Status of GF 8-series cards on Linux?

[poffa]

Note: I'm sorry if this belongs in the graphics card section, but it does seem to be a driver issue, primarily.

I keep hearing dreaded tales [1],[2] of the GF 8 series cards 2D performance on Linux. What is the precise situation relating to this now? Exactly which cards are affected? Are the 7-series cards affected?

[1] http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=111750
[2] http://www.linuxquestions.org/...op-performance-590063/

 

[BlueAcolyte]

Wait, what? You should be able to use a standard vesa driver for all your 2d needs...

 

[silverpig]

Hmm, I have a 7900GS and it works just fine.

 

[BlueAcolyte]

I have an 8800GT and it works fine in ubuntu, even before i installed the Nvidia drivers, except that i had to edit my boot parameters a bit.

 

[modedepe]

My Quadro 570m (based on the 8600m) works great after installing the Nvidia drivers.

 

[Crusty]

No issues with an 8800GT on Ubuntu 8.04

 

[poffa]

Hmm. Thanks for the replies guys. Those of you who have working setups (i.e. good 2D performance) should probably post at http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=111750. A lot of people are really having problems.

 

[silverpig]

I know I had issues with compiz when I upgraded to 8.04 as did a lot of other ubuntu people... A fresh install fixed it though.

 

[Crusty]

Originally posted by: silverpig
I know I had issues with compiz when I upgraded to 8.04 as did a lot of other ubuntu people... A fresh install fixed it though.

Yeah, the older Ubuntu's required workarounds and custom edits to get Compiz working, at least prior to 7.10 I believe. I'm guessing that custom work screwed up a lot of peoples Compiz when they upgraded.

 

[poffa]

These are real 2D issues people are talking about though. 3D (and compiz) apparently works fine, but real 2D stuff like redrawing Firefox or fast-scrolling a terminal is horrible.

 

[sourceninja]

My BFG 8600 GTS is smokin on ubuntu 8.04

 

[yelo333]

Yes, for some reason, AA text rendering is really, really slow on the 7 and 8 series cards.

Slow AA text rendering in KDE

It's easy to test if you have one of the affected cards. Just turn on AA and bingo, text scrolling is really slow in konqueror. KDE apps (actually Qt) put more strain on the AA stuff than others, so just load up konqueror and start hitting the page down key.

Turn off AA, and everything is fine.

As the owner of a 6200 card myself, I did have this problem, but an update some time ago fixed it for the 6xxx cards. At that point, there was no solution for the 7 and 8 series cards, but things may have changed since then. Since the thread I linked to above is still getting posts, I don't think it's been fixed yet.

Edit: Maybe it's fixed? See post #3 in this thread.

 

[Cogman]

I have a 9600GT. as of now, ubuntu hasn't updated their version of Nvidia's driver to one that supports the 9600GT. The current official driver does support it, but not the one in ubuntu's repositories.

It was a PAIN to get the drivers completely installed, just warning. After they where installed everything has worked fairly well for me.