# Nvidia or ATI

## altrent

I am currently building a new rig and was wondering what's the best option for a 64bits linux graphic card?

I am currently using an AGP Geforce 6800 and I am happy with the Nvidia drivers. Just wondering if I should also take a look at ATI cards for my next buy...?

Thanks!

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## loftwyr

The options are the same for 64 as 32 bits.

YOu'll get  more full discussion in the hardware section.

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## Nephilim666

In the long run ati should be your better bet! They are obviously more open atm and that should reflect in their (open) drivers. Nvidia never ever even tried to make itself more open. And their newer cards seem to have some troubles with with compiz - at least in KDE-4. In hardware ati also seems to take the lead.

If you are looking at a long time investment, I'd rather go ati.

Just my 2 cent, though.  :Wink: 

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## altrent

Thanks!

Points well taken.  :Smile: 

I've just posted in the hardware forum too.

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## NeddySeagoon

Moved from Gentoo on AMD64 to Kernel & Hardware.

Its a hardware topic.

Today ... nVidia  longer term probably ATI, if an open driver matters

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## wesw02

Nvidia!

I recently built an HTPC, I found a motherboard with an integrated ATI card which had excellent support from fglrx, so I decided to purchase it. After a few weeks of tinkering, I was still getting slight tearing when play HD movies. I gave up on trying to work out all of the issues with the ATI card and purchased an nVidia card, had it working perfect within 15 minutes of installing.

Of course it could have been me doing something wrong or the specific ATI chipset wasn't supported fully. Either way I have three machines with nVidia cards and all run great.

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## jordanwb

This thread has been useful to me too. I'm looking into getting a new laptop and I want one with descent graphic power.

Thanks.

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## d2_racing

Each time there a new kernel, I have a lot of problem with my ati-driver, because I need to wait for a new ati-driver because I can actually test a new kernel.

I had that problem with the kernel 2.6.23,2.6.25 and 2.6.26.

Also, with a Nvidia card, I think that you will have more stable driver.

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## jordanwb

 *d2_racing wrote:*   

> Each time there a new kernel, I have a lot of problem with my ati-driver, because I need to wait for a new ati-driver because I can actually test a new kernel.
> 
> I had that problem with the kernel 2.6.23,2.6.25 and 2.6.26.
> 
> Also, with a Nvidia card, I think that you will have more stable driver.

 

So do you think getting an NVidia card/chipset would be better?

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## d2_racing

Yes I think that.

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## i92guboj

If stability and performance are important *today* and not in a couple of years to come, choose nvidia. We all know how wonderful the world of star trek is (teleporters, phasers, etc. etc.), but that will not help *today*. My reality is this:

I have been hearing the same odd stuff about ATi for years, yet the truth is that I haven't ever gotten any ATi card to work correctly. Hangs, crashes, problems... I always have to use an old version of xorg and the kernel, because ATi sucks when it comes to updating their drivers. And let alone if you use xinerama.... them you can directly put your card into the waste bin because it's just impossible to work proficiently with all the problems you get.

Will it come the day when there will be a quality open source driver? Probably, but currently they are experimental, unstable and lacking all the features for any serious work (if all you want is to showcase compiz, better get an intel card, they are enough for that and at least they are stable). Nowadays, ati has no serious driver for 3d acceleration that can be used to work during a couple of hours without interruptions.

On the other hand, I have been the proud owner of several nvidia cards, and have installed and used literally a few dozens, without a single problem. From gf2 cards up to 7xxx models. I know nothing about newer (pci-e) models, so I can't comment on them.

I am of course biased, as biased as a person can be when an option worked 100% or the times, and the other worked exactly 0% of the times (except if you want to use vesa, of course).

My .02 U$D  :Wink: 

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## jordanwb

 *d2_racing wrote:*   

> Yes I think that.

 

All right I'll keep that in mind, thanks.

 *i92guboj wrote:*   

> I have been hearing the same odd stuff about ATi for years, yet the truth is that I haven't ever gotten any ATi card to work correctly. Hangs, crashes, problems... I always have to use an old version of xorg and the kernel, because ATi sucks when it comes to updating their drivers. And let alone if you use xinerama.... them you can directly put your card into the waste bin because it's just impossible to work proficiently with all the problems you get.

 

Hmm that's strange. I use the closed source driver with latest version of everything on my Arch install and it works perfectly. Who knows.

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## i92guboj

It's not like I didn't try. I've tried lots of ATi cards all these last years, and I have a 2600 sitting just next to me over my desktop which I can't use with a xinerama setup, because it randomly hangs at any given moment if I use it with xinerama. RadeonHD might work, but that's not an alternative for me. If I wanted low performance I would use Intel gpus which at least are stable. I don't feel like toying with unstable drivers that are a work in progress on a machine that I use to work. As a result, being this an agp board, I will probably continue using my nvidia 6200 for a few months/years. This is just one example, of the many dozens I could tell you about.

I take stability very seriously, and my system has no experimental kernel patchsets. I don't use ricerfs's, and my ram and cpu are 99% error free for sure. No overclocking since the 486-25mhz era. Anyway, I can certify problems with ATi cards under linux on any imaginable hardware configuration. It's not like this is the only box I have tried to setup with an ati card recently. 

The drivers install and seem to work (if you don't mind staying behind in kernel and X versions), but they definitely are not stable (none of them). And all of them sucks with xinerama. On the contrary, nvidia's twinview works without a problem on every situation I've tried.

In which regards me, to setup a card should be a matter of adjusting your xorg.conf, modprobing a driver and firing up xorg. I don't even ask for automatic configuration, just something that works if you read a manual and configure it. ATi never worked that way. A few versions ago I had to go looking around because an odd bug in the driver caused massive log spamming when using xinerama, and it was taking around 80% of my cpu power even when the box was idle, no solution, of course, but to wait. That's ati's policy. But... oh, well, some of us need to use the computer every day, not when ATi decides we can use it. Having an ATi card make driver updates a very scary process, and your fingers get deformed because you have to cross all of them hoping that nothing will break. So, that's ok for a testing machine, but not for production machines. Production machines require stable hardware with stable drivers.

If you want a gaming box they might suit you, though.

Nowadays, some of the times that I exit X or change to vt my xorg with an ATi card, the driver likes to hand randomly forcing me to a soft reboot on the best case (if the acpi daemon respond) or even a hard boot sometimes. I love my HD's much more than that, and I am simply not willing to risk my data just because ATi's idea of an acceptable quality standard for driver. With each new release I give a try to my 2600 ATi card, only to find that, while some of the old bugs are gone, newer and better ones have been included, which makes it kind of fun. I could continue, but there's enough of this on the net.

I am glad it works for you, of course. But my statistics have shown me what *my* way is going to be for the next years to come. Too much coincidences. This is just my experience, everyone else's mileage may vary  :Smile: 

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## cst

nvidia is a lot more "linux-friendly"

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## jordanwb

 *cst wrote:*   

> nvidia is a lot more "linux-friendly"

 

I'll take linux friendly any day.

 *i92guboj wrote:*   

> It's not like I didn't try.

 

I didn't say you didn't try.

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## altrent

Seems like the conscensus is, if you want something working today with no hassle go with Nvidia (except some issues with KDE4 that should get fixed eventually). If you want to tinker with your box, don't mind waiting for probable fixes (video playback, 3D crashes, kernel updates) and want to support open source initiatives go with ATI.

It's too bad that I am not a big adventurer, because that new ATI 4670 seemed tempting. I guess I'll pass this time again and will go with a 9600GT.

Thanks for all the posts.

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## tgR10

choose nvidia listen to the power ! hehe :)

but why ?

i never hade problems with drivers, with nvidia ...

atm got pci-e card wich works perfectly on beta or stabel drivers ...

i got an laptop with ati inside ... can't get that shit work the way it should ...

before on my destop i hade some ati pci-e 256 mb ddr2 bla bla bla duno model ... but the final for that card was garbage bag .

Now you ask why ? 

it's simple ... didn't work the way it should ... slappy 3d ...

i don't need a lot coz i'm not using computer to play anymore ... but ... if you don't wana problems choose nvidia ... emerge  nvidia and it works :) each time for me.

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