Re: Graphics card and work around

[James Lind <volvowned%gmail.com@localhost>]

I'm afraid I don't really have solidanswers, just speculation.

1) No idea unless you're using the VGA output via a DVI adapter in
which case the FirePro might happen to have better analog circuitry.
Digital should be just as sharp software or hardware rendered. Color
wise the V4900 might apply different filters though. If digital, could
have been a different resolution before and been upscaled? 'xrandr' on
the command line will tell you what mode you're in under X.

2) Not sure I understand what you're saying here, but I think you're
saying when you booted to Windows with the V4900 installed it used
lots of CPU initially when you started Firefox? I haven't used Windows
in a while but perhaps you were on the default fallback display driver
initially and Windows installed the AMD driver in the background for
you.

3) Yes, the drivers are a big deal for video cards especially. I'm not
an expert, but my understanding is that the GPU itself is actually
pretty malleable and the driver contains a lot of microcode that gets
loaded to define the way the hardware works, and that this is one
reason GPU vendors in particular are so resistant to helping out open
source drivers. The drivers actually contain a lot of their "secret
sauce" that they're trying to protect the recipe to.

James

On Sat, Feb 6, 2021 at 10:30 AM Todd Gruhn <tgruhn2%gmail.com@localhost> wrote:
>
> WOW! THANKS!
>
> I got a AMD Firepro V4900 off of Ebay. The thing worked fine out of the  box!
>
> X / MOTIF started up in 1s or less. Now I need to move on and play
> with X configuration. My new Qs are:
>
> 1) Why do all the images appear so much sharper?
>
> 2) When I started the system the first time, Firefox chewed up the
>    entire window under MS Win -- why? Now everything is fine -- is there
>    some form of "learning" here?
>
> 3) Does the lack of a driver for nVidea GTX 1660  really make that much
>     of a difference??
>
> On Sun, Jan 24, 2021 at 2:43 AM James Lind <volvowned%gmail.com@localhost> wrote:
> >
> > I just grabbed an AMD Firepro V4900 for $25 off of eBay. It works fine
> > under 9.1. It's not a powerful card by any means but it accelerates
> > the desktop just fine and is nice and cheap.
> >
> > On Wed, Jan 20, 2021 at 9:04 AM Todd Gruhn <tgruhn2%gmail.com@localhost> wrote:
> > >
> > > My system was built with a nVidia GTX 1660. The system is terribly slow when
> > > running X. Blinding fast without X. There is no graphics driver for this card.
> > >
> > > Any ideas for a graphics card that IS SUPPORTED? What about a
> > > graphics driver that supports part of this cards abilities ? I am
> > > tired of waiting...
> >