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#1 2010-04-01 20:22:51

Unia
Member
From: Stockholm, Sweden
Registered: 2010-03-30
Posts: 2,486
Website

ATI or NVIDIA?

Hello all,

Some of you might already know that I'm getting a new laptop in two weeks. (I'll move to Arch as soon as I get it big_smile)
But there's one problem: what graphics-card should I get? An ATI, or an NVIDIA? Which one works better with Linux overall, and which one works better with Arch in particular? I've read tons of forums telling me NVIDIA is the way to go, as it's more and better supported in Linux. What do you guys think?


If you can't sit by a cozy fire with your code in hand enjoying its simplicity and clarity, it needs more work. --Carlos Torres

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#2 2010-04-01 20:32:59

thayer
Fellow
From: Vancouver, BC
Registered: 2007-05-20
Posts: 1,560
Website

Re: ATI or NVIDIA?

IMO Intel has the best Linux support and their drivers are open source.


thayer williams ~ cinderwick.ca

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#3 2010-04-01 20:34:50

flamelab
Member
From: Athens, Hellas (Greece)
Registered: 2007-12-26
Posts: 2,160

Re: ATI or NVIDIA?

Nvidia (with proprietary driver).

The one though which has the best behaviour though, I believe, is the Intel opensource one.

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#4 2010-04-01 20:37:54

Ranguvar
Member
Registered: 2008-08-12
Posts: 2,545

Re: ATI or NVIDIA?

If you need much 3D at all, NVIDIA.

AMD's (ATI's) binary drivers are horribad.  Nearly everyone agrees.  Buggy, unstable, rarely not broken with latest X.Org release, and absymal 2D performance.
Their open source drivers are quite good (esp. at 2D), and getting better all the time, thanks to AMD's cooperation.
However, they're still quite a bit slower: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=a … open&num=1
They will be as good as, and better, one day (I have no doubt), but that day is not now.

For NVIDIA, the binary driver leaves nearly nothing to be desired.  Rock-solid, updated for new X.Org releases before they come out, etc.
Nouveau is an effort to provide an open-source driver, but it's still a fledgling project, and NVIDIA refuses to even acknowledge Nouveau, let alone provide docs.
Nouveau works quite well for 2D on almost all cards (and is the only solution for very old ones), but 3D is in extreme infancy.

If you're just gonna use Compiz (or similar), then AMD is probably fine, because the open-source drivers should be able to keep up (or will be able to very, very soon).
If you need more, NVIDIA is sadly the way to go.

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#5 2010-04-01 20:52:51

Misfit138
Misfit Emeritus
From: USA
Registered: 2006-11-27
Posts: 4,189

Re: ATI or NVIDIA?

Ranguvar and Thayer have very comprehensively covered it above.
ATi open drivers are very stable and work extremely well with accelerated 2d, and moderately well with 3d.
For top-notch 3d performance, I also recommend the proprietary nVidia drivers.
Intel's open source drivers are also of excellent quality, though the hardware itself is not designed for powerful 3d performance.
So, with this information, you should be able to choose what is best for you based on your priorities.

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#6 2010-04-01 21:10:43

Unia
Member
From: Stockholm, Sweden
Registered: 2010-03-30
Posts: 2,486
Website

Re: ATI or NVIDIA?

Yes thank you all, I'll go for an nVidia one!


If you can't sit by a cozy fire with your code in hand enjoying its simplicity and clarity, it needs more work. --Carlos Torres

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#7 2010-04-01 21:50:17

ozar
Member
From: USA
Registered: 2005-02-18
Posts: 1,686

Re: ATI or NVIDIA?

Unia wrote:

I've read tons of forums telling me NVIDIA is the way to go, as it's more and better supported in Linux. What do you guys think?

I'm an Arch user and nVidia always works great for me under Arch, so I'd have to agree with those tons of forums mentioned above that nVidia is the way to go!  You could check another ton of forums, but I believe you'd get about the same opinions and responses on this.

Enjoy your nVidia graphics!  big_smile


oz

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#8 2010-04-02 02:23:12

Mektub
Member
From: Lisbon /Portugal
Registered: 2008-01-02
Posts: 647

Re: ATI or NVIDIA?

Yes, yes. Had I read this 2 weeks ago.

Ranguvar summarized it.

I always had used nvidia, but got a new laptop and fot the first time I had to deal with ATI.

What a pain. Spend days surfing the forum, directed to 64-pages long threads with suggestions that ranged
from downgrading/upgrading/recompiling Xorg/Kernel to even more esoteric ones.

It ended up that only the proprietary driver solved it, sort of.

On a desktop I would have ditched the card.

Mektub

Last edited by Mektub (2010-04-02 02:24:26)


Follow me on twitter: https://twitter.com/johnbina

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#9 2010-04-02 02:56:16

Nerd King
Member
From: Thailand
Registered: 2009-11-06
Posts: 37

Re: ATI or NVIDIA?

Intel - Too slow for gaming, generally very low-powered chipsets. Decent drivers though.
NVIDIA Proprietary - Works brilliantly, you can run 90% of windows games through Wine with this driver, speed comparable to Windows, but a little buggy at times. Won't keep up with updates to X or kernel.
NVIDIA Open - Development has been slow, probably won't do any 3D at this point, or if you're lucky you'll get enough for Compiz
ATI Proprietary - A truly horrible driver. Poor 2d performance, ok 3d performance, buggy handling of OpenGL, lags a long way behind X and kernel updates (you'll basically be stuck wherever Ubuntu currently is).
ATI Open - Made huge strides in the last 18 months or so. Gone from being fastest 2D/no 3D to current state, fastest 2D/passable 3D. Still not suitable for gaming but will be within 12 months in my opinion.

So.. right now NVIDIA is king, but ATI is the long-term champion. My ATI box running open drivers is more reliable than my NVIDIA/Proprietary box and I expect that to continue.


Please be patient, I'm a n00b on Arch (only 2 years on Ubuntu) so I may say something stupid!
PS thank you to all those who contribute awesomeness to the AUR and the main packages, you guys have made my computer so much more fun to use!

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#10 2010-04-02 09:03:53

Cdh
Member
Registered: 2009-02-03
Posts: 1,098

Re: ATI or NVIDIA?

I think noone of the ATI bashers actually used an ATI Card with catalyst in the last months.

2D Performance is good with the proprietary driver. When you enable direct2d it's VERY good. Also vaapi for HD video is really nice whereas with the open source driver noone has worked on the video acceleration (but it is planned).
3D Performance could be better but it is okay, it will be enaugh till the open source drivers take over.
A little buggy is it really: Fullscreen 3D-Applications often want to remain in the foreground and flicker while changing windows. Also they are on all workspaces. But they work better then expected. In Half Life 2 Episode 1 there are some graphics problems because of HDR, but that must not be related to the driver.
Catalyst was long not available for xorg 1.7 but it seems they are changing that attitude. catalyst-test from aur works well with xorg 1.7 and testers report they also work with xorg 1.8 (needs some hacks, but that will be solved when xorg 1.8 is actually out, I think).
catalyst-test works very well with kernel 2.6.34-rc3 I compiled yesterday.
There is no lagging behind anymore. That's just not right.

chris@chrispc ~ % pacman -Q catalyst-test
catalyst-test 10.4-444
chris@chrispc ~ % lspci | grep VGA
02:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc RV730XT [Radeon HD 4670]
chris@chrispc ~ % pacman -Q catalyst-test
catalyst-test 10.4-444
chris@chrispc ~ % uname -a
Linux chrispc 2.6.34-rc3-rc #1 SMP PREEMPT Thu Apr 1 11:00:19 CEST 2010 i686 AMD Athlon(tm) II X2 240 Processor AuthenticAMD GNU/Linux
chris@chrispc ~ %
chris@chrispc ~ % glxgears
42883 frames in 5.0 seconds = 8576.523 FPS
45780 frames in 5.0 seconds = 9155.800 FPS
45263 frames in 5.0 seconds = 9052.493 FPS
^C
chris@chrispc ~ % glxinfo | grep renderer
OpenGL renderer string: ATI Radeon HD 4600 Series
chris@chrispc ~ %

Last edited by Cdh (2010-04-02 09:04:18)


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