Ati or Nvidia?

**Deten** · June 27th, 2008

I am going to be upgrading my desktop from a ~2004 rig to modern and the big question in my head is should I go with Nvidia or ATI? I have been an nvidia fan for a long while now, and never had any issues, but I also know they are not very friendly with releasing their drivers open source.

I know that money means more than words, so I want to support the company that will promote open source the most...

So, is ATI doing anything? Is nvidia all that bad? Will I be able to do everything on an ATI that i can do on NV?

Suggestions and Educated opinions welcome.

**YaroMan86** · June 27th, 2008

nVidia, definitely.

Drivers for nVidia chipsets, particularly the proprietary ones, are excellent and run pretty well.

ATI support for Linux is a disgraceful mess, unfortunately.

**joezamboni** · June 27th, 2008

sorry that wasn't me

**Xiong Chiamiov** · June 27th, 2008

ATI has a history of providing terrible support for Linux, but things are improving. The NVIDIA drivers are really good, but there are some issues with NVIDIA cards in Hardy, mostly due to the refusal of the distro maintainers to update the NVIDIA driver in the repos. However, installing manually gets things working quite well, though some people have difficulty with the newest cards.

EDIT: Apparently AMD's support has just picked up for the ATI cards.

**Deten** · June 29th, 2008

I guess im asking, which company supports OPEN SOURCE the most?

**wrtpeeps** · June 29th, 2008

Originally Posted by Deten

I guess im asking, which company supports OPEN SOURCE the most?

A more important question is "which one works better?"

I am STILL having problems with my ATI drivers.

Go nvidia, for your sanity, if nothing else.

**sdennie** · June 29th, 2008

Originally Posted by Deten

I guess im asking, which company supports OPEN SOURCE the most?

The answer to that question would be Intel. Scan these forums for a while and note the number of posts that start "I have a problem with ati/nvidia graphics" and note the number of posts that start "I have a problem with intel graphics". My advice to anyone who asks this question in regards to a desktop machine is to go Intel and if you find it doesn't suit your needs, "upgrade" to nvidia or ati (if a good driver is available for the card you want).