[wplug] ATI 9250 vs. Matrox G450

[Vance Kochenderfer]

"Robert E. Coutch" wrote:
> The Nvidia card kicks butt with an easy 76FPS cap but it is a pain to get it 
> working after a kernel update.

Yeah, the 9250 is older hardware, but as I said my gaming runs
more toward Tux Racer than UltraQuakeHaloUnreal 12000 or whatever
the latest and greatest is.  :)

> Let me know how the 9250 works out as it's always good to keep a few Linux 
> compatable cards laying about and those can be had fairly cheaply.

I may have a followup thread on the list.  I was originally going
to buy a refurbished/de-branded HP Athlon 64 and slap the video
card into that, but in researching found that it is hit-or-miss
as to whether the hardware (including such minor things as, say,
the IDE controller) works in Linux.  (Actually, since they don't
give the HP model number, it's an open question as to what the
hardware actually *is*.)

So instead of rolling the dice it looks like my best approach at
this point is to turn it into a DIY project so I can control all
the variables myself.  When/if I get things going, I'll try to
report here on the list.

wplug at perigee.shadysidesupercomputingcenter.com wrote:
} I run an ATI 9500 or 9600 pro with the latest xorg and kernel drivers,
} according to glxinfo I have DRI acceleration and Xgl/Compize runs ok

Yeah, the DRI wiki calls the R300 driver "unstable," but I don't
know what their definition of "unstable" is.  :)  It may work
well most of the time, but after fighting with Unichrome drivers
for my laptop, I'd rather take the easy road for once.

Vance Kochenderfer        |  "Get me out of these ropes and into a
vkochend at nyx.net          |   good belt of Scotch"    -Nick Danger