[MPlayer-users] Re: recomended components for mplayer

[gabor]

Anssi Saari wrote:
> [Automatic answer: RTFM (read DOCS, FAQ), also read DOCS/bugreports.html]
> On Fri, Jan 03, 2003 at 12:55:55AM +0100, gabor farkas wrote:
>  
> 
>>if you want to have a fast 3d card under linux you need a nvidia card.
>>
>>not because there aren't other fast 3d cards, but because they drivers
>>suck. ( ati ).
> 
>  
> Do they now? As far as I know, Radeon 7500 has 3D support in XFree86, 8500 has
> it in ATI's drivers. I don't know about the 9x00 Radeons.
> 
> Well, maybe these cards don't count as fast since they are hopelessly
> outdated, being over six months old and all...

:-)

no, it's not about buying the newest card etc...

when i wanted to buy a new graphic card a year before ( i had a tnt2 ), 
i looked into
several possibilities, and exchanged a lot of emails with people exactly 
here
on the mplayer mailing list ( search the archives if you want for them ).

i simply wanted a fast 3d card. my reason was playing morrowind, but 
that's not important.
i had basically 2 choices :
	geforce3
	ati8500
	(matrox parhelia wasn't out yet, and the g550's 3d performance doesn't 
reach ati or nvidia)

( if i wouldn't want to have 3d, i would for sure buy a matrox g550 . 
but i wanted 3d ).

i've heard enough bitchin' about the nvidia cards ( yes, they have 
problems. for example for me
sometimes happens that i start X, i start a movie and X restarts.. after 
that it newer restarts ),
so i wanted to buy an ati8500. the problem was that there were  2d only 
drivers.
there were 3d accelerated drivers for the geforce3.

so i had to buy a geforce.

the situation changed now. there are 3d accelerated (binary only btw :-) 
drivers for the ati8500
and ati9700 too i think, but they were released like half a year AFTER 
the cards were released.

so think about which company cares about his customers.. the one who 
gives immediately drivers,
or the one who gives them 6months after the card.

yes, i know there are some open-source 3daccelerated drivers for the 
ati8500 ( gatos, or how's it
called ), but they don't support all the features the binaryonly supports...

for me a complete driver means that i can play around same speed/same 
features quake3 under linux
as under windows ( idon''t play quake3, i only mentioned it as a 
3d-intensive application with windows +
linux client )

i hope you understand me now.

i simply can't understand ati. they create top-speed 3d cards like 
ati8500 or ati9700, and they don't give
linux drivers. yes, they give 2d drivers, but for who? why would one buy 
an expensive card for 2d, when they
can buy a used matroxg400, which will give them uncomparable 2d 
quality/speed/stability for both windows
and linux.

hope this helps,

gabor