Ati VS Nvidia in Linux

miros84 · n00b Joined: 29 Dec 2009 Posts: 1

I want to buy a new computar, and I was wondering which is the best supported and has better perfomence in Linux systems? I want to play HD movies
Tell me your opinions.

aceFruchtsaft · Posted: Tue Dec 29, 2009 12:14 pm Post subject:

Nvidia's binary driver is still much better than ATI's proprietary one, IMO. On the other hand, the open source drivers for ATI card are more advanced than the one for Nvidia cards (nouveau), but still cannot keep up with ATI's binary driver as far as 3D acceleration is concerned.

I'd probably recommend Nvidia, however they currently only offer DX 10.1 cards while ATI already supports DX 11 (this might be relevant in the near future if you have a dual boot setup with Windows for gaming).

r3tep · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 10 Sep 2005 Posts: 108

Jaglover · Posted: Tue Dec 29, 2009 1:30 pm Post subject:

zlomek · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 09 Nov 2009 Posts: 123

The best is INTEL :wink:

Naib · Posted: Tue Dec 29, 2009 4:33 pm Post subject:

What do you want todo?

nvidia is still the best if you want 3D stuff for game.

ATi with their improved drivers are getting better but still hit& miss sometimes.
Providing openspecs is nice and all but for an end-user it is essencially useless for those that just want a GPU that works in linux. Maybe in a couple more years but atm don't count on it

intel cards are nice but not that powerful.

So just review what you want from it. I would personall go nvidia
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drescherjm · Posted: Tue Dec 29, 2009 5:19 pm Post subject:

leo.the_zoo · Apprentice Joined: 04 Jul 2005 Posts: 160 Location: Poland

I also want to buy new laptop. Currently my notebook has ATI X1600 Mobility on board and it worked quite fine until one day Ati decided to discontinue support for my graphics card after 2 years, which meant that I had to switch to open source drivers if I wanted to update the kernel. On the contrary, at work I have a much older box with Nvidia card and it's still supported! That's why although ATI seems to be producing better cards recently, I will stick to Nvidia. The other reason is that many scientific (and others too) applications are being written using Nvidia CUDA technology while AMD is just starting with their Stream technology.
Or maybe I'm wrong with my ATI prejudice? What would YOU say?

Ant P. · Watchman Joined: 18 Apr 2009 Posts: 6920

d2_racing · Posted: Sun Mar 14, 2010 4:11 am Post subject:

NathanZachary · Moderator Joined: 30 Jan 2007 Posts: 2605

My vote certainly goes to nvidia. I have had problems with ATi, and Intel graphics support is just awful as of current.
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i92guboj · Posted: Sun Mar 14, 2010 5:34 am Post subject:

For 3d, nVidia with proprietary drivers. For anything else, ATi with the open source driver (eventually 3d will catch up, but today nVidia is the best option for that in Linux). There's no point in using an Intel chip.

d2_racing · Posted: Sun Mar 14, 2010 3:41 pm Post subject:

Right now I vote for Nvidia.

sl70 · Guru Joined: 18 Jun 2002 Posts: 455 Location: Saitama, JP

If you use or plan to use multi-head, skip nvidia. I had a very nice, super-fast nvidia Quadro 295 GTX in my newest machine, but there was no support for XRandR in the nvidia drivers. That means for my dual-monitor setup I had to use Xinerama. Due to a bug in that library, the cursor would skip randomly between screens when moving or dragging windows between screens. In addition, there were no virtual consoles available. When you hit Ctrl-Alt-F[1:6], all you got was a black screen.

I bought an ATI HD4350 from Newegg for about $19 after rebate. It supports XRandR (goodbye flitty cursor), and I get a proper virtual console. Not nearly as fast as the nvidia card but I don't care. I'm never going back.

Cyker · Veteran Joined: 15 Jun 2006 Posts: 1746

Right now I'd still say nVidia. They still have the best balance of hardware and driver stability although it's a hassle dealing with the binary blob and Gentoo's version changes sometimes.

ATI cards are seemingly faster on paper but despite them being taken over by AMD they still can't write decent drivers to save their lives, and the source drivers still have a way to go

Intel stuff will usually Just Work (Well, not so much the new GEM driver stuff...), but are very basic.

If it's just for playing movies and your CPU is beefy enough, an Intel will work.

Disclaimer: I've never gotten the decoding acceleration to work on nVidia, ATI or Intel graphics chips in Linux so in my case they all play video with the same overhead!
Some others here might be able to give their experiences on how easy it is to get the decoding acceleration working on ATI/NV hardware tho'; That is really the only real reason to pick one of them over an Intel card for video playback reasons.

krinn · Watchman Joined: 02 May 2003 Posts: 7470

nvidia !

i will end my life at vomit on ati

Roman_Gruber · Posted: Mon Mar 15, 2010 11:23 am Post subject:

Well my nvidia card in my notebook 9800mGTS, is now supported. It has a bios bug, so I had to patch all my kernels manually for a year. Now this card is supported. The laptop is 13 months old now. The graphics card is expensive but worth its dollars. Also all livecds doesnt worked for me in native resolution for about a year now. I hate to say that, but nvidia is not my choice. I had a x700 ati card for my laptop before, and that card worked out of the box.

Also I hate that nvidia idiot idea, to rename their cards. My card is now named mobile 250gt or so, the only difference is nothing! They only overclock the cards a little and give them another newer name. Very confusing!

Well for intel, I have orded a laptop now, and I will see how awful intel really is. I expect the worst and no gaming at all from Intel.

Well one vote for nothing.

ATI worked like a charm, but thats 2 years ago, 2 years are ages in computer technology
NVIDIA creat gpu, but driver and bios bugs (in windows 1 of 5 downloaded drivers are working, but all drivers are supposed to work on windows xp)
intel ... I have ordered today a notebook with an intel card, i will see this later.

d2_racing · Posted: Mon Mar 15, 2010 1:51 pm Post subject:

Post some feedback when you will have a working laptop.

I hope that your intel video card will not be a pain in the ass, because sometimes it can.

wswartzendruber · Posted: Fri Apr 02, 2010 7:40 am Post subject:

Eh, my GMA 4500MHD has been smooth with kernel modesetting. I really don't understand all the Intel hate.

sidarali · n00b Joined: 13 Nov 2007 Posts: 3

nvidia with their proprietary driver and vdpau enabled decreases cpu video decoding usage dramatically in linux.

keenblade · Veteran Joined: 03 Oct 2004 Posts: 1087

Roman_Gruber · Posted: Fri Apr 02, 2010 11:55 am Post subject:

d2_racing · Posted: Fri Apr 02, 2010 5:09 pm Post subject:

keenblade · Veteran Joined: 03 Oct 2004 Posts: 1087

wswartzendruber · Posted: Fri Apr 02, 2010 7:50 pm Post subject:

Before you guys trash Intel, remember that they've had before day one support for their graphics chips.