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Nvidia vs. ATI/AMD in Linux

Zarathustra[H]

Zarathustra[H]

Extremely [H]
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Oct 29, 2000
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Hey all,

I have been using Nvidia video cards almost exclusively since I finally decided my 3DFX Voodoo I was obsolete some time in 1999, not really because I am an Nvidia fan, but because of its greater Linux compatibility.

ATI/Radeon Linux drivers used to be atrocious, and Nvidias drivers were pretty decent.

How is this landscape today? I have been shopping around for silent fanless video cards lately. at first I was inclined to stick with Nvidia as I am so used to them and how their drivers work in Linux.

It turns out - however - that the best fanless Nvidia board I can find is the 9800GT, whereas the best Radeon fanless board is the 5750, which is a bit faster.

I'd very much like the faster Radeon, but I am concerned about driver compatibility in Linux. Have the Radeon drivers improved? Are they decent in Linux these days?

I appreciate any help.
 
ATI drivers are much better than they used to be but Nvidias are still better IMO.

I will say though that the difference is not big enough to buy a 9800GT over a 5750
 
Disposed said:
ATI drivers are much better than they used to be but Nvidias are still better IMO.
Click to expand...

Thank you for your input. This is exactly what I needed. Can you comment on the biggest annoyances/differences between the install and function of ATI vs Nvidia drivers under linux?

Disposed said:
I will say though that the difference is not big enough to buy a 9800GT over a 5750
Click to expand...

I'm guessing you mean the other way around?
 
Zarathustra[H];1035565326 said:
Thank you for your input. This is exactly what I needed. Can you comment on the biggest annoyances/differences between the install and function of ATI vs Nvidia drivers under linux?
Click to expand...

They are both very easy to install. One of the biggest issues I have with the ati drivers is on occasion when I install them ccc just plain don't work. This has happened to me a couple times on windows but in linux it seems to happen more.

I still run into the occasional bug every now and the in wine that only exists for ati.

All in all though like I said its far better than before and very usable, I just think the nvidia drivers are a bit better overall but not enough to buy a slower card for them.

I'm guessing you mean the other way around?
Click to expand...

No I would get the 5750 the difference in performance is too big and the issues with ati drivers so minor at this point that its worth it.
 
With binary blob nvidia drivers, I get hardware-accelerated h264 decoding. I don't think that I do with ATI gear. This made the difference for me.
 
Go with ATI, support the company that is trying to support open source graphics drivers for their cards. Nvidia binary drivers are still better than ATI's, but for normal desktop usage you should not even notice a difference.
 
bbordwell said:
Go with ATI, support the company that is trying to support open source graphics drivers for their cards. Nvidia binary drivers are still better than ATI's, but for normal desktop usage you should not even notice a difference.
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All they did was drop their horrible open source driver. Thats not a good reason to choose one over the other. The nouveau drivers just became so damn nice that theirs was not near as good and definitely not needed.
 
Disposed said:
All they did was drop their horrible open source driver. Thats not a good reason to choose one over the other. The nouveau drivers just became so damn nice that theirs was not near as good and definitely not needed.
Click to expand...

Well, they also released all their technical docs to the open source community, allowing the development of open source drivers to proceed much more rapidly and smoothly.

The FGLRX drivers are still being developed by ATI, but right now their only advantage is 3d performance. As I understand for every day useability the open source drivers are far superior.

While I like what ATI has done, I'm not going to go out and praise them quite yet. The truth is, this could just be a method to save themselves the cost and effort it would take to support their cards under linux, instead using the open source community to do it for them.

Ideally it would be nice to see them work alongside the open source project to push it forward, but that isn't likely to happen...
 
Zarathustra[H];1035597173 said:
Well, they also released all their technical docs to the open source community, allowing the development of open source drivers to proceed much more rapidly and smoothly.

The FGLRX drivers are still being developed by ATI, but right now their only advantage is 3d performance. As I understand for every day useability the open source drivers are far superior.

While I like what ATI has done, I'm not going to go out and praise them quite yet. The truth is, this could just be a method to save themselves the cost and effort it would take to support their cards under linux, instead using the open source community to do it for them.

Ideally it would be nice to see them work alongside the open source project to push it forward, but that isn't likely to happen...
Click to expand...

??:confused:?? I was talking about nvidia
 
@disposed, Zarathustra pretty much summed up my thoughts I am not sure why it confused you?

Nvidia dropping the NV driver is not a reason to not choose them, it made sense since nouveau was better anyway, but ATI supporting the development by actively trying to get docs out is a reason to choose ATI.
 
bbordwell said:
@disposed, Zarathustra pretty much summed up my thoughts I am not sure why it confused you?
Click to expand...

Just read the posts again. Why is it confusing to you? It dont mean what he said about ATI is invalid but i was talking about Nvidia is all.

bbordwell said:
Nvidia dropping the NV driver is not a reason to not choose them, it made sense since nouveau was better anyway, but ATI supporting the development by actively trying to get docs out is a reason to choose ATI.
Click to expand...

Honestly i wouldnt base a purchase decision off either of the awful open source drivers. Does the R800 even have any 3D support yet with the open source drivers? It didnt last i checked.

You should look at this supposed "Active help" everything they offer is incomplete and months late. They are too busy making sure no protected info makes it out to actually get anything to them in any sort of timely fashion.

If you want reliable 3D support you have no choice but to use proprietary drivers either way.
 
Disposed, agreed. It is basically a choice of picking between the lesser of two evils as far as open source drivers are concerned.
 
Disposed said:
If you want reliable 3D support you have no choice but to use proprietary drivers either way.
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In all honesty, I do very little 3D in Linux. As long as the board works well in 2d and compiz window treatments/effects I would be happy. Linux is my "work" OS.

For 3d stuff, I'd usually boot up in windows anyway...
 
Zarathustra[H];1035616852 said:
In all honesty, I do very little 3D in Linux. As long as the board works well in 2d and compiz window treatments/effects I would be happy. Linux is my "work" OS.

For 3d stuff, I'd usually boot up in windows anyway...
Click to expand...

then there you have it. If 3d is not a concern get whichever card is cheaper or runs cooler/quieter. Whichever you prefer, either brand will suit you fine.
 
Disposed said:
then there you have it. If 3d is not a concern get whichever card is cheaper or runs cooler/quieter. Whichever you prefer, either brand will suit you fine.
Click to expand...

Just hope the 3d tunnel screen saver isn't to GPU intensive :p
 
My understanding is that ATI has the BEST open source driver at the moment - it can even do some 3D with ease (such as desktop compositing effects like the famous "SPINNAN CUBE"). This is the driver called "ati" that ATI is helping to develop - they want it to eventually be as good as their proprietary binary blob. Their closed source, binary blob 3d driver (Catalyst, or fglrx) is MUCH better than it used to be and is getting better every single time. Unfortunately, it is still not up to performing as easily as Nvidia's blob. Nvidia's blob works better, but they've been stagnating for quite some time while ATI is catching up.

I'd say to support ATI who is trying to support the open source community and working hard to improve their drivers. Especially if you're going to be using mostly 2D (including fancy desktops and hardware video acceleration), go ATI and choose the open source driver which "just works". If you absolutely need 3D performance NOW, go Nvidia and use their proprietary driver.
 
Xaeos said:
My understanding is that ATI has the BEST open source driver at the moment.
Click to expand...

This is news to me. I have always assumed nVidia has been the raining champ with their proprietary Linux drivers. I am not debating you...just shocked.
 
Carlosinfl said:
This is news to me. I have always assumed nVidia has been the raining champ with their proprietary Linux drivers. I am not debating you...just shocked.
Click to expand...

I think he is comparing open source to open source, not including the closed source binary drivers, and he may have a point.

The nvidia binary closed source drivers are king. No contest.

The nvidia open source drivers are pretty good in traditional 2d applications, but suck in 3d.

Depending on your generation of ATI board the ATI open source driver provides more 3d support than the nvidia open source driver does. I have heard that sometimes regular desktop performance can suffer with it, however.
 
From my experience, as a gamer in Linux, I will stay with nvidia. I had to jump loops to run games in Cedega/Wine on a Radeon card. The closed source drivers from Nvidia always work better in my experience.
 
Sorry for muddying the waters here but it has been my experience that the functionality varies more from distro to distro than card to card.

I have an HP laptop for work with a Radeon 4200 in it. OpenSuSE 10.2 just would not accept the ATI drivers and enable 3D desktop effects or support in apps. SuSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10.2 did work but took a little fine tuning. Fedora Core 12 worked with nothing more than installing the ATI drivers. My home system with an 8800GTX FC 12 locks when you start pushing the card, Ubuntu and OpenSuSE work just fine.

I would suggest if you want to go with the Radeon card do a Google search for your chosen distro and ATI drivers to see what errors other users are reporting and base your decision on that.
 
Judging by his sig hes using Ubuntu which tends to work just fine with either one.
 
I've not read anyone else's post except the OP's, so this is based on my own experience. I have a fresh installation of Ubuntu 10.4 on this machine which has an ATI HD4890 1GB. Ubuntu recognized the card immediately at first boot and offered to download and install the latest Catalyst driver.

Graphically and configuration-wise it works great. It just has one tiny little annoyance: it wants me to reboot no matter what I change in Catalyst and it's annoying as shit. But once you get your graphics set up the way you want (I have 2 monitors, so I had to try a couple multi-monitor settings to find the one I wanted.) it's good.
 
The AMD binary blob still sucked a few months ago.

Still waiting on an AMD blob that will give me dual DVI from the dongles going to the 60pin LFH connector on my FireGL card.
The Windows blob does dual DVI just fine, but the Linux side won't drive both in digital.

Nvidia until then...
 
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