ATi graphics cards

Daniel Stone daniel at fooishbar.org
Mon May 30 16:58:44 UTC 2005


On Mon, May 30, 2005 at 01:29:50PM -0300, Daniel Silverstone wrote:
> On Mon, 2005-05-30 at 18:18 +0200, Michael Nowag wrote:
> > On Mon, 30 May 2005 17:43:44 +0200, Norman Silverstone  
> > <norman at littletank.org> wrote:
> > > Having got myself completely bemused looking at lists of graphics cards
> > > I have decided upon the following:- "Sapphire ATI Radeon 9200SE 128MB
> > > AGP TV-out DVI". Please has anyone got anything good or otherwise to say
> > > about this card and its suitability for Hoary.
> > standard ATI Card...will work (eventually) like all the other models :)
> 
> The "eventually" is the bit which worries me.

... and the bit that confuses me.

> ATi cards use a non-free driver don't they?

Only r300 and above (Radeon 9550 and above, including everything with an
'X' at the start of the model number).  2D always has been (and always
will be, for the forseeable future) very well supported by a properly
open-source driver, including dual head (MergedFB and Xinerama), DVI,
and whatever else you want to throw at it.  Several open-source driver
developers have the 2D spec sheets and driver development kits.

> I'd be concerned about using
> one but I guess someone else might have something positive to say.

Back in the start of 2003, I got myself a Radeon 9000 (rv250).  It
served me very well for a long time until I upgraded last year to a
Radeon 8500 (r200).  That served me very well until recently when I got
a PCI Express machine, and upgraded to an X300 SE (rv370) as a stopgap
to the X850 XT PE (r480) I have now.  I also have a Radeon 9200 (rv280)
in my Pegasos.  Every one of these has always worked flawlessly for 2D
and video playback, and all except the rv370/r480 have worked fine for
3D acceleration, out of the box with an open source driver.  Their DVI
outputs are also very compliant, and a clean signal.

I can't really say enough good things about this series of card (r2xx),
particularly as they are the most current ATI card to ship with an open
source 3D driver.
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