Moving from nvidia to something free...
Sat, 2006-03-25 18:53
I have an nvidia geforce graphics card (not sure which but I can find out if need be), I have been using the propriatary nvidia driver, but it was sech a pain with changing kernels and so forth I'm giving it up. So I'm wordering if there are any free drivers I could use to let me play tuxracer?
Not with nVidia cards. The only video cards with free 3D drivers are ATI R100s and R200s.
I don't get why people accept proprietary drivers. I've not heard many good stories with them, and they break with different kernels, are a pain in the ass to install...
Okay then, I'll see if I can live without tuxracer...(and also hope the open graphics guys get some pototypes done).
Bin X, use nice frame buffers and be happy and freeeeeeeeeeeee
Not really help but hey.
Hehe, well I have nice frambuffers already - and they are rather cool.
Hehe, well I have nice frambuffers already - and they are rather cool.
What more do you need!
Irssi, ssh, tmsnc, links2
Tut tut tut, It's a disgrace that you are becoming reliant on X, AndrewB, and dylunio, come to the dark side
Support for ATI R300 and higher cards is already in Xorg CVS and Mesa. However AFAIK it just doesn't work well enough currently.
and I have also heard that there is a free driver for NVidia cards on Haiku OS, but I have never tried the Haiku OS so I don't know whether it works or not.
proprietary drivers are really a pain. sadly, this is a field where material kicks philosophy's ass.
nVidia and ATi have the know-how (aka secrets) and cash noone else in the graphics field has. They both support linux with its growing market share, especially nVidia here, but not free software. We need an anti=proprietary=hardware law...
and I have also heard that there is a free driver for NVidia cards on Haiku OS, but I have never tried the Haiku OS so I don't know whether it works or not.
Haiku OS is still largely an incomplete operating system. It's a challenge to get itself even running, let alone Nvidia drivers.. but well.. I haven't tried it myself yet so..
It's good to hear that they have free drivers though, that's very promising.
As for the topic, I would seriously recommend ATI R100/200/300 cards. If I had any money for that I'd buy one of those (just because there's a free driver for them). I don't mind them being older since that just means I could get them cheaper and since they're still whole lot better than this onboard savage chip I have (and even that plays tuxracer just fine if DRM (Direct Rendering Management, not Digital Restrictions
) is enabled).
So that's definitely something to consider..
By the way I saw a Radeon 9250 (last of the R200s) at BestBuy for $100 US a while ago when getting speakers.
The fastest R200 is the Radeon 8500 128MB.