Of these old PCI video cards, which is best for Linux?

T

tom61

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The AGP slot seems not to be working on my dual system. Since I'm pretty much limited to what I have on hand, I have to decide from the following cards. I mainly need a card that has enough DRI support to run Chromium B.S.U. at a decent speed.
Product Name | Chipset
Diamond Steath64 | S3 Trio 64V+
Diamond Steath SE | S3 Trio 32
STB Nitro 3D/GX EDO | S3 Virge/GX On Board(tm)

Not sure how much RAM any of these cards have, just pulled them out of storage.
 
I think you're burnt...none of those cards have decent 3D...not even enough to run Chromium. Out of the three though, the STB Nitro would be your best bet to try.
 
DO NOT EVEN TOUCH the STB Nitro. It uses the S3 Virge/GX, there is a reason its called the 3d DEcellerator. Find an old matrox card and it will work way better than any of those cards ever will
 
corrosive23 said:
DO NOT EVEN TOUCH the STB Nitro. It uses the S3 Virge/GX, there is a reason its called the 3d DEcellerator. Find an old matrox card and it will work way better than any of those cards ever will
Click to expand...

No doubt...but it's still the better of the three.
 
you might want to try to find a PCI ATI 9250 or nVidia FX4000 PCI. You should be able to find them for around $35-$40 and they should work a lot better... unless you like watching screen redraws. :)

But there should be basic driver support for all of those cards you have listed. They will work, but if you are running high res, things may be a little slow.
 
BigBadBiologist said:
you might want to try to find a PCI ATI 9250 or nVidia FX4000 PCI. You should be able to find them for around $35-$40 and they should work a lot better... unless you like watching screen redraws. :)

But there should be basic driver support for all of those cards you have listed. They will work, but if you are running high res, things may be a little slow.
Click to expand...
drop the ati from that list, realistically.
check the FS/FT forums - you can probably find a good deal on somebody who doesn't want a pci card anymore
pretty much any geforce nvida card and matrox cards are gonna work well.
you could...try...one of the S3 cards but they will be complete suckage, at best
 
i have a machine that has a trident / S3 cyberblade something or other on board, and it works quite well.
MTB2Live said:
you could...try...one of the S3 cards but they will be complete suckage, at best
Click to expand...
 
Trio cards don't *do* hardware in 3D, the Trio line was S3's last 2D-only line. The ViRGE was their first 3D accelerator and, as previous posters have mentioned, it sucked ass hideously. I had one, it truly was a de-celerator.
 
I shudder involuntarily when I think about running another ViRGE-based card. I believe the Trio64V+ also has "issues."

As others have mentioned, your best bet is to just find a cheap NVIDIA PCI card. Lower-range ATIs can work (I had an ATI Radeon 9100 in my FreeBSD/alpha machine), but NVIDIA would get my vote.
 
:/ Figures.

/me fumbles around in old parts drawers... How about a Voodoo 2? I remember that those were supposed to work for OpenGL, but never found a dedicated guide on getting it working under Linux. In fact, how about 2 Voodoo 2s? I think I have another card. Can you mix vendors of Voodoo 2s under Linux?

I can have a l33t dual-proc SLI rig! LOL.

Edit: Managed to finally find a semi-modern guide (mentions Xfree86 4!), my head hurts now. It looks painfull to get running. http://www.parl.clemson.edu/HOWTO/fil/install_3dfx.txt

Gotta love step 11:
11) Give yourself a pat on the back because you are a linux 3d driver
demigod...
 
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