From owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Thu May 14 04:30:17 2009 Return-Path: Delivered-To: hackers@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id BB1F2106566C for ; Thu, 14 May 2009 04:30:17 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from mwm-keyword-freebsdhackers2.e313df@mired.org) Received: from mired.org (two.mired.org [74.143.213.43]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 776C48FC0A for ; Thu, 14 May 2009 04:30:17 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from mwm-keyword-freebsdhackers2.e313df@mired.org) Received: (qmail 29538 invoked by uid 1001); 14 May 2009 00:02:04 -0400 Received: from bhuda.mired.org (localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1]) by bhuda (tmda-ofmipd) with ESMTP; Thu, 14 May 2009 00:02:03 -0400 Date: Thu, 14 May 2009 00:02:03 -0400 To: jgrosch@mooseriver.com Message-ID: <20090514000203.3d053800@bhuda.mired.org> In-Reply-To: <20090514030634.GA1252@mooseriver.com> References: <20090514030634.GA1252@mooseriver.com> Organization: Meyer Consulting X-Mailer: Claws Mail 3.7.1 (GTK+ 2.14.7; amd64-portbld-freebsd7.1) Face: 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 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Delivery-Agent: TMDA/1.1.12 (Macallan) From: Mike Meyer Cc: question@freebsd.org, hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: In search of a video card X-BeenThere: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Technical Discussions relating to FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 14 May 2009 04:30:18 -0000 On Wed, 13 May 2009 20:06:34 -0700 Josef Grosch wrote: > > I'm in search for a decent video card. I currently have an Nvidia GeForce > 8400 GS. It worked pretty well i386 FreeBSD 6.2. I have upgraded my home > machine and I am running amd64 FreeBSD 7.2 and it just refuses to go into > X. It just hangs. I've been poking around and, based on what I read, some > FreeBSD developers and Nvidia have gotten into a finger pointing contest as > to what is the problem. Its all very nice but doesn't help me much. > > So, can any one recommend a good video card? What I'm looking for is > > * Works with amd64 FreeBSD 7.2 > * DVI > * PCI-E x16 > * 512 MB or more > * Not going to cost an arm and a leg You forgot the critical information: you didn't define what works for you. In particular, does a card that doesn't do 3d acceleration "work"? How about 2d? The open source Nvidia driver pretty much sucks. Probably because the proprietary Nvidia blob (which you were presumably using on i386) is one of the most functional X video drivers around, so there's not a lot of incentive to work on the open source version. But you can't use the proprietary blob on amd64, so you get the open source driver, and - well you've experienced it. The ATI radeon driver - it's open source, there's no proprietary blob - is actually pretty good. Except that 2d & 3d acceleration support is, um, variable. If you have to have 2d & 3d acceleration, I don't believe you have a good option for FreeBSD on amd64, at least not until the kernel tweaks Nvidia needs are done (there has been some motion on that front recently). But I don't really need it, so I haven't spent any time looking for such a card. If you're ok with solid - if basic - video performance, I'll recommend pretty much any radeon card. I've used a number of them to drive dual 1920x1200 displays on a variety of systems for a couple of years now. Amazon has cards that meet your listed requirements for under US$40. http://www.mired.org/consulting.html Independent Network/Unix/Perforce consultant, email for more information. O< ascii ribbon campaign - stop html mail - www.asciiribbon.org