amd64 platform newbie -- what video card for x11?

Jung-uk Kim jkim at FreeBSD.org
Wed Mar 5 16:44:44 UTC 2008


On Wednesday 05 March 2008 03:52 am, Isaac Mushinsky wrote:
> On 3/5/08, Peter Jeremy <peterjeremy at optushome.com.au> wrote:
> > On Tue, Mar 04, 2008 at 10:52:12PM -0500, Isaac Mushinsky wrote:
> > >1) does the open nv driver work? I do not play games or really
> > > need 3D acceleration, just want basic 2D and things like
> > > mplayer to work properly.
> >
> > For basic purposes and mplayer, nv should do. It might just soak
> > up more CPU than a better driver would.
> >
> > >2) should I return nvidia card and get something else? Is there
> > > a better reasonably working card?
> >
> > I'll second the ATI suggestion. Note that whilst AMD have
> > indicated they will open-source the ATI GPU specs, I believe they
> > have only released specs for a single GPU so far and it will take
> > some time for the open specs to reach the X.org drivers.
> >
> > --
> > Peter Jeremy
> > Please excuse any delays as the result of my ISP's inability to
> > implement an MTA that is either RFC2821-compliant or matches
> > their claimed behaviour.
>
> What current ATI cards have the best support?

[Note: moved from amd64 ML.]

Summary:
http://tirdc.livejournal.com/17521.html

Some corrections:
http://tirdc.livejournal.com/17750.html
http://tirdc.livejournal.com/18076.html

Radeon chipset families:
http://dri.freedesktop.org/wiki/ATIRadeon

FreeBSD is lagging behind little bit in 3D area because Linux 
developers are constantly breaking DRM for FreeBSD to add new 
features and cards and our in-tree DRM is quite old now. :-(
So, if you don't care about 3D acceleration ATM, I think you will be 
happy with R5xx family controllers since Xv support has been added in 
the latest driver from git:

http://airlied.livejournal.com/56998.html
http://www.phoronix.com/forums/showthread.php?t=7997

I heard AMD/ATI will release R6xx family 3D spec. this month but it 
will take some time to have a working 3D acceleration because the 
programming API is quite different:

http://www.phoronix.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8148

FYI, open source AMD/ATI drivers are very fast moving targets ATM, 
e.g., mach64 and r128 were splitted up into separate drivers 
(xf86-video-mach64 and xf86-video-r128 respectively) and there are 
two drivers for R5xx/R6xx, i.e., xf86-video-ati and 
xf86-video-radeonhd.

Personally I have RV280, M12 (mobile RV360), and M76 (mobile RV630) 
and I am very happy with all three. :-)

Jung-uk Kim


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