ATI Radeon : what works on Ubuntu ?

[Vincent Trouilliez]

Hi gang,

I intend to buy an old-ish ATI Radeon (generic) card, and would like
your experiences/knowledge on what works on Ubuntu.

I have selected 4 models, according to my budget, objectives, and what
my supplier has in stock. In order of price :

1) Radeon 7000 32MB
2) Radeon 7000 64MB
3) Radeon 9200SE 128MB
4) Radeon 9250 128MB DDR 64 bit

I searched in Synaptic (I am on Dapper) for "radeon", and from what I
see, the situation is:

- a binary/proprietary driver that handles the 9200 and 9250 but not the
7000
- an open source Xorg driver that works with any Radeon model, and which
does support 3D H/W acceleration

What I want is:

- 3D acceleration that works (regardless of actual performance, as long
as it's similar or better as my on-board Geforce2 MX 32MB, which it will
replace)
- A stable system: no OpenGL programs that segfault, no screen
corruption, no glitches, no hard locks etc. Just something that "just
works".


With that in mind, what would be the wisest choice of card/chip, and
driver ? And how difficult is it to get 3D working ?
Or are they all about equal, and I should just buy the cheapest ?

I have have one little worry while I am at it: all these cards are
referenced (on the vendor's site) as using x8 AGP. But my motherboard is
4 years old now. I has an 'nForce' chipset and according to the manual:

- "AGP slot: supports AGP 2.0 2x/4x (1.5V only)"
- "The AGP slot DOES NOT support 3.3V AGP cards. Use of 3.3 AGP cards
may cause damages to the motherboard. 


Regards,


--
Vince