From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Sat Feb 2 23:07:35 2008 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8D39416A417 for ; Sat, 2 Feb 2008 23:07:35 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from fbsd.questions@rachie.is-a-geek.net) Received: from snoogles.rachie.is-a-geek.net (rachie.is-a-geek.net [66.230.99.27]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5208113C45A for ; Sat, 2 Feb 2008 23:07:35 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from fbsd.questions@rachie.is-a-geek.net) Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by snoogles.rachie.is-a-geek.net (Postfix) with ESMTP id 927281CC8B; Sat, 2 Feb 2008 14:07:21 -0900 (AKST) From: Mel To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Date: Sun, 3 Feb 2008 00:06:04 +0100 User-Agent: KMail/1.9.7 References: <200802022112.28641.jmc-freebsd@milibyte.co.uk> <20080202231028.P4423@wojtek.tensor.gdynia.pl> In-Reply-To: <20080202231028.P4423@wojtek.tensor.gdynia.pl> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Message-Id: <200802030006.06287.fbsd.questions@rachie.is-a-geek.net> Cc: Wojciech Puchar , Mike Clarke Subject: Re: Nvidia graphics on AMD64 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: Sat, 02 Feb 2008 23:07:35 -0000 On Saturday 02 February 2008 23:13:25 Wojciech Puchar wrote: > > After running a 90 hour portupgrade job on my current Duron 1600 based > > system I've persuaded myself that a hardware upgrade is due. > > simply use precompiled ones if it's a problem. > anyway - i don't what bloatware you have compiled but on my 1200Mhz > Thinkpad i needed few hours to install things i use. > > > I'm contemplating building a system around an Athlon 64 X2 4200+ CPU. I'm > > not into games and overclocking so a relatively low end motherboard with > > integrated graphics should suffice. I've been looking at a few specs, > > many of them use Nvidia chipsets and I understand that there isn't a > > Nvidia graphics driver for FreeBSD on the AMD64 platform. > > by general there are lots of problems with nvidia as it's closed source. > i always avoid closed source. That's a very unfounded statement. Nvidia is probably the best supported graphics card family for FreeBSD, *because* it actually has a vendor provided driver. The only 'problem' is that Nvidia decides when they want to support platform/release X/Y and FreeBSD to have certain interfaces they desire in place. Last I heard, it was 7.0-RELEASE for new (as in, not COMPAT5X) native drivers, but this long topic seems to indicate otherwise: http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=41545 There is however for X an nv driver from xorg that does it's job for most cards, if you don't need hardware accelerated OpenGL. Which OP doesn't need for gimp/dvd's. I'd really stay away from ATI, for your purposes, either go with nvidia or Intel onboard. -- Mel