Decent Graphics card / 64 bit system / imaging

[Ben Scott]

On Tue, Jun 10, 2008 at 4:02 PM, Jarod Wilson <jarod at wilsonet.com> wrote:
> Also, there *is* an open-source driver being worked on for all recent
> ATI hardware.

  I got burned by ATI once, several years ago.  They were doing
exactly what they are doing today -- saying they're starting to open
up and work on a driver and support Linux and so on.  Then the wind
changed, and all their support evaporated.  Driver development
essentially halted, and eventually succumbed to software rot and
stopped working with newer distros.  :-(  So, before I trust ATI
again, I'm waiting to see if they actually *keep* supporting Linux
through more than one product cycle.

> Slow and feature-poor is relative. Intel's graphics hardware certainly
> ain't for gamers ...

  Yah, if all you're doing is word processing, email, web pages, and
other plain stuff, Intel's stuff is good enough.  But gaming (2D or
3D), CAD, or any kind of 3D acceleration -- ick.  A lot of games
flat-out refuse to run.  The 3D stuff exhibits lots of display
artifacts.  Push it hard, and the driver crashes.  At least, it does
on 'doze.  Windows XP actually traps the driver crash and falls back
to 16 color VGA, giving you a chance to save your work before
restarting, but it's still a major failure.

-- Ben