On 9 February 2013 10:35, <m...@barrenfrozenwasteland.com> wrote: > Hi All, > I've just upgraded by desktop to Ubuntu to 12.10 and come across the > wonderful fact that AMD/ATI now consider my Radeon HD 3000 series graphics > card "legacy" and dont provide drivers for the Xorg version that 12.10 > uses. As such, I'm now running an odd setup with a downgraded Xorg and > patched driver, which is far from ideal going forward. Time for a new > graphics card. > > I don't buy stuff like this very often, so I'm hoping someone who has done > so recently can point me in the right direction. I do a fair bit of > gaming, but I'm not die hard. Skyrim is the most recent game I have, and > I'm happy with the performance I get on that out my current card. > Something mid-range would suit me, around the £50 mark. > > I also have no particular loyalty to AMD or NVidia. The reason I ended up > with an AMD card is that when I built the PC, Nvidia cards had problems > with KWin's compisting (I've since switched to Unity, so this is no longer > a consideration). Are there any pitfalls regarding common issues with a > manufacturer's drivers that I should be aware of? > > My current investigations have led me to consider the NVidia Geforce > 630[1]. If anyone has good or bad experience with this in particular, or > would recommend a different card with a similar spec, I'd be very grateful. >
I'm using one of these: Sapphire HD6450 1GB Flex http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B006GTDSC6/ref=wms_ohs_product It's driving 3 (yes, 3) 24" iIyama monitors at 1920x1080, using the AMD open source drivers and the Unity desktop extends over all 3 wonderfully with none of the messing about with xinerama/twinview you have with the NV kit. I ended up going for this card after a lot of research then some trial and error to refine things. This card "just worked" out of the box, all I had to do was rearrange the displays in the settings then tweak Unity to my desired configuration so it only displays the menu on the leftmost screen etc. It also drives a 3x2 desktop arrangement (more if you have the RAM to spare, but that seems a little excessive given the screen estate here anyway) with no bother, allowing me to switch between virtual desktops at a keypress, and drag windows between them all. I found I could also drive 3 monitors with the cheaper Sapphire HD5450 which can be picked up for about £25, however the performance is a little laggy. The 6450 doesn't seem to have that problem so I'd say the extra £20 is well worth it aesthetically. I'm very pleased with the card in terms of both performance and cost. You don't say you have multiple monitors, but should you ever want to go that way it's a great card for that, and it should certainly perform well under 12.10 with a single one - also the price is within your margin. However, YMMV. /jfk
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