Best solution for linux/win2k gamer?

[Francodman]

I've heard nothing but bad things about ATi's win2k support and whatnot, but what about their linux support?

Would the best solution be a Nvidia based card?

 

[Moz]

If you are running Linux together with Win2k I think a nVidia card makes sense from a driver standpoint.

 

[LickEmSmack]

Moz is right, stick with nVidia. Although the Radeon may give a few more FPS in intense games, the driver issues in running it under Linux are just a huge headache. As far as I know, it doens't have very good OpenGL scores under Linux either, much worse than nVidia GeForce2's. Thankfully, nVidia realized that it would be benificial to create their own drivers for all OS's (along with a unifed driver system for all their cards). It's great to see a company open themselves up instead of alienating users of 'alternative' OS's.

 

[khorgath]

nvidia is it.

Their drivers in linux are simply amazing. It is definitely awesome of nvidia to make their own drivers for linux. Although I do wish they give XFree86 more specs so we can get good 3D out of the box with distros rather than having to download their drivers, manually replace libglx.a and libGL.so and load the kernel mod.

ciao
-khorgath

 

[BlvdKing]

I tried running the Radeon under Mandrake 7.2 for a week and could not get it to work. XFree86 4.0.2 has built in support for the Radeon, but it just wouldn't work for me. I put my GeForce 2 MX back in and was playing Quake 3 and UT with exceptional frame rates within two hours (complete reinstall of OS included). As for Win2K, many people claim to get a boost when they go from Win9x to Win2K with their NVidia cards. I know I was getting excellent scores with my GeForce 2 MX in Win2K. It blew away my Radeon at 800*600 and both cards were even at 1024*768. Just to give an idea of how the frame rates were on my TBird 700, I scored about 77 FPS with the Radeon at 800*600 and all the good on, including highest visual quality set in the drivers (Timedemo 1 on Win9X). I scored 102 FPS same settings on the GeForce 2 MX in Win2K! At 1024*768, same settings, both cards score approx 65 FPS on my system. The Radeon and MX were clocked to 183/183 and 200c/210m resp.
To make a long story short: GeForce cards are better in Win2K and most definately better for Linux in my experience.

EDIT: Grammer

 

[MGMorden]

I've got my Radeon working perfectly in Linux and Win2k. The 2d is great and the card performs admirably for me.