[kde-linux] KDE 4. Trying to get it working like I need it to.

[Dale]

Duncan wrote:
> Dale posted on Tue, 17 Nov 2009 10:07:10 -0600 as excerpted:
>
>   
>> I have been thinking about buying the fastest card I can afford for this
>> old rig.  It will have to be plain AGP tho.  I don't have the newer PCI
>> express stuff here.  I figure they will be cheap enough.  I have a
>> FX-5200 with 128Mbs of ram right now.
>>     
>
> I'm in much the same situation, ATM.  FWIW, I'm running an old Radeon 
> 9200 series card, the 9250 being the latest with full freedomware drivers 
> for many years.  As I don't consider proprietaryware an option, Radeons 
> remain the best choice for an upgrade.  The current situation with them 
> is as follows:
>
> Current xorg and its freedomware ati/radeon driver have the best support 
> up thru the Radeon r500 chip series, the best of which (and only 
> realistic choice for dual dual-link DVI connectors) was the x1950-pro.  
> Unfortunately, that's out of productions and has been for some time.  
> It's still possible to buy it on the net if you look, but the going price 
> is $150, pretty steep for as old as it is, tho depending on your needs, 
> possibly worth it.  The Radeon r600 and r700 chip series are supported 
> only in 2D and composite, in released xorg and ati/radeon freedomware 
> drivers.
>
> Development xorg and drivers, with best support just in the 2.6.31 and 
> improved in the 2.6.32 Linux kernels, so we're talking VERY new if even 
> in a release at all at this point, improves on that dramatically, adding 
> decent 3D/OpenGL support for the Radeon r600 and r700 series chips.  
> Upstream xorg and kernel releases should be this winter, with the round 
> of distribution updates this spring including decent 3D support for the 
> first time.
>
> The r600 and r700 series are markedly better than the previous 
> generation, markedly cheaper, and yes, still available in AGP using a
> PCI-E-to-AGP bridge chip.  These are the hdXYZZ model cards, where X=2/3 
> for the r600, 4 for the r700, and 5 for the brand new r800 that looks 
> like you'd need to run the proprietary driver to get good support for, 
> for awhile, and Y is the target market, 2/3 for budget, 5/6 for midrange, 
> 7/8/9 for higher end.  ZZ leaves room for updates within the series and 
> market segment, and is typically 00/20/30/50/70/90, with 50/70/90 more 
> common at the upper end (7-900) and 00/20/30 at the lower end (2-300)
>
> Here's an ASICs list, including the mobility mXX series designations as 
> well (that space in the URL is weird, probably UTF something or other, 
> but it seems to work, here, if it doesn't there, go to the x.org site and 
> search on Radeon):
>
> http://www.x.org/wiki/Radeon ASICs
>
> Also note the kwin row (and footnotes) on this page (this is OpenGL mode 
> according to footnote 27, not composite mode):
>
> http://www.x.org/wiki/RadeonProgram
>
> Since the mesa r600 driver covers both the r600 and r700 (hd 4XXX) series 
> and the r700 series is newer, an r700 card should be better.  If like me 
> you run dual monitors and want dual DVI output, preferably with DVI dual-
> link to both to cover future monitor upgrades, that's higher end in the 
> version numbers, so the hd38xx series for the r600, and hd48xx series for 
> the r700.  Thus, we're looking at the hd4850, hd4870, and (possibly) 
> hd4890, in AGP.  Fortunately these aren't too expensive, but they're fast 
> leaving the scene (newegg still had lots of them a couple weeks ago but 
> doesn't seem to any more), so it might be wise to snag one while the 
> snagging is good, or they'll be about as hard to find (and relatively 
> expensive) as the x1950s are these days.
>
>   

When I built this system, ATI didn't have any good drivers.  Most people 
that had a ATI card recommended that I build my system with a Nvidia 
card.  I didn't get the best I could buy but the best I could afford at 
the time.  This was about 5 or 6 years ago. 

I'm thinking of upgrading to a newer card to sort of help with this new 
KDE that is coming out.  I found a GeForce 7600GS 512MB on newegg for 
about $80.00 which is not to bad of a deal.  I don't have dual monitors 
or anything tho I have wanted to see what that looks like and how it 
works. 

Dale

:-)  :-)