best, easiest, least painful 3D grahics card?

[sdowney717]

So, what is the best 3D accelerated graphics card for linux, one that works to its fullest potential and is EASY to get going?

I want easy, full card potential, not neccesarily the latest and greatest most expensize card, but something reasonably good, guaranteed to install and work well with linux.

And not destroy my integrated audio sound system.

[iamroot]

Anything from NVIDIA should be fine. I'm using a GeForce 7600 GS and it works great.

[d347hm4n]

yea nvidia are well supported under linux, whereas ati radeon aren't aswell supprted, Installing an extra video card won't disable your on-board sound

[pparks1]

I've been using GeForce FX5200's and FX5700's in Linux boxes for quite some time and they have all performed flawlessly. I've not had the same good experience with ATI in a Linux machine.

[Firewing1]

I got a 512MB nVidia GeForce 7300 GS from www.directcanada.com, it was pretty cheap for a graphics card ($73) and it's been working great. Worked out-of-the-box, after the proprietary drivers were installed Compiz ("Desktop Effects") worked in one click. It's game performance isn't horrible, too.
Firewing1

[sdowney717]

sounds like this is the way to go.
I bought an older radeon 9600 off ebay and just cant get it to work like it should.

Do any of you use google earth with these cards and if you do, does it work smoothly and decently just like you would expect?

[Firewing1]

Which driver are you using? The radeon driver is great because it's open source, but it can be choppy sometimes.
Firewing1

[sdowney717]

I use the only one that will work for me. That is the open source Radeon driver.

I can not run google earth very well, in fact it is so slow it is unusable. (in windows works great, in linux it flashes, google earth complains I am using open gl, etc...).

Also, if I load the fglrx whatever driver (following the many detailed and conflicting guides posted by various users). (I finally just used software updater, and also installed beryl, and yes the cube desktop rotate thing worked fine.) then, my onboard intel chip motherboard sound no longer works.

SO even if linux google earth ran like it should, I would have no sound and that just wont fly.

So, i suppose nothing of this will ever work for me, I am out in the freezing cold with linux, my compag evo 2.0ghz desktop, 512 mb memmory and a 9600 ATI Radeon with 64mb.

by the way, the only way I know how to undo major changes like video card drivers is I have to restore the partition using norton ghost. Otherwise, my xwindows always boots to a blank screen, its like I cant go back to using the open source driver after loading the fglrx whatever ATI driver. But thats ok, as I have become an expert in restoring using ghost.

[Firewing1]

Is your sound ICH5 by any chance?

/sbin/lspci | grep ich5 -i

Firewing1

[sailor]

Nvidia fx 5500 here....

[dishawjp]

I gave up on ATI about 7 or so years ago when I switched from Windows to Linux. On my main computer I use a nVidia 7300 GS 256 MB card and google-earth works great. I don't run the 3D effects, though I'm sure they would work just fine if I chose to.

Jim Dishaw

[sdowney717]

/sbin/lspci | grep ich5 -i
when run in terminal returns nothing

It is an 82801 intel onboard sound module. I know this from going to system-admin-soundcard