Re: 2D,3D,nvidia,nv?

[Jim Crilly <jim@why.dont.jablowme.net>]

On 12/17/06 09:31:18PM +0000, Paul Brook wrote:
> On Sunday 17 December 2006 21:03, Brian R. Whitecotton wrote:
> > IMHO I don't see the point in having a GeForce 7300 GT unless you are at
> > least enabling its power/capabilities.
> 
> A 7300GT is a fairly bottom-of-the-line card. It's the cheapest card I've seen 
> that has dual-link DVI connectors (required for big, high resolution 
> monitors).
> 
> > The 2D nv driver is fine but the nvidia driver is better.
> 
> Your definition of better is very different to mine.
> 
> The open source does everything I need (high resolution, fast 2d, video).
> The binary driver doesn't work at all under Xen, and locks up periodically on 
> half my machines.
> 

The binary driver works fine under Xen on i386 and people have gotten it to
work with the AMD64 Xen kernels on the nvnews.net forums so it is possible. 
And the last time I tried the OSS nv driver it didn't do Xv at high
resolutions[1], the image quality was noticably lower with a 24 bit desktop
and it was a lot slower even in the 2D arena; for instance switching desktops
would take a second or two with the nv driver but with nvidia it's almost
instantaneous. Obviously both drivers will work better or worse on
different hardware so neither is a clear winner in all cases and everyone
needs to decide on their own which to use.

I'm not advocating the use of the closed driver at all, hell it's caused me
number of problems on my notebook but on my desktops it's been nearly
flawless. And I would be ecstatic if nv or the nouveau driver would get to
the point where just their 2D is as good as the binary driver, but right
now they lag behind pretty badly IMO.

Jim.

[1] https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=474