Middle age graphics cards

Gorath · May 23, 2008

Gorath's hardware thread

I´m in the process of selecting a cheap graphics card. Does anybody have experience reg. compatibility of the Radeon 1900/1950 series with the usual set of RPGs, let´s say from Fallout over Gothic to current stuff? Which work correctly, which are unplayable?
Is the direct competition (GeForce 7800/7900) preferable if noise is taken care of?

Which one is better for Linux?

VPeric · May 23, 2008

I've got a 7600 and I ran all modern RPGs just fine (not on the highest settings, but still). It even runs Assassin's Creed (though I haven't tried Crysis), and I figure I'll be fine for most games for at least a year, and even longer for RPGs. I haven't had any problems with Linux, but then again, I don't game on it (not that there's many graphic card demanding games on Linux).

Bartacus · May 23, 2008

Since the 6000 branch of Nvidia, Nvidia has taken over the lead again compared to ATI. Still the cards you refer to are quite comparable. When you take your other question however, it's deffinately nvidia. ATI drivers suck under linux, while nvidia's are quite good (not when you compare them to your windows driver - let's face it, gamecards are mainly for windows)

Gorath · May 24, 2008

Damn, that´s not really what I wanted to hear. :-/

Are those ATI Linux drivers at least tolerable if I limit myself to work and internet things?

I figured a GeForce 7900 would be the best choice - but the thing is I can get a Radeon 1950Pro, only 3 months old, with invoice and a factory attached Arctic Colling Accelero for a mere 40 EUR. Quite an attractive offer for a rather fast and 100% silent card, I think.

And now I keep hearing that all games are running fine ... all but the one which absolutely needs to run.

Turjan · May 24, 2008

I have an X1900 XT in this machine, and nearly everything runs fine under it, at least the newer games.

But I agree: Hands off of ATI cards for Linux. It's not worth the hassle.

JDR13 · May 24, 2008

Since you specifically mentioned Gothic I need to tell you that you that Gothic 1 has some bugs with ATI cards. The inventory will not display correctly with any modern Radeon card and there is no known fix for it.

gaboru93 · May 24, 2008

strangely though I had a Radeon card I think it was a 9200 and the inventory displayed perfect! On another PC though... with a similar card it didn't... I could never explain why this happened

Gorath · May 24, 2008

gaboru93 said:
strangely though I had a Radeon card I think it was a 9200 and the inventory displayed perfect! On another PC though... with a similar card it didn't... I could never explain why this happened

Different chip designs. AFAIR the Radeon 9200 was basically an overclocked 8500, not one of the 9x00 cards.

Gorath · May 24, 2008

JDR13 said:
Since you specifically mentioned Gothic I need to tell you that you that Gothic 1 has some bugs with ATI cards. The inventory will not display correctly with any modern Radeon card and there is no known fix for it.

Yes, I meant Gothic. Strangely, G2 runs.
NicoDE´s item distance hack is worth a try but not really a reliable solution.

I´m using this chart on THG.de for a rough comparison of the chip classes. Left to right is old to new, higher is faster.

Prime Junta · May 24, 2008

I have an ATI card on my Linux box, and it works... just. But not without a fair bit of tweaking, and the hardware acceleration only works in very limited circumstances. If you have a choice, I say go with nVidia if you're on Linux.

gaboru93 · May 27, 2008

Gorath said:
Different chip designs. AFAIR the Radeon 9200 was basically an overclocked 8500, not one of the 9x00 cards.

thanks for the explanation

KazikluBey · May 30, 2008

My laptop has a Radeon Mobile 1800 with a C2Duo processor, it plays NWN2 just fine under Windows (I use the Omega drivers as my laptop vendor (Fujitsu Siemens) haven't updated the available drivers since 2006), and the Linux drivers (fglrx) have given me no trouble (I haven't tried gaming in Linux though).

Lucky Day · May 31, 2008

back in the day I could only get Gentoo and SuSE to recognize nVidia drivers out of the box, which made for a real headache for me. nVidia even made the statement that certain issues would have to be resolved by the Linux community which I thought was arrogant of them.

Anyways, nVidia's 6200 you can pick up for cheap these days. It has shader 3.0 built into it. ATI I've feared since around 2000 with so many reports of bugginess.

AMD's outright purchase of them has put ATI at odds with Intel and motivated Intel to resurrect their own cards. I'm not sure if the market can handle three competing formats again.

Gorath · June 11, 2008

I need some advice regarding RAM installation.

I have 2 2*1GB DDR2-800 kits from different manufacturers.
The 4 memory slots are colour coded:
1&2: black
3&4: blue
They are in ascending numerical order.
channel A is 1 & 3
channel B is 2 & 4, according to the manual.

What´s the correct module order?

blatantninja · June 11, 2008

It probably won't matter. The key is to put them in different channels to get the dual channel mode activated, but IIRC the chips have to be matched in order to do it. At least that's how it used to be. Otherwise, it should not matter where you put them, they're run fine (just not in dual channel mode).

Gorath · June 12, 2008

Still too complex for me. Putting 4 modules into different channels is a bit tricky if there are only 2 channels (A & B).

So the modules need to be paired. The two options are:
1. Put the Aeneon pair into A1 & B1 and the other pair into A2 & B2
2. Put the Aeneon pair into A1 & A2 and the other pair into B1 & B2

What´s correct?

JDR13 · June 12, 2008

Gorath said:
Still too complex for me. Putting 4 modules into different channels is a bit tricky if there are only 2 channels (A & B).
So the modules need to be paired. The two options are:
1. Put the Aeneon pair into A1 & B1 and the other pair into A2 & B2
2. Put the Aeneon pair into A1 & A2 and the other pair into B1 & B2

What´s correct?

Match the colors. Put one pair in the black slots and the other pair in the blue slots.

Kiwi · June 29, 2008

Really *OLD* ATI video hardware here

Gorath said:
Different chip designs. AFAIR the Radeon 9200 was basically an overclocked 8500, not one of the 9x00 cards.

Actually, it is my recollection that the 9200 is/was SLOWER than an 8500, but it is accurate to separate it, and the 9250, from the more up to date Radeon 9*** cards.

gaboru93 · June 29, 2008

well kiwi I had bought that card way back! I think I got it right when it came out or in a previous upgrade

zakhal · June 30, 2008

Kiwi said:
Actually, it is my recollection that the 9200 is/was SLOWER than an 8500, but it is accurate to separate it, and the 9250, from the more up to date Radeon 9*** cards.

First number tells the generation, second number tells how "powerful" the card is. In comparison 9200 is 9th generation 2 while 8500 is 8th generation 5. 5 > 2.

Gorath said:
Still too complex for me. Putting 4 modules into different channels is a bit tricky if there are only 2 channels (A & B).
So the modules need to be paired. The two options are:
1. Put the Aeneon pair into A1 & B1 and the other pair into A2 & B2
2. Put the Aeneon pair into A1 & A2 and the other pair into B1 & B2

What´s correct?

Try somthing and check with cpuz that dual channel is on.

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