[mythtv-users] ATI vs NVidia card conclusion

[Michelle Dupuis]

After all of the help I received, I thought I would update the list on how I
made out.  For those considering a video card purchase for use in Myth (or
Linux in general)...read on
 
Background: I bought a $200+ ATI video card to use with my Myth system.  The
various ATI press releases dating back to 2001 claiming Linux support made
me feel pretty secure that it would work great (I've used ATI cards with
Windows for years and was pleased with the results).
 
Although the card booted up great under Linux, it was little more than a
dumb vesa card.  After lots of struggles to get the video driver in, I
finally got acceleration going.  Still, there is no ATI knowledge base (with
Linux related data), no ATI tel/email support for Linux, and performance of
the card was still poor (jittery, etc).  I wasted lots of time looking for
files, replacing files the ATI driver missed, etc.  (The ATi config also
crashes making xorg.conf setup difficult).  In the end the card was still
unusable for video playback - despite all diagnostics reporting the ATI was
installed and working great.
 
I then bought a $150 NVidia video card, and it was completely up and running
in 10 minutes.  It removed all ATI driver references (basic, acceleration,
GL), loaded all drivers correctly. etc.  (even in light of the fact that I
had a custom compiled kernel).  All video acceleration worked great, and
Myth playback was smooth.  Even motion compensation was working.  The nvidia
config program is very good at modifying xorg.conf while preserving custom
settings (even commenting out old stuff).
 
Wow...what a difference.  In the remote chance that anyone from ATI/AMD is
on this list..please forward this internally!
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