Video Card Recommendations

[D. Hugh Redelmeier]

| From: William O'Higgins Witteman <william.ohiggins-H217xnMUJC0sA/PxXw9srA at public.gmane.org>

| I'd prefer to spend less money rather than more.  I assume that an
| nVidia powered card is what I want - I plan to use the open source
| driver unless it is absolutely necessary.  I have a 22" LCD right now,
| running at 1680x1050, but it may get upgraded at some point.

My impression is that you probably want the nVidia closed-source
driver.  The ATI open source driver is improving with ATI disclosures
(and so is the Nouveau open source nVidia drive, without disclosures)
but neither is a sure thing.

My knowledge has holes.  I don't play games.  I do do MythTV.  Before
I got an HDTV, an old ATI card was fine (9250) using open source
driver.  With HDTV, I've only tried Acer Revos; they use the nVidia
ION chipset.

Some folks care about Flash.  I think a Linux Flash that exploits
VDPAU (an nVidia API) is promised.  Note that Adobe promises aer not
always fulfilled (eg. a Linux version of their ebook reader software
that supports DRM).

XBMC for Linux supports the Broadcom Crystal video accelerator chip.
Part of that support seems to involve the guy who does MythTV for Red
Hat.  Maybe that would work without a new video card.  But that does
not seem to be the best route for you (makes more sense for boxes
which don't have PCIe slots: old AppleTV and netbooks.
<http://www.broadcom.com/products/features/crystal_hd.php>
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