Arch Linux

horrormaster

Member

Registered: 2009-04-12

Posts: 23

nouveau or nvidia for me?

Do I need the hardware acceleration that nvidia provides if I'm doing basic pc stuff along with music and movie playing? Basically just playing DVDs, CDs, browsing the web, text documents, spreadsheets, etc. Nothing like playing games or anything like that.

karol

Archivist

Registered: 2009-05-06

Posts: 25,440

Re: nouveau or nvidia for me?

Try nouveau, if it's good enough, stick with it.
I have GF FX 5500 and use it for the ordinary desktop stuff. It works fine w/ nouveau.

ngoonee

Forum Fellow

From: Between Thailand and Singapore

Registered: 2009-03-17

Posts: 7,362

Re: nouveau or nvidia for me?

If you're not a gamer, the only other thing you might want nvidia for is compiz. That out of the way, just use nouveau as long as it doesn't give you big bugs (don't think it should nowadays).

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Allan-Volunteer on the (topic being discussed) mailn lists. You never get the people who matters attention on the forums.
jasonwryan-Installing Arch is a measure of your literacy. Maintaining Arch is a measure of your diligence. Contributing to Arch is a measure of your competence.
Griemak-Bleeding edge, not bleeding flat. Edge denotes falls will occur from time to time. Bring your own parachute.

some-guy94

Member

Registered: 2009-08-15

Posts: 360

Re: nouveau or nvidia for me?

If you're on a laptop, use nvidia because of vdpau and powersaving.

skottish

Forum Fellow

From: Here

Registered: 2006-06-16

Posts: 7,942

Re: nouveau or nvidia for me?

I haven't been doing anything with 3D lately, but the ability to play highly compressed video streams with VDPAU using almost no CPU power is nice.

horrormaster

Member

Registered: 2009-04-12

Posts: 23

Re: nouveau or nvidia for me?

Don't run compiz, actually run TWM, as crazy as it sounds. I'm on a desktop with a fairly good processor (C2D E8500) and the toughest thing I run is 1080p video.

baion baion

Member

From: Nicosia, Cyprus

Registered: 2009-06-13

Posts: 48

Re: nouveau or nvidia for me?

For those uses nouveau should suffice.

V for Vivian

Member

Registered: 2009-04-28

Posts: 52

Re: nouveau or nvidia for me?

I've recently switched to the nouveau driver and the only thing I've noticed is a bit more fan noise (probably due to the power saving stuff). I like nouveau better because I can use xrandr for setting up a second screen instead of nvidia-settings.

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YES WE CAN
(but that doesn't necessarily mean we're going to)

valium97582

Member

Registered: 2010-06-19

Posts: 126

Re: nouveau or nvidia for me?

Nouveau should suffice most needs. The Fedora 13 Nouveau (mesa-dri-experimental) is the best one though. Just went for it to get those: activated Rawhide to get new E17, then upgrade fails, then passed the mighty Archlinux GNU/Linux! Still with it on my desk. :-) (format t '(iamhappy))

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I'm also known as zmv on IRC.

arch0r

Member

From: From the Chron-o-John

Registered: 2008-05-13

Posts: 597

Re: nouveau or nvidia for me?

i used to use the nvidia drivers but nouveau handles my 2 screens far better and the fonts are a bit more sharper

darroyX

Member

From: Madrid, Spain

Registered: 2010-07-01

Posts: 17

Website

Re: nouveau or nvidia for me?

i recommend you nouveau, nvidia driver I think that don't work on xorg 1.8 yet.

Awebb

Member

Registered: 2010-05-06

Posts: 6,688

Re: nouveau or nvidia for me?

i recommend you nouveau, nvidia driver I think that don't work on xorg 1.8 yet.

Negative. nvidia+x0rg 1.8 user here. Everything works fine.

Cosmin

Member

Registered: 2008-10-06

Posts: 248

Re: nouveau or nvidia for me?

i recommend you nouveau, nvidia driver I think that don't work on xorg 1.8 yet.

Negative. nvidia+x0rg 1.8 user here. Everything works fine.

On the desktop I also have nvidia.nouveau is not dealing well with the games for the kids. On the laptop the opensource intel driver is very nice.

darroyX

Member

From: Madrid, Spain

Registered: 2010-07-01

Posts: 17

Website

Re: nouveau or nvidia for me?

i recommend you nouveau, nvidia driver I think that don't work on xorg 1.8 yet.

Negative. nvidia+x0rg 1.8 user here. Everything works fine.

Roger.

Vamp898

Member

Registered: 2009-01-03

Posts: 1,032

Website

Re: nouveau or nvidia for me?

i tried nouveau on about 4 computers and all had the same problem

If you use KDE then you wont see any previews (of images, movies, so on) anymore

alez

Member

Registered: 2009-03-09

Posts: 74

Re: nouveau or nvidia for me?

I've used nouveau for a couple of weeks but had trouble with fullscreen video (particularly flash, but who doesn't with flash?). Got the new nvidia (173) drivers for xorg 1.8 and it's a dream. Sure it's an old card, but i don't really need 3d and still it was a bit disturbing to have such video problems.

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Linux makes you a better person