Quoth Stephan Kulka, > I searched the archives and some hardware pages, but I couldn't find > anything useful. > So I ask the question: I am looking for a graphics card for using it > mainly for office programs, but also sometimes for a good game. > It is not necessary for drawing CAD or the like. > I thought about a Matrox, because they should be a good average and also > not that expensive. > > Any other ideas??
Hi Stephen, I'm running at 32M Matrox G450 in my machine, using XFree 4.02 (from testing). It's a nice card, and give me a good picture on my 17" Diamondview (a trinatron screen). However, it's not without its issues. I've had heaps of problems getting the framebuffer running properly (boot to a screen full of garbage, which doesn't prevent X from running). Also it requires binary modules to run optimally with X4, which can be downloaded freely from the Matrox web site. While I believe that it may run without the binary modules (not sure), to get the best performance, you're relying on non-free binary drivers. This may or may not be an issue for you. 3D performance under X4 seems to be okay, at least for the gl xscreensaver modules. However, the loki demos (such as Soldier of Fortune) do not run well for me. They are so choppy as to be unplayable. I'm not sure if this is an issue of the card, the xserver, the mesa libraries, or the game, however. Just be aware that if you think you're going to be doing 3d gamining under Linux with this card, you may not get the performance you'd want (then again, this may just be me). Overall, I'm happy with it. cheers, damon -- Damon Muller | Did a large procession wave their torches Criminologist/Linux Geek | As my head fell in the basket, http://killfilter.com | And was everybody dancing on the casket... PGP (GnuPG): A136E829 | - TBMG, "Dead"
