The "best" video card for Knoppix.

[helios17]

Hey group...

I've spent the last 45 minutes researching this board and have come to the conclusion that I have no conclusion. I have a generic soyo board w/a 1.8 gig intel chip. I am currently running a radeon 9200 se (ATI) video card and it does ok...no 3d of course but thats cause I am a complete noob and have not tried to load the drivers. Being a noob isnt really the entire reason either. This board and others is full of horror stories of kernel hacks and the such that have gone terribly wrong when compiling/installing ATI video drivers. Screw it, I would just as soon just go spend a little money and buy a good card. I am completely window-less now because...well because windoze sucks on just about every level. I am not a gamer, but I would like 3d just to have it.

What are your recommendations on the perect video card for knoppix. I have 3.6 hd install on hda and yoper 2.1 on hdb. whaddaya think?

helios

[mzilikazi]

IMHO you can hardly go wrong with nearly anything from nvidia.

[firebyrd10]

IMHO you can hardly go wrong with nearly anything from nvidia.

Exactly, infact nvidia even provides drivers for linux. Can't get to much more friendly then that.

[kelmo]

I ignored advice from others and got a new laptop with the latest and greatest ATI mobility and the official drivers for it DO suck.

[Cuddles]

NVidia, definatelly NVidia...

Even though, I am probably the "major" person to have had the "problems" with this video card, some of them were my issues, and not the cards ( I have a serious phobic reaction to compiling my kernel from source, which is unfounded, and really, not that hard, or bad, to do )

You can find LOTS of documentation here on the "Forums" on the process, and even post for help, as I did ( many times ) on the process... You can download everything you need; kernel sources, "Knoppix" patch sources, NVidia "specific" card sources, and then compile your kernel to include NVidia... After the kernel compile, it tells you in a readme file, or maybe in the installer, what changes you need to make to take full advantage of the video card -=- considering that I have over three figures in my FPS ( frames per second ) in glxgears ( between 300 and 350 FPS ) -=- it sure makes for nice video intensive game playing

My previous system had a ATI "All In Wonder" card, it worked, but NEVER as good as the NVidia, and definately, not without as few a headaches

If I was going to get another video card, it would have to be a NVidia ( even with the pains I have had with them, it wasnt that bad, compared to the outcome )

[Markus]

glxgears ( between 300 and 350 FPS )

Really? I'm getting a constant 274 with just an integrated i810 chip. I thought you're supposed to get >1000 with a newish graphics card of almost any sorts.

[firebyrd10]

NVidia, definatelly NVidia...

Even though, I am probably the "major" person to have had the "problems" with this video card, some of them were my issues, and not the cards ( I have a serious phobic reaction to compiling my kernel from source, which is unfounded, and really, not that hard, or bad, to do )

You can find LOTS of documentation here on the "Forums" on the process, and even post for help, as I did ( many times ) on the process... You can download everything you need; kernel sources, "Knoppix" patch sources, NVidia "specific" card sources, and then compile your kernel to include NVidia... After the kernel compile, it tells you in a readme file, or maybe in the installer, what changes you need to make to take full advantage of the video card -=- considering that I have over three figures in my FPS ( frames per second ) in glxgears ( between 300 and 350 FPS ) -=- it sure makes for nice video intensive game playing

My previous system had a ATI "All In Wonder" card, it worked, but NEVER as good as the NVidia, and definately, not without as few a headaches

If I was going to get another video card, it would have to be a NVidia ( even with the pains I have had with them, it wasnt that bad, compared to the outcome )

I'm getting about 150-200 with out tweaking my card on armgetron.(sp)

Thats a pretty graphic intense game. I was only getting about 5-15 on my old i810

[Cuddles]

glxgears ( between 300 and 350 FPS )

Really? I'm getting a constant 274 with just an integrated i810 chip. I thought you're supposed to get >1000 with a newish graphics card of almost any sorts.

I am not sure about this Markus, but, I think they were looking at the "5 second timings" and not the FPS, glxgears uses an "average" of a five second timing scheme... It will give the amount of frames displayed in 5 seconds, and then calculate the frames per second from the five second timings - yeah, if I go off of my "5 second" timings, I get about 1500 to 1800 frames per 5 seconds...

Someone once posted they were getting around two thousand in glxgears, but I think they were looking at the "5 second" timings - I cant imagine that as a FPS, that would be something around a CRAY, I would think

Now, for a nice "intensive" video game, try Chromium, if you dont got enough FPS for "that" game, it plays slower than doggie doo doo -=- Mouse response is laggy, playing is almost imposible, without having the acceleration and FPS behind it... But, I agree with Armagetron - get it going with FOUR players, each with a screen view, all four of them playing as AI players, and you can still get around 30 FPS - which is pretty cool

[Markus]

Nope, had the right numbers:
markus@fujibox:~$ glxgears
1065 frames in 5.0 seconds = 213.000 FPS
1348 frames in 5.0 seconds = 269.600 FPS
1376 frames in 5.0 seconds = 275.200 FPS
1375 frames in 5.0 seconds = 275.000 FPS
1397 frames in 5.0 seconds = 279.400 FPS
1398 frames in 5.0 seconds = 279.600 FPS
1314 frames in 5.0 seconds = 262.800 FPS

Isn't due to a crappy resolution either:
markus@fujibox:~$ xrandr |grep \*
*0 1280 x 1024 ( 361mm x 271mm ) *85

I don't play that many games needing 3D so I haven't bothered with better acceleration, tuxracer works just fine with i810, as does chromium.
As a sidenote, although I'm running Kanotix BH5 the XF86config-4 is from Knoppix 3.7.

AHHAAA! Running glxgears while playing chromium gives:
root@fujibox:/home/markus# glxgears
212 frames in 5.0 seconds = 42.400 FPS
147 frames in 5.0 seconds = 29.400 FPS
138 frames in 5.0 seconds = 27.600 FPS
141 frames in 5.0 seconds = 28.200 FPS
150 frames in 5.0 seconds = 30.000 FPS
150 frames in 5.0 seconds = 30.000 FPS

... and the game is sluggish (which it isn't when the gears aren't running).

[Cuddles]

Just for ref here Markus, this is the same output that you showed, but with a 1.7 GHZ AMD, 512 MB RAM, Knoppix v3.4 w/ 2.6.6 experimental kernel, and a NVidia GeForce 4 MX 440 w/ 8 GB RAM, newest device drivers from NVidia compiled into kernel :

-=- glxgears running on its own -=-
cuddles@Morpheus:~$ glxgears
1514 frames in 5.0 seconds = 302.800 FPS
1659 frames in 5.0 seconds = 331.800 FPS
1660 frames in 5.0 seconds = 332.000 FPS
1660 frames in 5.0 seconds = 332.000 FPS
1658 frames in 5.0 seconds = 331.600 FPS
1664 frames in 5.0 seconds = 332.800 FPS
1666 frames in 5.0 seconds = 333.200 FPS

-=- resolution -=-
cuddles@Morpheus:~$ xrandr | grep \*
*0 1280 x 1024 ( 433mm x 347mm ) *75

-=- glxgears running along with chromium "Intro / Main" screen -=-
cuddles@Morpheus:~$ glxgears
143 frames in 5.0 seconds = 28.600 FPS
150 frames in 5.0 seconds = 30.000 FPS
163 frames in 5.0 seconds = 32.600 FPS
159 frames in 5.0 seconds = 31.800 FPS
154 frames in 5.0 seconds = 30.800 FPS
162 frames in 5.0 seconds = 32.400 FPS
147 frames in 5.0 seconds = 29.400 FPS
cuddles@Morpheus:~$

I play tuxkart too, fun game ( if you like to play "air hockey", you might look at tuxpuck )