On Mon, Aug 07, 2006 at 08:07:23AM -0400, Roberto C. Sanchez wrote: > On Mon, Aug 07, 2006 at 12:49:02PM +0100, Alan Chandler wrote: > > I am planning on building myself a new computer from scratch, probably based > > on the new Intel Core 2 Duo chips, and am seeking opinions on the best > > graphics chipset/card that I should use. Basic criteria are as follows > > > > 1) Must be open source driver (under linux) > > 2) Some 3D capability - but not necessarily the fastest, but expect to run > > the following in the future (not particularly tried any of these yet) > > - Flight Gear > > - Blender > > - KDE4 > > > > I currently am running a Gigabyte Radeon 9200 - which seems just about ideal > > as it has the R200 chipset which seems fully supported. I would have liked > > to carry it over to my new machine. Unfortunately > > a) It has an AGP interface - newer motherboards seem to be PCI-E > > b) My favoured Hardware Supplier (http://www.dabs.com) don't seem to stock > > any graphics cards with this chipset as its far too old. > > > > My current exploration around this subject doesn't seem to get a very clear > > opinion. Most reviews seem to concentrate on ATI or Nvidia chipsets, with > > the requirement that I would then have to choose the binary drivers from > > these two manufactures. This is something I would like to avoid. > > > > Looking for alternatives at the dri.sourceforge.net web site, the chipsets > > with full support, mainly seem to be the older ones, with possibly Intel > > and Matrox offerings. Not sure I understand the detail - but this seems to > > mean a motherboard with an intel chipset, or get a Matrox G5500 separate > > card. What are don't really know is will these be sufficiently performant > > for the tasks I need it for. > > > > What can this list advise? > > Of the modern graphics chips, the Intel chips are the best supported in > open source as their complete drivers are in the Linux kernel and in X. > The other two choices, nVidia and ATi, both require proprietary drivers > to get any semblance of decent performance.
Last I heard, Intel had announced their intention to make their own video drivers open source in order to have a competitive advantage over nvidia and ATI, but they hadn't yet done it. I also heard that at that time the Intel chips were available on motherboards, but not on plug-in cards. Has the situation changed? -- hendrik -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
