# Best supported GPU?

## cvanhan

I'm purchasing a new build and I'm wondering what GPU's are the best supported?  I would like some feedback on what you guys think are the least hassle. 

P.S. I'm new to Gentoo.  Sorry I'm a noob :/Last edited by cvanhan on Sun Oct 21, 2012 4:43 am; edited 1 time in total

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## Veldrin

Intel - works out of the box, no additional drivers needed. 

But then again, the answer is dependent on what you need your GPU for. If you need more (graphic) performance, I'd go with Nvidia, and their binary driver is reasonably well supported in linux, and provide a decent performance.

ATI/AMD are cheaper, and use less power, but their binary driver is horrible (at least the last time i tried).

V.

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## cvanhan

Thank you. That's everything I need to know.

-Much appreciated.

Chris

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## BillWho

cvanhan,

I've decided to avoid amd since driver support was recently dropped for my card - intel or nvidia for me   :Wink: 

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## Hu

If you plan to use the open drivers, try to avoid nVidia.  The Nouveau people are making good progress, but IMO, the open Radeon driver is better than the open Nouveau driver.  Generally, the open drivers will not be as featureful as the proprietary drivers, but the open drivers tend to retain support for cards for much longer than the proprietary drivers.

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## d2_racing

I own a brand new Nvidia GTX 670 and I'm using Nouveau without any problem  :Razz: 

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## schorsch_76

Since 3 or 4 years i use only AMD/ATI and the radeon driver fulfill all my needs. The really new chips like southern island are in development [1] . I would recommend nothern island.

schorsch

[1] http://www.x.org/wiki/RadeonFeature

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## aCOSwt

Stallman's advice : http://cotidianidad.bligoo.com.ve/media/users/15/778719/images/public/133244/richard_stallman_sign_ati.jpg?v=1320242523840  :Wink: 

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## Fitzcarraldo

^Well, two can play at that game: Linus Torvalds To Nvidia - "F**k You"  :Wink: 

I have used ATI, Intel and NVIDIA GPUs on different machines and have had trouble in Linux with all three at different points in time. The GPU manufacturer I have used most, though, is AMD and the performance has generally been good. My main laptop has the Mobility Radeon HD 5650 and I'm using the FGLRX driver which works well. My previous main laptop was an Acer TravelMate with an ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 and that worked well with the open-source Radeon driver after AMD stopped supporting the FGLRX driver on legacy GPUs.

Many Linux users seem to paint AMD as the bad guys, but xrandr worked with the closed-source ati-drivers since AMD Catalyst 8.9 came out in September 2008 (AMD Catalyst 8.9 Gets WINE Fix, RandR 1.2 Support) unlike the closed-source nvidia-drivers, which only got xrandr support in May 2012 (NVIDIA's 302 Linux Driver Finally Has RandR 1.2/1.3).

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## schorsch_76

Why should AMD/ATI be the bad guy? They open the documentation which nvidia doesn't do. They even support the develpment of the radeon driver directly with developers. Maybe before AMD bought ATI .. ok .. but currently i say AMD are the better guys for our freedom ...

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## sobhan

it's not the bad guy but people countered lots of problem with it but i never had any problem with it 

so i will vote for intel and radeon

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## gorkypl

Intel has definitely the best support, but their cards are usually not best in performance.

Open radeon drivers are good, and better then open nvidia ones. Binary ATI drivers are worse then NVidia counterparts.

So it all depends on your needs  :Smile: 

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## DaggyStyle

 *schorsch_76 wrote:*   

> Why should AMD/ATI be the bad guy? They open the documentation which nvidia doesn't do. They even support the develpment of the radeon driver directly with developers. Maybe before AMD bought ATI .. ok .. but currently i say AMD are the better guys for our freedom ...

 

I have a friend which works in the windows dep of ati's gpu driver, when I asked him whats up with the linux docs he told me to stop whine and that we have all we need.

[sarcasm]strangely enough I still paid full money for my two ati cards but up todate with both the open and closed driver, UVD was never used[/sarcasm]

that is one of the reasons AMD/ATI are considered as bad guys, the reason for no UVD docs it pure DRM windows crap.

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## schorsch_76

Look here [1].  There is all documentation of the chips. Does Nvidia give them to us? For example the new southern island documentation [2].

[1] http://www.x.org/wiki/RadeonFeature#Documentation

[2] http://developer.amd.com/tools/hc/AMDAPPSDK/assets/AMD_Southern_Islands_Instruction_Set_Architecture.pdf

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## Gusar

 *schorsch_76 wrote:*   

> Look here [1].  There is all documentation of the chips.

 

No there's not. UVD is missing, as was already said. Another *really* big part is also missing, which is power management. AMD actually wrote some code for it. But then it didn't pass legal review. So the radeon driver has really crappy power management, heating up laptops (sometimes to the point of overheating) and quickly draining their batteries. Making the driver practically unusable on laptops.

Also, the Southern Islands link you gave, that's just the ISA. I'm not sure it's enough to write a full driver. The hardware has been out for almost a year now, and there's still no working open source driver.

So be careful with the "AMD releases specs" thing. Sounds good in theory. But in practice, the radeon driver isn't any better than nouveau. Both don't have hardware video decode, both have pretty much non-existent power management, on modern cards both lag quite a bit (50% or more in some scenarios) behind the closed drivers in terms of performance.

All in all, the best performance and feature-set you'll get from Nvidia, using their proprietary driver. Nothing beats Nvidia's VDPAU. Nothing. Then, Intel is the way to go if you don't need high-end gaming performance. Intel provides an open-source driver with hardware video decode and working power management. And they're already working on drivers for hardware that won't be released until next year.

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## schorsch_76

Hi Gusar,

do you have a source for it?

 *Quote:*   

> 
> 
> AMD actually wrote some code for it. But then it didn't pass legal review.
> 
> 

 

My old evergreen card 5770 in my desktop pc and my vdr with an AMD E350 run both with kernel 3.5.4 and the radeon open source driver. Both have the power management turned on as described on http://www.x.org/wiki/RadeonFeature . Unified Video Decoding ok. I have never used it. On my vdr the CPU does the work and is only at 20-30% load at full HD. 

On my Lenovo laptop with amd gpu i reach the same power usage if i run under windows 7. Measured with a energy logger. 

schorsch

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## Gusar

 *schorsch_76 wrote:*   

> do you have a source for it?

 

http://phoronix.com/forums/showthread.php?74296-Nine-Reasons-Mesa-9-0-Is-Disappointing-For-End-Users&p=290459#post290459 <- posts #29 and #30 (fyi, bridgman is an AMD employee). There's a lot more than that at the Phoronix forums, but this should do, I'm too lazy to go search for the posts that have more details about this stuff.

 *schorsch_76 wrote:*   

> Both have the power management turned on as described on http://www.x.org/wiki/RadeonFeature

 

That's very, very basic power management. The automatic profile causes flicker during state changes, so it's use is limited. Which means you get manual switching. But even then, if you set the lowest profile you'll still get more power usage than with the closed driver. Because this stuff is far from proper PM. Proper PM can only happen if AMD releases documentation and/or code.

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## schorsch_76

Hi,

we compare two different tpyes of drivers. The nvidia blob with the radeon open source driver. 

The current fglrx is not as bad as it was about 5 years or so. We know the pros and cons of the open and closed drivers. They are nearly the same at nouveau. 

Pros of the closed driver:

- recent hardware supported

- best power management

- best 3d support

Cons of the closed driver:

- works not always with the latest xorg

- closed source

Pros of the open driver:

- works always with the newest xorg

- open source

- good 2d performance

Cons of the open driver:

- latest hardware not always supported

- not as good 3d support as the closed driver

- not as good pm support as the closed driver

But that is nearly the same for nvidia and amd. 

If i want latest hardware, i would always choose closed driver. If i have older hardware, i would always choose open driver.

The quality of the closed nvidia driver and the closed amd driver maybe they are a little different. Maybe one is a litte better or they are on par. 

According to the power management of the open driver: My radeon 5670 laptop uses the same low power with windows 7 and with linux radeon driver at low profile. Both 34W. Both OS at idle.

schorsch

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## DaggyStyle

 *schorsch_76 wrote:*   

> Hi,
> 
> we compare two different tpyes of drivers. The nvidia blob with the radeon open source driver. 
> 
> The current fglrx is not as bad as it was about 5 years or so. We know the pros and cons of the open and closed drivers. They are nearly the same at nouveau. 
> ...

 

both ATI drivers doesn't support UVD, how is that ok in anyway?

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## schorsch_76

I made only a comparisson of the closed and the open driver. It depends on your needs if UVD is a really important factor for your decision what GPU hardware vendor you choose. For me, it is not important and the OP did not ask for UVP supported by the GPU. Or did he?

All i did, writing down the pros and cons of the (nvidia|amd) (open|closed) source driver. And yes, both AMD drivers dont support UVD. The only driver which supports that via VDPAU is the closed nvidia driver.

schorsch

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## DaggyStyle

 *schorsch_76 wrote:*   

> I made only a comparisson of the closed and the open driver. It depends on your needs if UVD is a really important factor for your decision what GPU hardware vendor you choose. For me, it is not important and the OP did not ask for UVP supported by the GPU. Or did he?
> 
> All i did, writing down the pros and cons of the (nvidia|amd) (open|closed) source driver. And yes, both AMD drivers dont support UVD. The only driver which supports that via VDPAU is the closed nvidia driver.
> 
> schorsch

 

you buy a product which promises a feature, in the end, that feature is not working.

in NVIDIA it is different, there is at least the closed driver VDPAU support, in ATI there isn't.

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## Gusar

Err, the closed ATI driver supports UVD. Though how well it works is a different thing. I have no idea if and how well xvba-video (allows you to use UVD in vaapi players) works. And the only player that has direct xvba support is a branch of XBMC.

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## DaggyStyle

 *Gusar wrote:*   

> Err, the closed ATI driver supports UVD. Though how well it works is a different thing. I have no idea if and how well xvba-video (allows you to use UVD in vaapi players) works. And the only player that has direct xvba support is a branch of XBMC.

 

can you please direct me to a benchmark that proves it is usable?

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## Gusar

I didn't say anything about "usable". You claimed it's not supported, which is incorrect. That's all.

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## DaggyStyle

 *Gusar wrote:*   

> I didn't say anything about "usable". You claimed it's not supported, which is incorrect. That's all.

 

show me it works, until you do, it is unsupported.

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## schorsch_76

FYI:

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=amd_xvba_vaapi

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=OTEzNg

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## DaggyStyle

 *schorsch_76 wrote:*   

> FYI:
> 
> http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=amd_xvba_vaapi
> 
> http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=OTEzNg

 

I know about this but I've yet to see someone that uses it on a daily basis and can say it works.

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## Gusar

 *DaggyStyle wrote:*   

> show me it works, until you do, it is unsupported.

 

Buy a Radeon card and an HD camera, send them to me, and I'll record installing the fglrx driver and then playing a video with the FermetMenta branch of XBMC.

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## DaggyStyle

 *Gusar wrote:*   

>  *DaggyStyle wrote:*   show me it works, until you do, it is unsupported. 
> 
> Buy a Radeon card and an HD camera, send them to me, and I'll record installing the fglrx driver and then playing a video with the FermetMenta branch of XBMC.

 

please state full address  :Wink: 

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## schorsch_76

FYI: http://openelec.tv/news/item/253-openelec-20-released

Scroll down to "Significant changes and highlights in OpenELEC-2.0:" 

 *Quote:*   

> 
> 
> Improved AMD XVBA support
> 
> Thanks to the efforts of FernetMenta, Fritsch, Newphreak and many users who have been testing and providing feedback we have native XVBA support that replaces the old VAAPI temporary solution in OpenELEC 1.x. Performance and stability are massively improved.
> ...

 

OpenELEC is an appliance like distribution which runs XBMC with a very fast boost process.

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## arabcian

im using ati hybrid apu+dedicated both work well with fglrx driver i can switch them logging out and in and have gpu acceleration and cinerama support too

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