat buildup in a small case.

 

Christian

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  • 3 weeks later...
I heard of nothing but grief from setting up newer ATI cards in linux. Yeah it works after tweaking around, but isn't this the age of simple configuration? :)

 

We (www.3dcenter.org) are looking into getting the Linux blokes with ATI to do a short Q&A regarding the stigmata of "bad drivers" and "bad developer support". Should anybody have any interesting questions to ask the people behind ATI linux drivers, please send me a PM. Rants are not welcome, but should there be Linux 3D devs around this board, please PM me in at any rate. Thanks.

 

93,

-Sascha.rb

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  • 2 weeks later...
Guest ajcecil

I use a Radeon 7500 Mobility in my laptop (I know - prehistoric) but it uses the open-source DRI drivers included in Mdk10 CE with no problems (Quake 3 at acceptable framerates). When switching back to X from tty - my screen only shows a funny display for 2 seconds until X refreshes - no problems after that.

 

I know it is not exactly a keen card, but I have been pretty happy with it - it even does Knights of the Old Republic in XP -- ahh, for a Linux port of that!

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All these people with Radeon...

 

Do you get garbled display when switch from Xwindows to console and back? :(

I have the 7500 in my desktop and I have no problems switching between an X session and a console. But mine being a 7500 may be the issue (like ajcecil said: "it uses the open-source DRI drivers included in Mdk10 CE")

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I have been using an ATI XPert 2000 Pro for quite some time now. In 9.1, 3D did not work, but I got it back in 10.0 CE. I know, it is an old card (32 MB). Then again, I am not a hardcore gamer. Recently, when I had to diagnose a no video - no post problem on my othe mobo, I got a new mobo and an eVGA GeForce 4 MX 440 SE dual head VGA (64 MB 4X AGP). I have prooblems with it in Win98SE with a not enough memory error for my printer driver (vid driver loads first). So I am not using it at all for now.

 

My interests ar in 3D CGI. So I am following this topic with interest.

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:headbang:

 

I have an ATI Redeon 8500 64MB DDR AGP and so far no problems what so ever...i got from ebay and it only costed me like $60 including shipping. I tried this video card under RH and Fedora, CollegeLinux and MDK 9.1 and now 10. So if you can get an ATI go for it

 

:thumbs:

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I just changed my Radeon 8500 for an Nvidia 5900XT and I am so HAPPY that I wonder why I didn't move to nVidia before :

- TVOUT works

- Winex works

- Games like Savage or NWN works

- several settings can be changed through environment variables (no need to edit the configuration file + restart X)

- performance is much better (this is not the same generation of hardware though)

 

In the past 2 years, I have been spending a lot of time trying various DRI releases + all the beta & non-beta firegl & ati drivers. With nVidia, I will hopefully spend more time doing productive tasks (i.e. fragging ....)

 

FFF

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