[ubuntu-uk] Which NVIDIA GPU for Natty?
Hello Peeps I have a Dell Studio 540 system with integrated Intel i915(?) graphics controller. The system works well, but I am wondering if it would benefit from an upgrade? I am looking at purchasing an NVIDIA card, but I am somewhat lost as to which one. I am not too bothered about it being the best on the market, I am not a gamer, but I would like it to perform well at HD media playback and possibly recording some screencasts. Any help with this would be gratefully appreciated. Thanks, -- Philip -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Which NVIDIA GPU for Natty?
On 13 June 2011 17:27, Philip Newborough corenomi...@corenominal.org wrote: I am not a gamer, but I would like it to perform well at HD media playback and possibly recording some screencasts. http://www.ebuyer.com/product/232853 Is the one I recently bought. I previously ran Ubuntu Natty perfectly well on a 7900GT. I too am not a gamer but do play Portal 2, Minecraft and a few others. Basically any nVidia card you can buy these days will eat your onboard Intel for breakfast. Assuming you use the non-free driver or the unsupported nouveau experimental 3d one. Al. -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Which NVIDIA GPU for Natty?
On 13/06/11 17:27, Philip Newborough wrote: Hello Peeps I have a Dell Studio 540 system with integrated Intel i915(?) graphics controller. The system works well, but I am wondering if it would benefit from an upgrade? I am looking at purchasing an NVIDIA card, but I am somewhat lost as to which one. I am not too bothered about it being the best on the market, I am not a gamer, but I would like it to perform well at HD media playback and possibly recording some screencasts. Any help with this would be gratefully appreciated. Thanks, -- Philip Probably the Geforce 210, you can get one here for just under £24 plus delivery from ebuyer.com: http://www.ebuyer.com/product/240886 (Also includes a Street Fighter 4 download voucher, although I expect it's probably not much use, but you could always pass it on to someone who has Windows and plays games). It should be well supported with the proprietary NVidia driver and it supports VDPAU for HD video acceleration in mplayer and MythTV. Actually I didn't realise they were so cheap now, might pick one up for the kids PC. Rob -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Which NVIDIA GPU for Natty?
On 13/06/11 17:44, Alan Pope wrote: On 13 June 2011 17:27, Philip Newboroughcorenomi...@corenominal.org wrote: I am not a gamer, but I would like it to perform well at HD media playback and possibly recording some screencasts. http://www.ebuyer.com/product/232853 Is the one I recently bought. I previously ran Ubuntu Natty perfectly well on a 7900GT. I too am not a gamer but do play Portal 2, Minecraft and a few others. Basically any nVidia card you can buy these days will eat your onboard Intel for breakfast. Assuming you use the non-free driver or the unsupported nouveau experimental 3d one. Al. That one seems a bit over kill for a non-gamer. I could understand how a gamer would want something like that though (or maybe an ATI card). Rob -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Which NVIDIA GPU for Natty?
On 13/06/11 18:11, Rob Beard wrote: On 13/06/11 17:27, Philip Newborough wrote: Hello Peeps I have a Dell Studio 540 system with integrated Intel i915(?) graphics controller. The system works well, but I am wondering if it would benefit from an upgrade? I am looking at purchasing an NVIDIA card, but I am somewhat lost as to which one. I am not too bothered about it being the best on the market, I am not a gamer, but I would like it to perform well at HD media playback and possibly recording some screencasts. Any help with this would be gratefully appreciated. Thanks, -- Philip Rob's suggestion sounds good. For the record, I'm not a gamer either, but use an NVIDIA 8600GT with two monitors on a twinview set up. I had quite a few problems setting it up, but eventually got it working with the proprietary drivers and a lot of fiddling. I'm happy to give you a few pointers, but it may not be the best choice for a straight forward set up. It seems other cards work much easier out of the box. It does work well with HD media. All the best, Tim -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Which NVIDIA GPU for Natty?
On Mon, Jun 13, 2011 at 7:44 PM, Alan Pope a...@popey.com wrote: On 13 June 2011 17:27, Philip Newborough corenomi...@corenominal.org wrote: I am not a gamer, but I would like it to perform well at HD media playback and possibly recording some screencasts. http://www.ebuyer.com/product/232853 Is the one I recently bought. I previously ran Ubuntu Natty perfectly well on a 7900GT. I too am not a gamer but do play Portal 2, Minecraft and a few others. Basically any nVidia card you can buy these days will eat your onboard Intel for breakfast. Assuming you use the non-free driver or the unsupported nouveau experimental 3d one. I have tried the onboard Intel 4500MHD and it is generally fine when playing back most HD content, either x264 or webm. Admittedly, the video content is decoded by the CPU, so in that case it's a combination of CPU + GPU. For your specific onboard graphics card, I believe that you are on the limits of what the hardware can do and what the current driver offers. If you have Ubuntu 11.04, run /usr/lib/nux/unity_support_test -p to verify the state of the driver you are using. For the screencasts, a good graphics card is not a requirement. The capturing of the frames is mostly a CPU task. Therefore, you can get away with an entry level graphics card from AMD/ATI or NVidia, especially if your budget is around £30-40. Phoronix, http://www.phoronix.com/ does a good job benchmarking graphics cards on Linux. Simos -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Which NVIDIA GPU for Natty?
On Monday 13 Jun 2011 18:11:58 Rob Beard wrote: On 13/06/11 17:27, Philip Newborough wrote: Hello Peeps I have a Dell Studio 540 system with integrated Intel i915(?) graphics controller. The system works well, but I am wondering if it would benefit from an upgrade? I am looking at purchasing an NVIDIA card, but I am somewhat lost as to which one. I am not too bothered about it being the best on the market, I am not a gamer, but I would like it to perform well at HD media playback and possibly recording some screencasts. Any help with this would be gratefully appreciated. Thanks, -- Philip Probably the Geforce 210, you can get one here for just under £24 plus delivery from ebuyer.com: http://www.ebuyer.com/product/240886 (Also includes a Street Fighter 4 download voucher, although I expect it's probably not much use, but you could always pass it on to someone who has Windows and plays games). It should be well supported with the proprietary NVidia driver and it supports VDPAU for HD video acceleration in mplayer and MythTV. Actually I didn't realise they were so cheap now, might pick one up for the kids PC. I have the PNY 210 installed on 3 computers and it works great with 10.10, I am having trouble getting it to work properly with 11.04 - hardware acceleration of Flash video doesn't seem to be working. -- Registered Linux User #466407 http://counter.li.org -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Which NVIDIA GPU for Natty?
Thanks for all the suggestions so far. After looking into some of the suggested cards, it looks like I might be limited by my system's PSU, which is only 350W -- this is lower than recommended for Alan's initial suggestion. :( I could upgrade the PSU, but I would rather not. So, I am now looking at a GeForce GT 430, which seems like a nice mid-range product. I'll let you know how I get on with it. Thanks again for all the suggestions and help. :) -- Philip -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
