From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Thu May 10 15:49:15 2007 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [69.147.83.52]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 32DED16A400 for ; Thu, 10 May 2007 15:49:15 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from youshi10@u.washington.edu) Received: from mxout1.cac.washington.edu (mxout1.cac.washington.edu [140.142.32.134]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0CBBA13C455 for ; Thu, 10 May 2007 15:49:15 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from youshi10@u.washington.edu) Received: from smtp.washington.edu (smtp.washington.edu [140.142.32.141] (may be forged)) by mxout1.cac.washington.edu (8.13.7+UW06.06/8.13.7+UW07.03) with ESMTP id l4AFnEdf005921 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA bits=256 verify=OK); Thu, 10 May 2007 08:49:14 -0700 X-Auth-Received: from [192.168.10.45] (c-67-187-164-17.hsd1.ca.comcast.net [67.187.164.17]) (authenticated authid=youshi10) by smtp.washington.edu (8.13.7+UW06.06/8.13.7+UW07.03) with ESMTP id l4AFnDpX012610 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA bits=256 verify=NOT); Thu, 10 May 2007 08:49:14 -0700 Message-ID: <46433EF8.2080805@u.washington.edu> Date: Thu, 10 May 2007 08:49:12 -0700 From: Garrett Cooper User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.0 (Windows/20070326) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Robert Huff References: <20070509220908.GA50232@thought.org> <20070509230946.GA50585@thought.org> <20070510013453.GA52298@thought.org> <5CA2CC6B-72B6-46A1-9712-E258CFB4EB11@gmail.com> <4642A7F9.8070707@u.washington.edu> <17987.2963.612138.380335@jerusalem.litteratus.org> In-Reply-To: <17987.2963.612138.380335@jerusalem.litteratus.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-PMX-Version: 5.3.1.294258, Antispam-Engine: 2.5.1.298604, Antispam-Data: 2007.5.10.83136 X-Uwash-Spam: Gauge=IIIIIII, Probability=7%, Report='__CP_MEDIA_BODY 0, __CT 0, __CTE 0, __CT_TEXT_PLAIN 0, __HAS_MSGID 0, __MIME_TEXT_ONLY 0, __MIME_VERSION 0, __SANE_MSGID 0, __STOCK_SUBJ_9 0, __USER_AGENT 0' Cc: FreeBSD Mailing List Subject: Re: WOW! {Or Holy whatever} X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 10 May 2007 15:49:15 -0000 Robert Huff wrote: > Garrett Cooper writes: > >> Anyhow, getting back to the video thing at hand, if Gary was to >> purchase a card he should purchase an nVidia card. It's the only >> brand with OpenGL support properly enabled in Linux and >> FreeBSD. 5000-6000 series would be sufficient. > > Anyone considering this option should search the archives for > "nvidia +driver". While there are many satisfied customers, others > have had problems selecting the right driver and getting it to work > with their individual combination of hardware+OS version. > > > Robert "fore-armed is half an octopus" Huff With that in mind, I can vouch that the ASUS 6200 card with 128MB of RAM worked excellently, and I had no issues using the nvidia driver over the 2-3 years I had it in play. If you buy a more bleeding edge card, you'll probably run into support issues because there's only so much nVidia by themselves can test under FreeBSD. Depends on what you're going to do, and you probably wouldn't see much rendering difference between a higher quality card with more RAM, but if you use some multimedia programs, like TV tuner apps or MPlayer, it will help. Also, as DE/WMs increase the dependency upon OpenGL, i.e. Beryl, XFCE4.4, you will need a slightly faster card if you want to render quickly / properly, and ATI doesn't currently offer any type of OpenGL solution on FreeBSD. A good rule of thumb: Don't buy a video card with more RAM than 1/8 to 1/4 of the system RAM, because the RAM is shared with the system RAM, which means you have less overall system RAM to use for apps. -Garrett