Hi all, As a summer project, I will be building a nice, shiny new desktop. My plans are to have Gentoo GNU/Linux and Windows 7 on it at least, with perhaps FreeBSD or Debian GNU/Hurd on it as well. I also plan on buying a middle end graphics card: nothing too expensive, preferably under the $200 price mark. With Windows, I'm not really worried about drivers for cards; they should be at least adequate. With GNU/Linux, on the other hand, drivers are a real concern. While I understand that I will have to do any serious gaming on Windows, I do want good 3D acceleration on GNU/Linux, as it is my operating system of choice, and I am writing a Free Software adventure game, Humm and Strumm, for both GNU systems and Windows. My requirements for the card are:

• A Free Software driver for GNU/Linux with 3D acceleration.
• Under $200.
• HDMI (1920x1080 @ 1080p for me) output

If anyone could help out by telling me a card or chipset that has a working Free Software driver for GNU/Linux, that would be great. Thanks! Cheers, Patrick

Both ATI/AMD and Nvidia provide binary drivers for Linux. These drivers are free as in free beer but are not open-source. However, you don't really have a choice if you want 3D acceleration for OpenGL 3.2 on Linux today. To use the latest drivers you sometimes have to go through hoops, such as reinstalling the driver every time you update the kernel (which can happen every other week or so). Historically, Nvidia drivers for Linux have come out faster, were less buggy, and supported more OpenGL features sooner, so if you want cutting edge 3D features in Linux you probably want to get an Nvidia card, even though the current ATI binary driver already supports OpenGL 3.2. Unfortunately I can't recommend any specific card - I use GeForce 8600 GT and it works like a charm on Ubuntu, but with your budget and considering it's now 2010, not 2007, you will want to get a much better card than that.

You can look here to see which cards are currently supported in Nvidia's Linux driver.

Intel has the most complete open source drivers, but that doesn't help you. As far as discrete cards go the Radeon driver is further along than the free Nvidia driver (Nouveau). Don't expect the absolute latest and greatest from any of the open source drivers as far as OpenGL/GLSL/etc goes; none of them support OpenGL 3.0 for example. Also none of the free drivers support anything other than Linux for the most part. Intel and Radeon might support BSD but not with any acceleration.

Alright, thanks lightbringer!

I was really hoping that I could use a Free Software driver, but if this is not possible, I'll just settle for one of the binary ones.

Cheers,
Patrick

Quote: None of them support OpenGL 3.0 for example. Also none of the free drivers support anything other than Linux for the most part. Intel and Radeon might support BSD but not with any acceleration.

I have been using OpenGL 3.0 for the most part in my game, I guess I will need a binary one.

Also, I was under the impression that the BSDs had better support for drivers than Linux in graphics cards; I think someone once told me this. Is this no longer true, or is it just for these open source drivers that the support isn't there?

Quote: Original post by Patrick Niedzielski
I was really hoping that I could use a Free Software driver, but if this is not possible, I'll just settle for one of the binary ones.

NVidias binary drivers are excellent, they use the same core as their Windows counterparts. They're also very straightforward to install (binary installer with UI, almost like under Windows, very nice). There is absolutely no reason not to use them.

I don't have experience with modern ATI drivers under Linux. But if AMD got the quality up in the same vein as with their Windows drivers, then they should be quite good too. Then again, ATI had a history of very bad Linux support, so be sure to look for some feedback from someone actually using such a setup before considering this option.

Quote: There is absolutely no reason not to use them.

Well, there *is*...them being proprietary software... :)

I will probably go for an Nvidia card then, if they have a history of being more compatible with the Linux kernel.

Yeah; NVidia's binary drivers work great with my laptop, even when I first installed them 4-5 years ago.

Quote: Original post by Patrick Niedzielski
Well, there *is*...them being proprietary software... :)

And you have a proprietary GPU :) Okay, technically there is no reason not to use them, if you prefer. If you want high quality 3D support, you don't have a choice anyway.

Quote:
Also, I was under the impression that the BSDs had better support for drivers than Linux in graphics cards; I think someone once told me this. Is this no longer true, or is it just for these open source drivers that the support isn't there?

This someone must have been misinformed. Most of the graphics stack is actually very portable, but the DRM (Direct Rendering Manager), which arbitrates access to the graphics hardware, has to be a kernel module. Without the DRM, you don't get OpenGL support, and the BSDs have always been playing catch up in porting the DRM to their kernel.

As far as proprietary drivers go, you are of course at the mercy of the vendors.

Since the question has come up: AMD's proprietary driver has become very good. I don't know how solid their OpenGL implementation is, but since they share the driver core with their Windows driver, that should give you a good indication. They are slightly slower than NVidia in updating their proprietary driver to support the latest X.org server features, but they're usually not far behind.