Date: Sun, 3 Feb 2008 01:35:51 +0000 From: Frank Shute <frank@esperance-linux.co.uk> To: Mike Clarke <jmc-freebsd@milibyte.co.uk> Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Nvidia graphics on AMD64 Message-ID: <20080203013551.GB62332@melon.esperance-linux.co.uk> In-Reply-To: <200802022112.28641.jmc-freebsd@milibyte.co.uk> References: <200802022112.28641.jmc-freebsd@milibyte.co.uk>
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On Sat, Feb 02, 2008 at 09:12:27PM +0000, Mike Clarke 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. > > 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. There are nvidia chipsets such as nforce4 which work with FreeBSD, I don't know about more recent ones but you can have a grovel through here: http://www.freebsd.org/platforms/amd64/motherboards.html > > If I choose a Nvidia based motherboard would I have to install the i386 > version of FreeBSD if I wanted to use the onboard graphics, in which case to > what extent would the overall performance suffer? No. You can use the nv driver: x11-drivers/xf86-video-nv You might want to use i386 if you've got less than 4GB of memory as some applications are only 32 bit such as Flash. > > My graphics needs are fairly modest, so long as I can use the Gimp to edit > some photos I'm OK, but playing the occasional DVD fairly smoothly would be a > bonus but not essential. Is there any alternative graphics driver which would > meet my needs? You'd be ok with nv which builds on i386 or AMD64. There is a proprietory driver which can be used on i386 but not AMD64: x11/nvidia-driver > > ... or should I just keep away from Nvidia and concentrate on something with > ATI graphics? I've just switched from an Nvidia card to ATI onboard and the nvidia card was better. The onboard ATI gives me a rather washed out picture. So my advice would be to avoid onboard graphics and get a cheap nvidia card. You can get them for about 20 quid for a 128MB card. -- Frank Contact info: http://www.esperance-linux.co.uk/misc/contact.html
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