xorg gfx card: amd64+xvideo+decent 2d performance

[Warren Block]

On Fri, 19 Sep 2008, Peter Schuller wrote:

> I've been trying to find anything that fits the bill. My only
> requirements are:
>
> * That it works with amd64 (on FreeBSD, obviously).
> * That it supports Xvideo.
> * That it has decent 2D performance.
> * That it works with wide screen resolutions (so I guess basically
>  modern hardware + modern driver).
>
> Unfortunately, the 'nv' driver has significant performance issues so
> nVidia cards are out. I love what ATI is doing with the radeonhd
> driver, but no Xvideo yet.

At present, it looks like at least some R5xx chipsets are supported by 
both radeon and radeonhd.  One of those might be a good compromise.  Or 
you could stick to the earlier chipsets that are only in radeon 
(R3xx/R4xx).  I don't know how current this chart is:

http://www.x.org/wiki/RadeonFeature

> I know Matrox used to be a good bet, but apparantly modern cards
> require binary blobs.

The latest experimental Matrox drivers no longer need a blob.  However, 
Matrox seems to have wandered away from the general-purpose video card 
market.  AGP and PCI cards are available used, PCI-X versions harder to 
find and more expensive, and driver updates are much less likely than a 
more mainstream card.

-Warren Block * Rapid City, South Dakota USA