Graphic card that works?

[Michal Varga]

On Thu, Jun 30, 2011 at 19:03, Zhihao Yuan <lichray at gmail.com> wrote:

> BTW, the guys who recommend Nvidia a lot. Now I'm choosing my next
> laptop. I found a nice one but the graphic card is Nvidia Quadro FX
> 570M! Anyone can guaranty that the binary drivers works for a pro
> card?
>

Well, the only people who are capable to "guarantee" you anything are
Nvidia, that's a no brainer.

But as the professional segment is Nvidia's main focus anyway
(basically all consumer Nvidia drivers are a byproduct of their Quadro
drivers anyway, as that's the major industry where Nvidia shines), I
would really doubt that you will see any special issues there (well,
as far as a laptop can be considered 'pro', but if comes with Quardo,
it might be a good start).

Again, nobody will guarantee you anything, there are tons of possible
HW combinations and configurations, *AND* there are people that will
*ALWAYS* have issues. Nobody knows why. You can pick 10 random guys,
hand them the same computers, same 10 graphics boards, and there will
always be the one special flake that will claim that no matter what he
does "it's just broken, but he did nothing wrong, really". Nobody
knows why it happens. It just happens. Everybody has experienced this.
Everybody. Darn, how many times *I* have seen this.

So again, and as I've stated before somewhere in the beginning of this
thread. Do your own research, consider your choices and possibilities
that you have.

1. Do you want modern hardware?

- Ok. Matrox is out. VIA is out.

2. Do you want working, at least, *something*? *anything*? At least
basic 2D acceleration? Really working, not like "maybe this week,
maybe just this specific sub-minor driver version with seven extra
hand-tuned patches, maybe just with this single app"?

- Fine. Intel is out of question. You know how the joke goes:
"Hey, let's play this online game, what graphics card you have?"
"None. I have Intel."

Yes, it's not funny. It's pretty sad.

3. Do you want really working drivers? Not half-assed randomly
stitched together pieces of pseudocode lifted from incomplete and
obsolete documentation that AMD/ATI ocassionally throws at annoying
"linux hippies" to keep them at bay; but drivers. Real drivers. Like
professional drivers that were made by the people who developed and
produced the hardware and drivers that are current, frequently updated
and that support FreeBSD directly and fully?

- So ATI is out of question. Seriously, I'm not going into ATI
flamewars again. I don't work for Nvidia (and wouldn't care for them
even slightly if their products weren't so good - for me). And I
actually own ATI hardware, sadly. And I have seen so many ATI users
and experienced so many of their problems that I could have me made a
fur coat out of the hair I lost through it. It's a waste of time.
Anyone who can seriously *RECOMMEND* ATI card for anything but simple
desktop work (dragging windows and watching unaccelerated video) is
either completely delusional, or clearly hates the other person he is
recommending to (or simply never owned an ATI product but feels like
recommending them anyway, that happens too). If someone is dumb enough
to pick that advice even through the internet is full of easily
accessible information about how horrible crap ATI products are (both
in HW and SW, and the SW part especially counts for FreeBSD, where
there is comepletely *NONE* support from ATI), then, fine - let him
have it. As someone once said: No lesson is fully learned without
pain.

4. All other options: Nvidia.
Please. Look at what they produce, look what the whole frickin
graphics/design/ industry uses. Go find a professional graphics studio
with ATI or Intel "hardware". And good luck with that search.

It's not a hard math and you know what options you have. Nobody will
guarantee you anything - or - heck, I will guarantee you anything as
long as you pay me enough to make it worth it. Without that, it's up
to you and your research, and your conclusions. Reading just this
thread alone, I could clearly see my conclusion anytime (which is the
same for more than a decade anyway). I think the consensus, except for
ocassional "hey get an ATI" one-liners is pretty easily visible. For
me, at least. But then, I'm not into "open-sauce" politics and at this
point in my life, I'm only interested in my graphics hardware working,
because, heck, once in a while, I actually need to get some stuff done
on it. And it works, fully, be it 2D, 3D, x video acceleration, vdpau
decoding, dualhead setups, modelling in blender, linux games, wine
games... I have yet to ever find something that doesn't. Try the same
on ATI. Or Intel, if you're interested in an even more surreal
experience. Come back to write about your results.

m.