[Solved] NVidia or ATI? - Page 2

zspider · #26 September 13th, 2010, 14:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by adamk

And I can't justify buying a card from a company that doesn't provide 3D specifications and make an effort to also provide open source drivers.

Adam

likewise. unfortunately intel chipsets are very common and you may not be able to avoid them. I used to be a fan of ATI but when on Linux they totally made a mess of the driver support, it would crash the xserver if you tried to install the driver. found Nvidia to be much more supportive of other platforms. Ultimately Nvidia is the best option people. Now that I am aware of intel not working in the future with FreeBSD I will look for Nvidia instead.

question:
so what will happen if Nvidia decides to drop FreeBSD support by some chance?

**wblock@** · #27 September 13th, 2010, 16:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by zspider

likewise. unfortunately intel chipsets are very common and you may not be able to avoid them. I used to be a fan of ATI but when on Linux they totally made a mess of the driver support, it would crash the xserver if you tried to install the driver. found Nvidia to be much more supportive of other platforms. Ultimately Nvidia is the best option people. Now that I am aware of intel not working in the future with FreeBSD I will look for Nvidia instead.

ATI: open driver works now, but might not work with later releases of xorg because FreeBSD doesn't have KMS. Source is available, so the driver can be updated whether the vendor cares or not.

nVidia: closed driver works now, but might not work with later releases of xorg (sounds like current drivers don't do KMS). nVidia is under no obligation to release drivers for future FreeBSD versions at all. Source or programming information not available at all, so updates have to come from the vendor.

Quote:

question:
so what will happen if Nvidia decides to drop FreeBSD support by some chance?

Sort of already happened with the 64-bit nVidia drivers, I think. Users had to wait, because without programming information, there was nothing else they could do. As they say, a car with the hood welded shut.

zspider · #28 September 13th, 2010, 16:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by wblock

ATI: open driver works now, but might not work with later releases of xorg because FreeBSD doesn't have KMS. Source is available, so the driver can be updated whether the vendor cares or not.

nVidia: closed driver works now, but might not work with later releases of xorg (sounds like current drivers don't do KMS). nVidia is under no obligation to release drivers for future FreeBSD versions at all. Source or programming information not available at all, so updates have to come from the vendor.

Sort of already happened with the 64-bit nVidia drivers, I think. Users had to wait, because without programming information, there was nothing else they could do. As they say, a car with the hood welded shut.

I guess ill have to install that ATI x600 again(I didnt because i was under the impression that it would not work), maybe ill kick ubuntu off the downstairs computer and put FreeBSD on there

adamk · #29 September 13th, 2010, 16:57

The x600 should definitely work, with both 2D and 3D acceleration. You likely won't be able to play doom3 with that GPU, but desktop effects, openarena, nexuiz, neverball, etc. should all be usable.

Adam

**DutchDaemon** · #30 September 13th, 2010, 17:02

For the record: there are up-to-date binary NVIDIA drivers for 64-bit FreeBSD in the ports tree and on NVIDIA's site. 'Officially beta', but proven stable for a long time now.

aragon · #31 September 13th, 2010, 19:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by davidgurvich

Right now technologies like nvidia's CUDA and ati stream are not available on FreeBSD.

http://blogs.freebsdish.org/jhb/2010...nvidia-driver/

davidgurvich · #32 September 13th, 2010, 19:40

I'm glad to hear that the linux compatibility is good enough to play with CUDA. Are there any stats on the performance hit?

zspider · #33 September 13th, 2010, 23:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by davidgurvich

I'm glad to hear that the linux compatibility is good enough to play with CUDA. Are there any stats on the performance hit?

I can run RTCW at 90 FPS with it, settings all the way up no lag online

unfortunately that makes trick jumping difficult though.

zspider · #34 September 14th, 2010, 00:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by adamk

The x600 should definitely work, with both 2D and 3D acceleration. You likely won't be able to play doom3 with that GPU, but desktop effects, openarena, nexuiz, neverball, etc. should all be usable.

Adam

Sounds good, if it can run Neverball and all that it should have little difficulty running RTCW or Enemy Territory. Makes me feel better that if I got stuck with an ATI chipset in the future that it would still be able to run FreeBSD and reasonably well.

Dont really wish to give up this fine operating system. Thanks for the heads up.

adamk · #35 September 14th, 2010, 00:23

Just be aware that, at the present moment, HD5xxx doesn't have acceleration on FreeBSD, and there are issues with direct rendering on linux applications on AMD64.

Adam

nakal · #36 September 14th, 2010, 07:41

Most games are not playable on ATI. If you need games, choose NVidia. Especially Linux emulation is broken on FreeBSD with ATI cards.

I still stick to ATI, because the quality of the cards is much higher and I have 2 consoles for playing games. I also like AMD's attitude and support them buying their products.

Earlier I've been testing the 2D-accel code for FreeBSD (libdrm and radeonhd), but a few things have showed me that X.org developers don't give a flying fart about FreeBSD, and even you give them exact hints which lines are faulty and cause kernel panics on FreeBSD, they still ignore you. I don't like this and I'm not testing anymore. They can go to hell with their Linux-centric views.

All in all, I wished there would be more than 1 developer having influence on ATI's Xorg video drivers.

adamk · #37 September 14th, 2010, 08:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by nakal

Most games are not playable on ATI.

That's interesting, because most games I've tried are playable on ATI.

Quote:

If you need games, choose NVidia. Especially Linux emulation is broken on FreeBSD with ATI cards.

This is true on AMD64.

Adam

aragon · #38 September 14th, 2010, 15:26

My pet peeve with the ATI drivers is that the radeonhd driver has poor 3D acceleration (especially where I need it most, linux emu) and is kinda dead now, but the radeon driver can't reorder its output ports. A seemingly minor nit, but a big deal for a dual screened pedant like me caught between the proverbial rock and hard place.

adamk · #39 September 14th, 2010, 16:01

Why do you need to reorder the output ports? What does that accomplish that using the --primary option with xrandr doesn't do? (This is not meant sarcastically, I'm really curious).

Adam

aragon · #40 September 14th, 2010, 16:08

--primary doesn't work with the radeon driver either.

Reordering allows me to set my DVI port as primary. Without it everything defaults to the VGA port where my secondary monitor is connected.

adamk · #41 September 14th, 2010, 16:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by aragon

--primary doesn't work with the radeon driver either.

I use it all the time with my two workstations with radeon GPUs. By default, X sets my right monitor as the primary in both cases.

Adam

aragon · #42 September 15th, 2010, 01:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by adamk

I use it all the time with my two workstations with radeon GPUs. By default, X sets my right monitor as the primary in both cases.

Is the FreeBSD syntax the same as the man page and Linux examples?

adamk · #43 September 15th, 2010, 01:38

I've used the same command on both FreeBSD and linux:

xrandr --output DVI-0 --primary

Adam

danbi · #44 September 15th, 2010, 09:35

I have never had complaints with the ATI drivers on FreeBSD. I just don't do gaming

(this should explain it, I guess)

But, here are some things, I don't like about the binary nvidia drivers!

- until recently, there was no 64 bit driver. That is, if you have fast 64 bit, multicore CPU, you must run it in 32bit mode to use 'powerful' nVidia card. Nice, eh?

- every time you recompile the kernel with new DRM you must reinstall the nvidia driver. Sometimes this kicks bad.

So yes, if 3D performance is absolutely a must for you and for this purpose you buy the latest and greatest video cards, and you are willing to be extra careful with your system upgrades, by all means go for nVidia.

If not, chances are you are buying an nVidia card, which is comparable to an not top-of-the-line ATI card, for which there is support in the radeonhd driver --- I would go for the ATI card then.

Of course, if you are nVidia or ATI fanboy ... you are asking the wrong question

PS: Bad experience with Intel drivers..

jalla · #45 September 15th, 2010, 13:13

Quote:

- until recently, there was no 64 bit driver. That is, if you have fast 64 bit, multicore CPU, you must run it in 32bit mode to use 'powerful' nVidia card. Nice, eh?

This was valid until ~10 months ago. It's no longer an issue.
And there's no need for the quotes in 'powerful'. The nVidia cards are every bit as powerful in 32bit as 64bit environments. You're just limited to 4Gb of ram with the former.

ikbendeman · #46 September 15th, 2010, 13:47

Thanks for all the feedback guys! The biggest use for crossfire wouldn't be for just one video-hungry application but for multitasking. Anyways, I'm glad this is all summaried in one place now, and I think I'm going to go with nVidia.

adamk · #47 September 15th, 2010, 14:10

SLI, the nvidia technology for linking to video cards, is only of use when rendering a single scene.

pkubaj · #48 September 15th, 2010, 15:13

It's kind of OT, but I'm considering buying a notebook with GMA 4500HD. Can you write how it performs on FreeBSD? I have no experience with GMA GPU's other than GMA 500, the unfamous Poulsbo, but it support about nothing whatsoever

davidgurvich · #49 September 16th, 2010, 15:47

The only thing I can say about intel chipsets is that I will be avoiding them unless I hear there has been a significant change or I have experience with a particular chipset. I've had 2 laptops with integrated intel graphics and both cause too much annoyance to configure the graphics for a stable system.

I had a similar experience about 7 years ago with nvidia chipsets where the only option for a stable system was to use the nv driver. That hasn't been a problem for a few years with nvidia providing better quality drivers for freebsd and linux.

The ati proprietary driver had the same problems as nvidia in the same time span. I never used the proprietary driver for ati cards if I could avoid it. I've read that the current driver is more stable but is not available for freebsd. The radeon driver was much better for ati cards than the nv driver for nvidia. Now the radeonhd and radeon driver is much better than nouveau so I still haven't used the proprietary driver.

pkubaj · #50 September 17th, 2010, 13:24

According to Wikipedia, most of GMA graphics cards are supported on FreeBSD. It doesn't seem outdated as it was updates when 8.1RC was released. So what is the support for GMA on FreeBSD like?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_GMA#FreeBSD

Thread Tools
Show Printable Version Email this Page
Display Modes
Linear Mode Switch to Hybrid Mode Switch to Threaded Mode

Similar Threads
Thread	Thread Starter	Forum	Replies	Last Post
ati on freebsd	martins	System Hardware	65	November 6th, 2010 21:36
Bt829 from All In Wonder ATI	KuArZo	System Hardware	1	February 25th, 2010 02:54
NVIDIA 5200 - new nvidia driver can't install	t4z3v4r3d	X.Org	3	December 26th, 2009 21:03
ATI driver?	Dinchamion	System Hardware	5	July 1st, 2009 19:25
ATI video card	graudeejs	System Hardware	5	November 24th, 2008 17:44