Re: [osg-users] Recent ATI/AMD cards w.r.t. OpenGL/OSG and Linux?
Hi J-S, On Sat, Jun 28, 2008 at 8:46 PM, Jean-Sébastien Guay [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Well, as I said this will be for my home machine, so gaming will be my primary concern. I'm trying to decide if the trade-off of lower OpenGL performance and possibly driver troubles/bugs (for the ~1 day a week I may be working from home) is worth the additional performance in games. Perhaps your 3rd alternative between a Geforce 9800GTX+ and Radeon 4850 would be to be a little more patient. Nvidia will be moving their 260/280 series down to 55nm which will make them cheaper to manufacture and cooler. This will heat up the competition between Nvidia and ATI so prices for given performance will go down further. How long to wait though... An Autumn refresh? Next Spring? Can't answer this one, the sooner the better, as much as I'd like a 260/280, it's sucks too much power for my liking. Robert. ___ osg-users mailing list osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org
Re: [osg-users] Recent ATI/AMD cards w.r.t. OpenGL/OSG and Linux?
Hi JS, I don't have any first hand experience of ATI's under Linux, but earlier this month I was doing training with a group that had ATI's under XP and there was a range of driver bugs, such as problems with VBO's, mipmapping and some shaders. I'd suspect that things aren't any better under Linux yet. Perhaps the thing to do is purchase a low end ATI card and just try it out, if it doesn't work out well then you haven't lost much money. If things go well then we can all have a party :-) Robert. ___ osg-users mailing list osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org
Re: [osg-users] Recent ATI/AMD cards w.r.t. OpenGL/OSG and Linux?
Hi Robert, Thanks for your feedback. I don't have any first hand experience of ATI's under Linux, but earlier this month I was doing training with a group that had ATI's under XP and there was a range of driver bugs, such as problems with VBO's, mipmapping and some shaders. I've seen this on past ATI/AMD generations too, my question was more if this is still the case on the latest generation. And also, if things are getting better but aren't up to snuff yet, I'd like to know. Perhaps the thing to do is purchase a low end ATI card and just try it out, if it doesn't work out well then you haven't lost much money. That's a good idea, either that or buy the card I want at a retailer that has a good return policy. If it doesn't pan out I will pay at most a small restocking fee. I'll have to do some research to see which retailer in my area is lenient in this matter. Thanks, J-S -- __ Jean-Sebastien Guay[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.cm-labs.com/ http://whitestar02.webhop.org/ ___ osg-users mailing list osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org
Re: [osg-users] Recent ATI/AMD cards w.r.t. OpenGL/OSG and Linux?
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Hi Jean-Sébastien, Jean-Sébastien Guay wrote: Hi all, This is not directly related to OSG, but as I do most (if not all) of my graphics development on OSG these days, and I'm trying to make a good purchasing decision, I thought I'd ask my friends at osg-users :-) In the recent past, for anything related to OpenGL, I've steered clear of ATI/AMD video cards. Same thing concerning their Linux driver support. They just weren't competitive on the OpenGL front at all. Right now I face a hard decision. For my budget (about 300-350$ CAN), I can get either a GeForce 9800GTX (even for less, about 250$), or a Radeon HD 4870 (for about 325$). The difference is that according to AnandTech, in most benchmarks, the Radeon outperforms the GeForce by a good margin. From the benchmarks alone, it looks like it's worth the 75$ difference. Except that these benchmarks mean little - they were done in Windows and focused on DirectX with Windows drivers. While ATI Linux drivers are improving, they are still not on par performance-wise with Windows. You can easily expect 20% or more performance hit - last year they were benchmarked and the difference was up to 50% in some cases! Actually, Linux OpenGL benchmarks are showing exactly the opposite: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=articleitem=ati_radeonhd_4850num=1 This card is (quoted from the above): As you have witnessed already from the results, in a number of the tests the Radeon HD 4850 had fell behind the GeForce 8800GT and 9800GTX. In fact, the Radeon HD 4850 hasn't shown to be much faster than the Radeon HD 3870 on Linux. In Nexuiz, OpenArena, Doom 3, Quake 4, and X-Plane, the Radeon HD 4850 had fallen noticeably behind the NVIDIA competition. In Enemy Territory: Quake Wars and GtkPerf, however, the Radeon HD 4850 had risen to the top. In Enemy Territory: Quake Wars at 1920 x 1200 with high quality settings, the Radeon HD 4850 was about 8% faster than the GeForce 9800GTX. In the 2D GTK tests, the Radeon HD 4850 was dramatically faster than the GeForce 8800GT and 9800GTX. However, NVIDIA has known problems with 2D Linux performance. For the record, when the GeForce 8 series was introduced it initially had a major performance delta too between Windows and Linux. Simply the OpenGL is not their top priority even on Windows. The Linux drivers are improving, but in terms of stability and features, not performance. If you want to do 3D work on Linux, nVidia is still the way to go, unfortunately. Regards, Jan -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mandriva - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFIZoDNn11XseNj94gRAiCKAJ40imdlhgQaIM6LkD6AonMPEQ48YgCdE+As dB1zMY+OkXe+ioU0i0+ENAA= =/wt8 -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ osg-users mailing list osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org
Re: [osg-users] Recent ATI/AMD cards w.r.t. OpenGL/OSG and Linux?
Hi Jan, Except that these benchmarks mean little - they were done in Windows and focused on DirectX with Windows drivers. Well, as I said this will be for my home machine, so gaming will be my primary concern. I'm trying to decide if the trade-off of lower OpenGL performance and possibly driver troubles/bugs (for the ~1 day a week I may be working from home) is worth the additional performance in games. Actually, Linux OpenGL benchmarks are showing exactly the opposite: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=articleitem=ati_radeonhd_4850num=1 Extremely interesting, thanks for the link, this will definitely help. Simply the OpenGL is not their top priority even on Windows. The Linux drivers are improving, but in terms of stability and features, not performance. If you want to do 3D work on Linux, nVidia is still the way to go, unfortunately. Unfortunately in terms of there being little competition I guess, but I personally have no problem with nVidia, have loved them since the demise of 3dfx. I'm just trying to weigh the pros/cons as I said. Thanks for the info. J-S -- __ Jean-Sebastien Guay[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.cm-labs.com/ http://whitestar02.webhop.org/ ___ osg-users mailing list osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org
[osg-users] Recent ATI/AMD cards w.r.t. OpenGL/OSG and Linux?
Hi all, This is not directly related to OSG, but as I do most (if not all) of my graphics development on OSG these days, and I'm trying to make a good purchasing decision, I thought I'd ask my friends at osg-users :-) In the recent past, for anything related to OpenGL, I've steered clear of ATI/AMD video cards. Same thing concerning their Linux driver support. They just weren't competitive on the OpenGL front at all. Right now I face a hard decision. For my budget (about 300-350$ CAN), I can get either a GeForce 9800GTX (even for less, about 250$), or a Radeon HD 4870 (for about 325$). The difference is that according to AnandTech, in most benchmarks, the Radeon outperforms the GeForce by a good margin. From the benchmarks alone, it looks like it's worth the 75$ difference. However, if the OpenGL support is shoddy, I will regret the decision. Sure, I play games, and this is my home machine I'm talking about, so it will mostly be used for gaming. But I still do some work from home, so it has to be good for OpenGL/OSG as well. I kind of need a best of both worlds. And I will need to develop from Linux too, so it needs good driver support on Linux. My question is, has the AMD - OpenGL - Linux situation changed significantly in the recent months? I kind of dislike taking the safe route, which is why I ask. What is other people's experience with the Radeon HD 3xxx/4xxx line? I'd particularly be interested in hearing about experiences moving from nVidia to AMD. My current card is a GeForce 7900GTX, so I'm curious how the OpenGL/Linux support compares with the recent AMD cards. Please keep the discussion strictly non-partisan. I want to keep an open mind, which is why I ask instead of just basing my opinion on my past experiences. I just have no baseline to make an informed decision for this generation of video cards. Thanks, J-S -- __ Jean-Sebastien Guay[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.cm-labs.com/ http://whitestar02.webhop.org/ ___ osg-users mailing list osg-users@lists.openscenegraph.org http://lists.openscenegraph.org/listinfo.cgi/osg-users-openscenegraph.org