ATI graphics cards

[Ed Cogburn]

Daniel Stone wrote:

> On Thu, Jun 02, 2005 at 05:44:04PM -0400, Ed Cogburn wrote:
>> Daniel Stone wrote:
>> > On Wed, Jun 01, 2005 at 03:43:17PM -0700, Kreg Schlosser wrote:
>> >> As for ATI, they are NO LONGER giving out spec for there video cards.
>> >> They stopped with the 8000 series of cards. So anything after the
>> >> 9200, needs drivers made by ATI, which are not very good.
>> >> if I am going to purchase a video card I want full 3d acceleration.
>> >> Only Nvidia offers that right now.
>> > 
>> > Wrong.  See my table that I posted.
>> 
>> Wait a sec, how exactly is he wrong?  You say yourself just below your
>> table the same thing he does, except you refer to the last ATI card with
>> an open 3D driver as the "9250", whereas he refers to the "9200".
> 
> 'Only Nvidia offers that right now'.  That makes no sense, because you
> can get full 3D acceleration with the latest lines of cards from XGI
> (proprietary driver), Intel (open source driver), nVidia (proprietary),
> or ATI (proprietary only for newer stuff).

And of those who has the best 3D acceleration?  Performance wise, I believe
for several years its been a battle between NVIDIA and ATI, but since ATI's
Linux drivers have historically underperformed (performing worse under
Linux with Linux drivers than on the same machine running under Windows
with Windows drivers), NVIDIA has the edge on Linux.  ATI is much more
competitive on Windows because they apparently spend a lot more effort on
their Windows drivers than their Linux drivers.  Maybe that is changing
now, I don't know, but that's been the case for several years recently. 
The OP's point was that given the current state of Linux drivers provided
by the 2 "big guns", NVIDIA is the only real choice if maximum 3D
acceleration is your need(*).

(*) Of course the differences are often measured in small percentages
anyway, so this is largely an issue only for hard-core gamers.  Me, I just
look for the best price/performance ratio, and never buy the
top-of-the-line, and thus hideously expensive, from anyone, as I don't
need, and can't really justify the cost, of that kind of juice no matter
how many extra frames per second it would give me in
[insert-favorite-FPS-game-here].  :)  However, until I see some real
evidence that ATI is going to take Linux seriously, I still always look at
NVIDIA's products first.