Date: Mon, 5 Aug 2002 11:31:11 +0200 From: Pierre Beyssac <beyssac@enst.fr> To: Andrew Kolchoogin <andrew@snark.rinet.ru> Cc: current@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: About 5.0 and Nvidia drivers Message-ID: <20020805113111.A40817@bofh.enst.fr> In-Reply-To: <20020805085951.GA13606@snark.rinet.ru>; from andrew@snark.rinet.ru on Mon, Aug 05, 2002 at 12:59:51PM %2B0400 References: <20020805055547.69959.qmail@web20708.mail.yahoo.com> <1028535362.483.311.camel@anholt.dyndns.org> <20020805085951.GA13606@snark.rinet.ru>
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On Mon, Aug 05, 2002 at 12:59:51PM +0400, Andrew Kolchoogin wrote: > yet another point. We should consider that many people already HAS some > kind of NVidia hardware and doesn't plan to change their well-tested video > card. > > As such, all discussions about ATI c00lness are pretty good but fairly > useless -- I have 45 machines with NVidia Riva TNT2 and doesn't plan to > upgrade/change my hardware. > > I think that developing DRI-compatible (or even compatible with itself > throught wall outlet) driver for NVidia video cards is very good initiative. I'd like to add my 2 cents. I've owned a Riva TNT card for awhile, which I happily used under FreeBSD with the old drivers Nvidia provided in sources before they got all monopolistic and proprietary (strange how these things tend to coincide). These source then became the base of the utah-glx port. The driver is a bit outdated (doesn't do DMA, for one), not optimal, but it certainly is better than software rendering. I'm not sure it works with recent GF cards, however. It sure works with TNT and TNT2. A few months ago, when I wanted to upgrade my 3D card, I was already somewhat fed up with Nvidia's idiotic policy and got myself a Radeon Vivo. Works out of the box with XFree 4 and DRI, with some configuration tweaking. Maybe not the best choice if you listen to Windows gamerz, but I don't care. I'm willing to sacrifice that 20? 10? percent perfs if I can get the card to run under FreeBSD. Now regarding DRI for Nvidia. IMHO, just forget it, at least as long as Nvidia is in a proprietary mood about his drivers. It is just too painful to reverse engineer, even if you disregard legal aspects, so unless someone very talented with really, really too much free time on his hands works on it (yourself perhaps ?), it won't happen because it's just not worth it. > Although reverse engeneering (thing that this thread has begun from) is > very complicated and time-consuming process, if NVidia doesn't wish to > collaborate with software developers, it should be done. Depends on your point of view. My opinion is that there are other vendors out there -- such as ATI --, more willing to cooperate, so I don't see the point of wasting anyone's free time to help Nvidia make more business for themselves. The bottom line is: the notion of "best card" is relative. The best cards under FreeBSD are not Nvidia's, period. So the choice is yours to make between: - the best card under Windows (supposedly Nvidia's), running with outdated but functional drivers under FreeBSD. - the best card under FreeBSD, certainly not Nvidia's. - your personal time investment to get new Nvidia drivers to work under FreeBSD. -- Pierre Beyssac pb@enst.fr To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
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