Looking for a recommendation (video card)
 

I am looking into upgrading my current video card (Nvidia Geforce 2 MX 200) to something more robust. Are there any cards that work better with Slackware 10.0 than others? I am primarily interested in ATi or Nvidia based cards. Something with at least 128MB RAM and is AGP.

Current hardware config:
AMD Athlon XP2200
256MB PC 2100 DDR RAM
40GB HDD
52X CD-RW

I am looking to play games (UT, Q3, Doom III) and work with Blender3D and GIMP daily. Thanks, everyone, I appreciate the help.

Andrew :newbie: Royal

Stay way clear of ATI on Linux

Re-read that.

Ok. Get an Nvidia 5200 ;)

Any specific budget?

Doom 3 robust or something less :-)

Yeah, a 5200 might not be upto the challenge of the latest games...

Have a GeForce 5900xt, myself. Pretty good frame rates with Doom3 demo.

If you're budget is roundabouts $200 or just above, I'd recommend a 6600GT.

And like mdarby said, ATI + Linux = :(

Thanks for the imput, folks. I'm going to do some research on those cards and then make a decicion.

I've got an NVidia fx5200 which works well for the games I play (Call of Duty, Medal of Honor AA ect) but if you want Doom 3 on that card, I doubt it would go really fast and look good. But, I've never tried Doom 3, so don't trust me too much.

I used to have a 5200 in my box. That card is great for say quake3 or Call Of Duty.
After getting such poor performance in newer games I went for a cheap upgrade.
Got myself a 5700. Which plays much better & it costs under a C note.

Honestly, buy the best Nvidia card you can afford.
These newer cards just keep getting better.

I have an nvidia fx5200 and a radeon 9550. The nvidia was a _lot_ easier to get running with full 3d accel and is currently running with Xorg 6.8 and kernel 2.6.9. But the ATI isn't too tough if you have the right setup. To get my ATI working, I had to stick with Xorg 6.7. And I stayed with the 2.4.26 kernel after hearing of some problems with ATI and 2.6.x series kernels. With that setup, I just used the fglrx drivers from ATI's site and 3d acceleration was pretty easy to configure. And with 256mb video memory, the ATI screams past my nvidia fx5200. If you're on a tight budget, either one of these cards would be decent. They're both under $100.

I must agree

What about other cards like Matrox and 3Dlabs. Anybody have experience with those?

with 256mb card(compared to the 128mb model) you generally get decrease in performance because the vram used is slower. And fx5200 is basically mx440 with dx9 support.

Aye, 256MB may make a difference a year from now, but currently all it does is add a few more dollars onto the price.

Neither Matrox nore 3DLabs bear looking at for the average user. If you're doing a lot of rendering and need subpixel accuracy, then maybe 3DLabs. Matrox just sucks :P

Yeah, I read about that after I got the 9550. More memory for similar price = lower quality. It makes sense, I guess. And the fx5200 is really not that great... ok for everyday stuff. If you can afford it get something a bit better than the 5200 if you go with nvidia. The 5200 is pretty much obsolete nowadays. From my experience, I'd recommend the radeon 9550 or something similar. That is if you don't mind being stuck with an older version of Xorg due to ATI's lousy support. :rolleyes: