From owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Jun 9 02:31:54 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: hackers@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 788C016A418 for ; Fri, 9 Jun 2006 02:31:54 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from stephen@math.missouri.edu) Received: from sccmmhc91.asp.att.net (sccmmhc91.asp.att.net [204.127.203.211]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id CEE8743D7B for ; Fri, 9 Jun 2006 02:31:53 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from stephen@math.missouri.edu) Received: from [10.0.0.4] (12-216-248-146.client.mchsi.com[12.216.248.146]) by sccmmhc91.asp.att.net (sccmmhc91) with ESMTP id <20060609023147m9100okevhe>; Fri, 9 Jun 2006 02:31:48 +0000 Message-ID: <4488DD90.5070206@math.missouri.edu> Date: Thu, 08 Jun 2006 21:31:44 -0500 From: Stephen Montgomery-Smith User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; FreeBSD i386; en-US; rv:1.7.13) Gecko/20060531 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Clifton Royston References: <20060609020815.GA342@lava.net> In-Reply-To: <20060609020815.GA342@lava.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: PCI Express graphics reliability/functionality in 6.1? 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: Fri, 09 Jun 2006 02:31:54 -0000 Clifton Royston wrote: > I'm soon to build myself a new AMD X2 workstation system on which I > plan to multiboot various operating systems including FreeBSD, a couple > Linux distros and probably Windows XP Pro, and probably also run > virtualization software (VMWare and/or Xen.) I'm hoping for it to last > me through a few years of occasional upgrades, which makes me dubious > about choosing an AGP motherboard. > > I can't find anything specific about PCI Express in the 6.1 release > notes. However, I have Googled up some reports of various PCI-E > graphic cards working badly in Xorg under FreeBSD and other open source > OSes. In general should PCI Express graphics cards work properly and > perform reasonably well for Xorg and OpenGL graphics under FreeBSD, if > I avoid the "touchier" nVidia cards, or do I need to stick with AGP for > reliability? I have a PCI-E nvidia card 6600 with a particular Intel board (whose numbers I don't remember right now) which used to be problematic, and generated quite a few messages on the internet to that effect. But it turned out to be a problem with the BIOS on the motherboard which was fixed when Intel came out with a BIOS upgrade. So what I am saying is that the problem might be motherboard specific rather than graphics card specific. Stephen