DX9 vs. DX8 (new video card needed)

[dboyer]

I think I'm going to buy a new video card (the fan on my geforce2 is making horrendous noises, so its time to replace 'er :( )

I have some questions that i can't get answered anywhere else because they are really only important to linux users...

1) I have an nforce2 (a7n8x) mobo... will moving to a radeon card disable some features? I heard it is important to have a geforce card because some of the video drivers were needed to get the motherboard to work correctly... not 100% sure if that is true or whatnot.

2) older cards are Dx 8.1/OGL 1.4. Is it worth getting a Dx 9.0 card? does linux (through SDL or whatever) take advantage of those features? is a OGL 2.0 card worthwhile? seems that the geforceFX line is either really expensive, or really crappy... Right now a Radeon 9800SE (http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-131-233&catalog=48&depa=1) looks like the sweet spot at $180...

3) I surprised myself by playing every game I wanted to (counterstrike to bf1942) on my geforce2... I don't really care about performance as much as how capable it will be at handling next years games, and the year after that, etc... If anyone has any suggestions of decent graphics cards at a little cheaper, I am more than happy to hear their ideas... on a sorta tight budget (180 is pushing it.. i was hoping for 100-120 range).. On the other end of the spectrum are the 60ish FX5200 (http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-170-027&catalog=48&depa=1), or a little higher with the 100ish FX5600XT (http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-128-169&catalog=48&depa=1)s..

Any thoughts?

[bwkaz]

Originally posted by dboyer
1) I have an nforce2 (a7n8x) mobo... will moving to a radeon card disable some features? I heard it is important to have a geforce card because some of the video drivers were needed to get the motherboard to work correctly... not 100% sure if that is true or whatnot. It used to disable AGP, because the standard kernel didn't have nForce AGP support. You had to use the internal nVidia AGP driver (which meant you needed to use an nVidia card).

I'm pretty sure this is not the case anymore, as long as your kernel is new enough (2.6 or probably anything 2.4.23 or newer, though I haven't checked the status in 2.4 in a while).

2) older cards are Dx 8.1/OGL 1.4. Is it worth getting a Dx 9.0 card? does linux (through SDL or whatever) take advantage of those features? I don't think there are really any new features. IIRC getting DX9 support was merely a matter of a driver rewrite in Windows, not actual new graphics hardware -- of course, I could be wrong on that.

But as a rule on Linux, if your OpenGL implementation doesn't support it, then nothing's going to be using it. nVidia's libGL.so supports a lot of their newer features on newer cards (as OpenGL extensions), but programs still have to specifically look for those.

is a OGL 2.0 card worthwhile? OpenGL 2.0? I wasn't aware that was out of beta yet... hmm. What cards are 2.0 compliant?

Right now a Radeon 9800SE (http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-131-233&catalog=48&depa=1) looks like the sweet spot at $180... I think you can get an FX5700 (NV36) for around that. I think...

(180 is pushing it.. i was hoping for 100-120 range).. Oh. Maybe the FX5700 isn't that great then... hmm.

On the other end of the spectrum are the 60ish FX5200 (http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-170-027&catalog=48&depa=1), Do yourself a favor and stay away from the FX5200. The performance is really, really crappy -- it was worse than the GF3 Ti500 when the 5200's first came out.

or a little higher with the 100ish FX5600XT (http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-128-169&catalog=48&depa=1)s.. Ooooh, now that wouldn't be a horrible idea, I don't think. Probably want to make sure nobody else has had performance issues with that card, though, just to make sure.

[dboyer]

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-102-303&catalog=48&depa=1

don't know what "OpenGL 2.0" means, though... could just be ATI speak for some little itty bitty increase or feature.

[bwkaz]

Hmm... maybe.

According to this:

http://www.opengl.org/documentation/spec.html

there is no such thing as OpenGL 2.0, since the latest spec that they have out is for 1.5...

But then, this page:

http://www.3dlabs.com/support/developer/ogl2/index.htm

makes it sound like OpenGL 2.0 is a 3DLabs thing? Hmm... maybe it just hasn't been ratified by the ARB yet then, or something.