FireGL for games

[JakeM]

I'll be getting a Compaq Evo n800w at the start of the next school year. It has a P4 2.2, 512DDR, and FireGL 9000 video. I know the FireGL series is designed for CAD use, but I'm curious what kind of performance I can expect in games. After extensive searching with google, I was unable to find any game benchmarks for this chipset. Also, as long as I can get good Linux drivers, performance should be better in Linux because the games use OpenGL, right?

 

[CorCentral]

Well I did find out that this is a Mobile radeon & it was released Sept 2002 HERE

As is always said ........ The drivers that are used with high end "Workstation" class cards are optimised for Cad work & not for games . Another thing most people don't know is that the reason these types of cards are more expensive , again we relate to the drivers because of the time extensive tests that are run on them to ensure that they work with the software they are used with ......... & in turn ......... the cost is happily passed onto the consumer

I own a Workstation class machine which I use to run Pro Engineer that uses an Nvidia Quadro4 / PNY 750XGL . Sure , it runs games decently but sometimes I have problems . My Gaming machine runs a PNY 5600Ultra which so far , is a pretty sweet card when compared to what I upgraded from (Elsa Geforce2 GTS 32mb)

As for your question , Depends on the games you run I suppose . I doubt many of the newer games such as Splinter Cell & Wolfenstein will run decently , but just try them & find out . Borrow from a friend or something

While digging , I did find a review on your Notebook though
Review here

 

[JakeM]

Thanks for the reply. I don't really have a choice what kind of video card I get; my school requires everyone to participate in the "laptop program" and for easier support, everyone gets the same hardware. I'd prefer less expensive hardware because I'm perfectly happy with my desktop.

I'm expecting games to run better in Linux because the FireGL is supposed to be good for OpenGL, and that's what all the Linux games are in. As I understand, even when WINE runs Windows DirectX programs, everything gets translated to OpenGL (without much of a performace hit, and sometimes better performace).

I guess I'll just have to wait and try it when I get it. I'll try to get some benchmarks posted here for anyone else who may be curious.

 

[zsouthboy]

that FireGL is just a higher clocked radeon 8500...

It IS good at opengl but NOT for games! Its optimized for professional 3d applications...

Conclusion: don't bother using linux if you want to play games dude... just use it in windows, the performance should be on par or better than an 8500...

 

[JakeM]

It IS good at opengl but NOT for games! Its optimized for professional 3d applications...

I know that. I'm not buying it for games.

Conclusion: don't bother using linux if you want to play games dude... just use it in windows, the performance should be on par or better than an 8500...

I'm not going to install Linux just to play games; I'll be using Linux most of the time for other reasons.