[clug] Nvidia based Laptops in the $1200-$2000 range

Andrew Janke a.janke at gmail.com
Sun May 31 11:54:38 GMT 2009


On Sun, May 31, 2009 at 20:14, Sam Couter <sam at couter.id.au> wrote:
> Andrew Janke <a.janke at gmail.com> wrote:
>> ?  Intel yes. ATI? last I heard the Radeonhd stuff was still not ready
>> for prime time. Do you mean you'd use the fglrx drivers?
>
> Uh.. I don't know, actually. I meant that Intel was free of pain, and I
> thought the ATI drivers were open and good but I haven't used them so
> maybe I'm wrong about that.

Ah. From what I knew the story went something like this:

AMD buys ATI makes noise about everything in ATI drivers doing open
source. The news finally comes out of embargo on the phonorix? forums

ATI/AMD then release lots of NDA documentation and wait for others to
write better open source drivers while continuing to work on their
own.

This was all circa late 2007 I thought? I am sure there is someone on
this list who is more knowledgeable about this than I. In my case am I
lowly FOSS app developer as opposed to a kernel/video card driver
hacker. Again, if there is a good FOSS ATI driver for the current
generation of laptop cards that will do what I want (radeonhd) then I
will be all over it.

As of today http://www.x.org/wiki/radeonhd still says "Future work is
happening especially on more advanced features like 2D, 3D, and video
acceleration". Or am I looking at the wrong driver?

Anyhow since then from my own tests of later model ATI and Nvidia
cards when asked to do more than the normal (multiple monitors, etc)
Nvidia has always seemed to be better and/or easier to make it happen.
I do a fair amount of OpenGL/gtkgl/Coin/etc dev work so this sort of
stuff is somewhat important.

>> Now you're making me rethink my nvidia hardline stance! (rarrrgh!)
>
> Good. :)

Well it would be if there was a viable FOSS alternative that did what
I want/need! So for now I have to choose between the lesser of two
"evils". :)  And right now I am tending towards the one starting with
N.


a (happy to be educated).


More information about the linux mailing list