StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Hi, I'm looking to improve my system a little, I want a new video card. I a newb with computers so bear with me. Right now I have a SiS Real256E, which from what I can tell is from a cereal box. I'm on a low budget (whatever I can convince my dad is worth it so 50-90 bucks) and I run mandrakelinux 10.0. looking around on newegg I found this, and a few others like it. According to the mandrake website, my Linux supports the nVIDIA FX5200 so thats good. My question is, will this work for me? What do I need to be aware of? What does installation entail? I want to start gaming on my computer, and I think this is a good start. Can y'all suggest a better card for a similar price?

Thanks.

Whatever you do DON'T GET ATI. I know that's a Nvidia card, but you might end up looking at another model. DON'T GET ATI. ATI on linux = Teh Uber Sux0r. Trust me.

Any Nvidia card that you can get for $50-90 will work in Linux. I've heard that some of their latest high-end cards aren't supported by their current driver, but all the low-end ones are. I've got an FX5200 myself, and it works fine.

What about instalation, is it all straight forward?

If you want to do gaming, download nVidia's binary drivers from their website and install them. It should work OK on Mandrake.

The default drivers work, but don't expect stunning performance with them.

Okay, thank you all very much for you help.

IIRC, NVidia cards got about equal framerates to what they get in Windows, while ATi cards get about half their normal framerates due to cruddy drivers.

Don't get ATI cards for linux. Though it "works" with me, there are bugs which are truely annoying and the ATI drivers cause more problems then they fix.

Jaded Masses wrote:What about instalation, is it all straight forward?

Installation shouldn't be that differant from a Windows install, get the nVidia drivers, uninstall earlier drivers, turn off PC, take out old card, put in new card, turn on PC, install drivers.

Sorry I wasn't more helpful. I've never installed the nVidia Linux drivers, but everything you need to know should be covered in the README or INSTALL file provided inside the tarball they give you. If they give you an RPM, it should be even simpler.

Ace Pace wrote:

Jaded Masses wrote:What about instalation, is it all straight forward?

Installation shouldn't be that differant from a Windows install, get the nVidia drivers, uninstall earlier drivers, turn off PC, take out old card, put in new card, turn on PC, install drivers.

UNLESS when you boot up (this happened to me in RedHat, but not Mandrake) it doesn't like your new card (which was an FX 5200. Mandrake loved my FX 5200 though) and refuses to start up in graphical mode, in which case you have to torture yourself by installing the drivers in command line. Make sure you DL the drivers before you get the card so in the slim chance this happens, you don't have to load it off a floppy

Praxis wrote:

Ace Pace wrote:

Jaded Masses wrote:What about instalation, is it all straight forward?

Installation shouldn't be that differant from a Windows install, get the nVidia drivers, uninstall earlier drivers, turn off PC, take out old card, put in new card, turn on PC, install drivers.

UNLESS when you boot up (this happened to me in RedHat, but not Mandrake) it doesn't like your new card (which was an FX 5200. Mandrake loved my FX 5200 though) and refuses to start up in graphical mode, in which case you have to torture yourself by installing the drivers in command line. Make sure you DL the drivers before you get the card so in the slim chance this happens, you don't have to load it off a floppy

Or if that happened you could just apt-get elinks and dl the drivers with that... Oh wait, your not using debian . Though you could install elinks before hand, or install apt-get rpm. But if you did that I wouldn't be able to poke fun at you.

darthdavid wrote:Or if that happened you could just apt-get elinks and dl the drivers with that... Oh wait, your not using debian . Though you could install elinks before hand, or install apt-get rpm. But if you did that I wouldn't be able to poke fun at you.

Mandrake includes urpmi, the user-mode RPM installation tool. He can just type (preferably using sudo to gain root access) 'urpmi links' (since elinks isn't included in default Mandrake, links is), pop in his CD, and install links.

darthdavid wrote:Or if that happened you could just apt-get elinks and dl the drivers with that... Oh wait, your not using debian . Though you could install elinks before hand, or install apt-get rpm. But if you did that I wouldn't be able to poke fun at you.

Or he could forget about Links or ELinks entirely and just emerge nvidia-kernel and nvidia-glx.

Well I can barely follow what y'all are talking about I will download the drivers before hand though....