GeForce FX Linux drivers!

[lunix]

This is good news, at least I think it is.

"As Friedmud points out, this means that a 64-bit port of UT2003 exists running on Linux, that GeForce FX drivers also exist for Linux, and that all of these parts are running well enough for a trade show demonstration."

For me the best reason to get a nvidia card over a ATI one is the drivers ;)

[lunix]

Sorry I forgot to mention what that quote was refering to:
"AMD has demonstrated the power of their Athlon 64 using the GeForce FX graphics card by running the Unreal Tournament 2003 64-bit Edition on the 64-bit Linux OS."
And the drivers, well lets just say at least there are some for what is my primary operating system. Great stuff all the way around.

[Chalnoth]

Yes, I think this is the #1 reason I'm not going to switch to ATI any time soon.

[r0gu3]

Yeah i agree that the geforce fx looks pretty slick, but you know with ati releasing their own linux drivers (NOT dri) its really tempting to get a new card... But for me i think nvidia is really not in good shape because they are gonna miss out on the whole holiday season (the gf fx isn't suppose to ship until february...
- r0gu3

[Chalnoth]

Releasing drivers doesn't equate to releasing good drivers.

[saturnotaku]

Well, shut my mouth. ATI has Linux drivers available.

Here's (http://mirror.ati.com/support/drivers/linux/radeon-linux.html?cboOS=LinuxXFree86&cboProducts=RADEON+9700+PRO&eula=&choice=agree&cmdNext=Next) the page where you can snag 'em.

Now whether they're any good or not is anybody's guess.

[Ryo-Ohki]

AFAIK they're the old same FireGL 8700/8800 drivers I believed in a lot when I learned about them... Turns out they didn't work very well (not at all for me), and it's a royal pain to make them work on non-built-by ATI cards.

Wether they indeed support R300 remains to be demonstrated...

[lunix]

I read that they indeed support the R300. I have to say I am very glad to see ATI making a effort and I am sure that they will just improve with time.

[Ryo-Ohki]

Originally posted by lunix
I read that they indeed support the R300. I have to say I am very glad to see ATI making a effort and I am sure that they will just improve with time.

The first step would be AT LEAST to try to conceal the fact they're just throwing at us half-compatible FireGL drivers...:) The way they're doing it is just, well, demonstrating a lack of respect towards a certain part of their consumer base ?

[r0gu3]

Actually their drivers are fully compatible with the "BUILT BY ATI" cards... the "POWERED BY ATI" cards aren't supported, mainly because of flawed bios's from different vendors...

There really isn't much ati can do about this at this point in the game... its really up to the vendors to follow specifications given by ati, or support their own....

And yes, the drivers do support all the 9700 PRO cards :)

But the best thing i think about ati, is the fact that the release the specs for their hardware, AND release good drivers...

- r0gu3

[Chalnoth]

Originally posted by r0gu3
But the best thing i think about ati, is the fact that the release the specs for their hardware, AND release good drivers...

- r0gu3

Um, the drivers aren't good so far for me...

[r0gu3]

I dunno, i had absolutely NO PROBLEM setting them up...

It actually was simpler than nvidia's... but i wish they had tarballs instead of rpm's...

But for me, and i have been using linux for some time, it comes down to just being happy for ANY form of drivers... Even if some people can't read the instructions (some people still don't read nvidia's) and get upset when they don't work...

If your have a 9700, then its not even supported by that driver...
We have a 9700 Pro at work which works great...

- r0gu3

[volt]

Let's keep the discussion on the Linux level shall we? ;)

[Chalnoth]

Originally posted by r0gu3
If your have a 9700, then its not even supported by that driver...
We have a 9700 Pro at work which works great...

- r0gu3

Mine's an agpgart issue. ATI needs to release a driver that doesn't necessarily require an AGP gart, or nVidia needs to release an agpgart for their nForce...one of the two...

[r0gu3]

ROFLMAO... well that has nothing to do with ati....

All current ati cards and nvidia cards NEED agpgart (where nvidia has its own pcigart for emulation) but practically its not obsurd to say that you need an agp driver to use an agp graphics driver... so your problem is really with your motherboard vendor, nvidia... not ati... :)

- r0gu3

[Chalnoth]

Originally posted by r0gu3
ROFLMAO... well that has nothing to do with ati....

All current ati cards and nvidia cards NEED agpgart (where nvidia has its own pcigart for emulation) but practically its not obsurd to say that you need an agp driver to use an agp graphics driver... so your problem is really with your motherboard vendor, nvidia... not ati... :)

- r0gu3

No, the nVidia drivers will work without an AGP gart. All AGP slots can run in a legacy PCI mode. It's slow, but it will work.

[r0gu3]

where nvidia has its own pcigart for emulation

nvidia's "Legacy pci mode" is actually a using the pci bus to emulate an agp bus... it does bizarre crap with mtrrs to simulate agpmemory and stuff...

This is what ati needs...

now it is actually feasible that they clean up and use the open source pci gart... but thats a different story...


But your right, an nvidia card CAN run without agp drivers... because it has its own :)

- r0gu3

[Chalnoth]

The ATI drivers also have their own gart. It just doesn't work with an nForce2, while nVidia's does.

On a side note, one little bit of wierdness is that when I disable AGP8x in the BIOS with the GeForce4, it disables AGP4x in Linux.

[borgzilla]

Where can I get nforce 2 mobo in toronto??

[Chalnoth]

Damned good question! I got mine from newegg...so maybe from the US side? :)