Video Card Rehashing

[Net Llama!]

On Wed, 8 Nov 2006, Michael Hipp wrote:
> Net Llama! wrote:
>> As for downgrading to an older GPU, I'd strongly recommend against that,
>> not so much for performance reasons (for TV-out its not going to make any
>> noticable difference), but more because of driver support reasons.  The
>> 1.0-9629 driver that was released today, is possibly going to be the last
>> driver that supports NVIDIA GPUs older than NV3x.  Your Ti-4200 and the
>> MX4xx line are NV25 and NV18 respectively, so you're going to be in legacy
>> territory within 6 months time.
>>
>> Is there a good reason why you aren't considering something newer?  You
>> can get a GeForce 6 series graphics card on newegg for under $50:
>> http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.asp?Submit=ENE&N=2010380048+1069609639+1305520548+106790703&Subcategory=48&description=&Ntk=&srchInDesc=
>> All of them have TV-out.
>
> Lonni... Great info! Thanks. But how does one tell what NVxx a 
> particular card is made of? It isn't obvious to me from the descriptions 
> such as the ones at Newegg.

Googling.  Or if you have the hardware around, look at the 2nd field of 
the VBIOS :
$ cat /proc/driver/nvidia/cards/0
Model:           GeForce FX 5200
IRQ:             209
Video BIOS:      04.34.20.22.00
Card Type:       AGP
DMA Size:        32 bits
DMA Mask:        0xffffffff

The card above has an NV34 GPU.

-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lonni J Friedman                        netllama at linux-sxs.org
LlamaLand				http://netllama.linux-sxs.org