From owner-freebsd-hardware Wed Feb 2 15:56:52 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org Received: from mail.wolves.k12.mo.us (mail.wolves.k12.mo.us [207.160.214.1]) by builder.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7D91C41F8 for ; Wed, 2 Feb 2000 15:56:47 -0800 (PST) Received: from mail.wolves.k12.mo.us (cdillon@mail.wolves.k12.mo.us [207.160.214.1]) by mail.wolves.k12.mo.us (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id RAA33755; Wed, 2 Feb 2000 17:56:46 -0600 (CST) (envelope-from cdillon@wolves.k12.mo.us) Date: Wed, 2 Feb 2000 17:56:46 -0600 (CST) From: Chris Dillon To: Haikal Saadh Cc: hardware@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Choice of display cards under freebsd. In-Reply-To: <000201bf6d9f$efeede60$71c101ca@summoner> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-hardware@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org On Wed, 2 Feb 2000, Haikal Saadh wrote: > Hi, I'm planning to upgrade my box within a few months, and I was > just wondering: As far as running games (such as halflife) under > freebsd are concerned, does it make sense to by a D3D-based card, > such as nVidia's card, as D3D only works under windows, right? > > Or to rephrase the question, which one would provide the better 3D > experience? The geForce or the Voodoo3? I know that the latest > version of X supports both cards. > > I'm looking at getting the stuff in time for 4.0 to be released. I would avoid any of the 3DFX VooDoo cards. I've got an "old" VooDoo2 myself, and it works pretty well (in Windows), but it has some serious limitations. The VooDoo3 boards have some limitations as well, such as only a 16-bit Z-buffer and color depth in 3D mode as opposed to 32-bit which is available on just about any other modern card. Not even the new VooDoo4 or VooDoo5 boards are going to be able to compete with NVidia's next-generation chipset (which should be out about the same time as the VooDoo[4,5]) in terms of pure speed. They may not even be able to compete with the current GeForce 256! Long-gone are the days of 3DFX leading the speed arena like they did with the VooDoo2, and they aren't likely to ever do it again at this rate. If I were to buy a card right now, it would be either a NVidia GeForce 256 based card (probably the ASUS model), or a Matrox G400 MAX. The GeForce based cards will offer you pure, unparalleled 3D speed. The Matrox G400 MAX would offer you what Matrox has always offered -- excellent visual quality, great features, and solid drivers, but it isn't nearly as fast as the GeForce in the 3D arena (not that you couldn't play a mean game of Quake with it.. you can). Your biggest concern is which of these will be supported the best under XFree86, and as far as I can tell they've all got quite a bit of support under them. -- Chris Dillon - cdillon@wolves.k12.mo.us - cdillon@inter-linc.net FreeBSD: The fastest and most stable server OS on the planet. For Intel x86 and Alpha architectures. ( http://www.freebsd.org ) To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hardware" in the body of the message