Very good news for the linux community if this pans out...
http://www.infoworld.com/article/06/08/ ... rve_1.html

It would be interesting to find out hat that "functional subset" is. Now that Intel have open-sourced their integrated chipset graphics drivers AMD/ATI and even nVidia need to play catch-up to it. That said, they don't need to do it for the very latest cards, perhaps open source drivers for everything below the X8xx line (i.e. last generation) would be absolutely perfect, so that they can keep their X1xxx and future lines "proprietary" for a little longer.

We'll see

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Matt Sealey

if ATI has drivers better than NVIDIA by the next time i do a complete upgrade, ill vote with my money for ATI. I suppose they could keep the latest additions to the drivers closed but if the base support code exists it will nicely complement a linux system and boost ATI sales...

In any case this is a step in the right direction...

http://www.ati.com/products/certified/systems.html

R&B

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http://bbrv.blogspot.com

I would do that anyway. I am not really impressed that nVidia have "better drivers" - it seems they are faster in 3D, and have an overclocking tool, but as a whole are they really better?

The last benchmarks I saw showed negligible differences in average framerate in a bunch of applications. While these guys on geek benchmark sites think that 3 fps or 11fps is some kind of "proof that the card is better", I think those kinds of numbers lie in that there is simply very little gain after a certain point.

Remember if you have a 75Hz monitor and you are running a game at 100fps, you will only see 75 of those frames on the screen. Only for a game which does it's major calculations in the gaps between frame rendering without any kind of time adjustment will you see any improvement; and in that case, it's a simply badly coded game.

Saying "I get 3% more performance than ATI using nVidia" or "once I have attained a perfect framerate for my display, nVidia lets me run it 50% faster, whereas ATI is ONLY at the perfect framerate".. it's ridiculous.

If ATI drivers average at 76fps and nVidia drivers average at 150fps.. please tell me how those extra, invisible 73 frames somehow improve your gaming or productivity. You can't, really.

The hot question now on ATI and nVidia drivers is support for SLI and CrossFire. Personally I think this is another benchmarking fallacy; I think teaming graphics adapters that cost $500 each, and increasing your system power consumption twofold just to double framerate (from 150fps to 290fps perhaps!!) is just as ridiculous. ATI and nVidia know that there are plenty of neophiles out there who would sell a grandparent to be able to brag about those numbers, but I don't think it is possible to use this as a real business case for which card is better, or which drivers are better quality.

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Matt Sealey

i guess better is not the word to use .
Although the ATI drivers have a nice installer, in games (esp FPS but not so much in 2d games) nvidia just gives that bit of extra rendering grunt.
For example on a P4 2.66GHz 512MB DDR-400 (Main Memory) GeForce4 MX440 64MB in RTCW with all the details turned to max i can get min 20-30 fps on open levels (for closed levels its more like 40-50 fps). i still need to test a comparable ATI card but i dont see where i could get hardware that old.

but i totally agree with you, whats the point of this extra rendering grunt if you cant see the fruits of its labour?

Either is acceptable, I just like ATI.

We think you will find the XGI cards and drivers just as acceptable, we will not brag about the benchmarking for sure.

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Matt Sealey