Can anyone help choose a video card?

My MSI P4MAM2-V mb has VIA P4M266A+8237 chipset and AGP slot. Onboard graphics don't work with xorg in FreeBSD 6.2 even if I choose VESA. It goes SLOWLY into graphics mode, selected resolution seems ok, and the X cursor moves. But at Ctrl,Alt,Backspace to exit graphics mode, the screen goes blank and the machine hangs.

I don't need 3D, and don't play games. Simple graphics should be okay for web surfing and text processing. Looking for an older card I can get on Ebay that should work 'right out of the box' if possible.

Any suggestions are appreciated.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Elsa-Gladiac-MX-...QQcmdZViewItem

$15 nvidia agp4x

that should work good and easy
not very fancy, but its only $15

Hi -

Please consider giving your on-board video another chance.

Your "VIA P4M266A+8237 chipset and AGP slot" (thanx for providing such excellent technical details!) should be equivalent to an "S3 ProSavage8". Here are a couple of links that might help:

http://www.viaarena.com/default.aspx?PageID=2

http://www.probo.com/timr/savage40.html

Good luck!

If it's for Slackware, I too definitely recommend an nVidia card, like the one mentioned by AAnarchYY, or one like I just got rid of, a Geforce4 MX440 AGP card. It's great, and worked as nearly 'out-of-the-box' as one could wish for. You could probably find one for next to nothing.
I only gave it away because my motherboard died and I had to upgrade EVERYTHING to fit the new board. My roomie has it now.

FWIW, I have a new eGeForce (PCI-E) card now. Go Nvidia

NVidia is definitely a good card...
... but VIA should work just fine, too.

Please take a look at the links I gave you (particularly the Linux drivers downloads on the VIA web page).

IMHO .. PSM

Thanks for the replies.

Actually, the computer I'm using to post this is running Suse 10.2 and the S3 Savage video works fine. However, I remember the video troubles it gave me with Slackware which is what led me to FreeBSD which I installed on my old Dell Optiplex GX1 test box. Today, I spent quite a bit of time Googling and saw lots of problems with Savage.

So, I decided to try the Nividia card and ordered it. I'll come back with results.

Edit: The Nvidia card arrived yesterday. I turned off the o/b video in the bios, FreeBSD recognized the card, and it works fine. Thanks for the suggestion.