Video Card Help

[Phillip Alvarez]

I have a modify pavilion hp. I will give you my specks...
Athlon 1800+
512MB of Ram
Nvidia Geforce 4 with 64mb of ddr

I want to buy a new video card i can only get pci since thats what my motherboard supports. i searched and came down to two choices, the radeon 9100 and radeon 9200. After some reading i chosed the radeon 9100 PCI but i read that the 64mb ddr and 128mb ddr dont make much of a different, i really dont want to spend more money on a video card thats gonna be the same as a cheaper one, please help. And if anyone knows of a better pci video card please advice.

[Steven E. Protter]

Stop.

Do not pass go.

Do not collect $200.

This is Linux. The first thing you need to do is see if your chosen Video card is supported by your chosen Linux distribution. If that would be red hat, you'd start out at http://www.redhat.com

The key issue is not pickinhg out the best video card that does the most things at the lowest price. Anyone that has every had problems between a video card and Linux(I slowly embarassingly raise my hand) knows that it is something to be avoided.

Tell us what the purpose of the machine is(server or workstation) what Linux distribution you are thinking on and why.

Then check for hardware compabability. You want absolute support unless you think writing video drivers is fun. I for one do not find that fun.

Since this is an HP microcomputer, you should also take extra special care that you get something that works well and plays nicely with Pavillions. I've worked on these machines with Linux and Windows, and they are a major PITA(Apologies to HP). Perhaps that is why you are here.

As to your choice, its not a known name to me(meaningless perhaps). I've done well in Linux with ATI video cards. Its a known name, its on the hardware lists and it doesn't cost a whole lot. My boxes are server type boxes, but I use X to perform certain tasks.

If the cost difference between a 64 MB and a 128 MB card is $10-20, buy the bigger memory. Most Linux systems go through a few OS upgrades during their lifetimes and unless its a dedicated server box you'll eventually use the memory.

SEP

[Huc_1]

I dont claim much expertise when it come to video card, but always found more then worth while to check on RedHat hardware tested list, when i did not do this i nearly alway's run into troubles,had to seach for alternatives and wasted a lot of time, I did get there in the end with patience and sometimes ended spending more !

The more on board memory is always better, I have a few system i can display video on but i usually chose to use the RIVA TNT2 , this is not a very recent video card but find it does the job for me

J-P

[Dave Falloon]

What are your video demands like?

Are you dual booting and playing games in windows?

Do you want to play games in Linux?

If you are not taxing your video card in Linux then go with an the cheapest best supported card. As SEP said it REALLY sucks when you have an esoteric vid card and the support for it is coming out with the next release of X. I, like Huc, use a riva TNT2 pci card that cost me $80 CAD and it does everything I need and more, but then again I only use x windows for browsing the web and for email, both of which are done with mozilla's firebird.

I hope that helps,

Dave

[Dave Falloon]

I forgot to ask, why are you getting rid of the geforce card?

You can download linux drivers from nvidea's website @:

http://www.nvidia.com/object/linux_display_ia32_1.0-4496

They support a lot of different distributions so if you use a mainstream linux then you could use your geforce card without having to upgrade.

Dave

[Paul Cross_1]

I'm not sure this is even a Linux question, there is no mention of it in the posting other than the category it was posted in.
I also hate to repeat the question, but the Geforce is pretty much intended as a gaming card is it not? There aren't too many games for linux that can use that much power, in fact there aren't too many applications period for linux that can use that much video power.
More info would be useful.

[Phillip Alvarez]

I am so sorry you guys i didnt know this was a linux forum, i have windows xp :-(