[MPlayer-users] Re: Display card recommendations

[D Richard Felker III]

On Mon, Sep 16, 2002 at 07:28:06PM -0400, Steven Adeff wrote:
> [Automatic answer: RTFM (read DOCS, FAQ), also read DOCS/bugreports.html]
> Cool, I actually started relevant conversation on this...
> 
> I understand what Robert is saying, that there very well could be source that 
> NVidia uses in their drivers that they shouldn't, and that is a concern. 
> Though that never seems to be part of the arguement. The arguement always 
> comes out as "they are anti-open source, open source drivers are always 
> better and therefore all linux drivers should be open source"(though not 
> actually quoted). While that's fine and well for low quality "official" 
> drivers, NVidia manages to put out quality drivers for linux. I think we need 
> to spend more of the time bashing NVidia on screaming at ATI and Matrox(as 
> far as graphic cards manufacturers) for not having linux drivers of this 
> quality(though ATI is working their way there, which isn't saying much when 
> one looks at the quality of their windows drivers...).

You have no idea what you're talking about. The NVidia drivers are
continuously broken. Read the archives and you'll see all the bugs in
XV support and such. Many have been fixed, some still haven't (see my
previous post). But these are definitely not "high quality" drivers by
anyone's definition of high quality (except perhaps Microsoft's).

On the other hand, old Matrox cards are well-supported and don't have
these nonsense bugs again and again. Why? Because they're free
software, developed by people who have access to the specs but aren't
controlled by corporate whims. Just look at mga_vid, matroxfb, and the
XF86 drivers. Now Parhelia is BAD and Matrox needs to get their act
together and release full specs (not drivers, whether they be
closed-source or free, but actual SPECS, so someone can make GOOD
drivers!) but historically Matrox has been good about this stuff.
We'll see how it goes this time. I won't be recommending Parhelia to
anyone until there are free drivers....and probably not even then,
since the card is overpriced, slow, and doesn't even have good 3d
quality...

If you want an optimal card for *nix use, buy a G400, period. They're
fairly easy to get on eBay or through various sites listed on
pricewatch. G200 is also ok if you want to save a little money and
don't need TVout (or if you're making your own TVout device like I
did). G450 and G550 don't seem to be as well supported, and at least
at one time they required some proprietary code to enable the TVout or
disable macrovision or some such nonsense. Perhaps someone who's using
one of them could clarify.

Anyway, quit talking about stuff you obviously have no clue about.

Rich