[PLUG] A good 2D-3D gaming video card for Linux?

Alan alan at clueserver.org
Mon Dec 30 21:47:03 UTC 2002


On Mon, 2002-12-30 at 13:19, Alex Daniloff wrote:
> Hello Linix folkz,
> Could somebody please recommend any good
> 2D-3D video card or a chipset name for 
> Linux with at least 64MB or 128MB RAM. 
> It has to be fully supported, be easy in
> installation and configuration without 
> a fuzz. 

There are three options here.

If you are wanting the fastest 2d performance, the Matrox cards seem to
be the best.

If you are going for blazes fast 3d, you are looking at the top end ATI
or nVIDIA card.

If you want to be able to play Unreal Tourniment 2003, then you will
want the nVIDIA.  (It uses some options in OpenGL that are not supported
by ATI yet.)

If you get nVIDIA, you will want their drivers.  (The ones included in
XFree86 work, but are fairly slow.

> I'm building ultimate Linux 
> machine for game programming and other
> very heavy graphical stuff.

Having a fast video card is only one part of the equasion. If you are
wanting fast compiles, you will want to have very fast drives.
(Ultra-scsi raid or something similar.)  Also dual processors will help.
Lots of memory will also help, but unless you have a hacked kernel or
the proper patches, you will see a slow down at about 800 megs or so.
(At least according to the kernel developers I have spoken to.  I don't
have that much in a single machine.)

Linux Journal has had a couple of good articles on building "ultimate
Linux boxes".

-- 
Alan <alan at clueserver.org>





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