This newbie needs a new video card with hardware acceleration support in the Linux driver for a more solid performance while viewing in browser flash presentations and other video file formats with the VLC program. I am using 13.1 and have a 166MHz FSB with a 2.0GHz Barton 3000 cpu and a relatively fast hard drive which should make for better viewing with a new to me adapter. I was thinking that maybe an older NVidia hardware may suffice in this instance. Please let me know what anyone thinks about my situation. Thanks for any help.
Sure you’re talking AGP? AFAIK NVIDIA is the only manufacturer still selling AGP cards.
I sure hope so, AGP. I am not well versed except to look online at what I have - Matrox Marvel G550 - and see that it is indeed an AGP card. Therefore I think it’s an NVidia card that I am seeking. Does what I say not make sense for some reason which is why you are asking? Thanks for the reply.
Well, AGP won’t be found on new machines. But for some AGP is a synonime for “video card”. You wouldn’t be the first one that bought AGP where it should have been PCI(e).
Also: NVIDIA still provides drivers for their AGP models. A point is that you’ll never get the performance newer cards deliver, since (AFAIK) the FX5* series is the only AGP supported
Well, I presumed that the Matrox G550 is indeed a PCI card but with the addition of the AGP technology which requires an elongated slot in the motherboard. That is exactly what I have with the Matrox card and again presume I will be looking for NVidida AGP video card. Also, my question remains as to whether any NVidia hardware for my box uses hardware acceleration that would be supported by any video driver that may be available for whatever board I might decide upon.
I do notice on the available boards that they seem to all have the DVI connector only which is not what I require, only the VGA to my knowledge. I do not know any difference between the DVI and VGA connectors but for one is analog whereas the other is digital. I again do not know whether my Samsung SyncMaster 226BW flat screen monitor is capable for digital with the appropriate cable. Would you know that?
Am 14.12.2013 15:46, schrieb Knurpht:
> Also: NVIDIA still provides drivers for their AGP models. A point is
> that you’ll never get the performance newer cards deliver, since (AFAIK)
> the FX5* series is the only AGP supported
I found also GeForce 6200 AGB 8x and 7600GT, so it is not only FX5*.
–
PC: oS 13.1 x86_64 | i7-2600@3.40GHz | 16GB | KDE 4.11 | GTX 650 Ti
ThinkPad E320: oS 13.1 x86_64 | i3@2.30GHz | 8GB | KDE 4.11 | HD 3000
HTPC: oS 13.1 x86_64 | Celeron@1.8GHz | 2GB | Gnome 3.10 | HD 2500
Am 14.12.2013 17:26, schrieb chuckenheimer:
> I do notice on the available boards that they seem to all have the DVI
> connector only which is not what I require, only the VGA to my
> knowledge. I do not know any difference between the DVI and VGA
> connectors but for one is analog whereas the other is digital.
The two agp nvidia cards I looked at amazon have also all vga output (in
addition to digital output). You can not simply put an adapter into a
dvi to make it vga, for that you would need a converter (more expensive).
The 6200 and 7600 should both be supported by the nvidia G02 driver from
the repositories with hardware acceleration (of course not as performant
as newer cards with PCIe).
I am not sure what driver supports the FX5… cards.
–
PC: oS 13.1 x86_64 | i7-2600@3.40GHz | 16GB | KDE 4.11 | GTX 650 Ti
ThinkPad E320: oS 13.1 x86_64 | i3@2.30GHz | 8GB | KDE 4.11 | HD 3000
HTPC: oS 13.1 x86_64 | Celeron@1.8GHz | 2GB | Gnome 3.10 | HD 2500
Thanks for your reply. I wanted to ask your opinion, too, as to which of these cards may be a better financial investment for this older box, not wanting to spend very much but get the highest performance I can for the money.
Aha! Now I seem to be getting to the heart of my issue. I will look for both of these cards as you’ve suggested. It would appear that this upgrade may indeed lift my performance no matter how slightly as long as it uses hardware acceleration onboard the card. I think I know what I’m talking about here. 
Looking at the 6200 version I see various onboard RAM sizes and was curious what the difference between say the 256MB and 512MB cards?
Am 14.12.2013 17:56, schrieb chuckenheimer:
> Thanks for your reply. I wanted to ask your opinion, too, as to which
> of these cards may be a better financial investment for this older
> box, not wanting to spend very much but get the highest performance I
> can for the money.
>
I think the main questions are how much money you are willing to invest
in the old hardware, spare parts for older machines are often more
expensive than better spare parts for newer machines and also where you
live, what I see (in germany looking at amazon and ebay and google in
general) as available options can be completely different to what you
find and also prices may differ quite a lot.
If your requirements are not too demanding (from your first post it is
mostly video and flash) I think a card like the 6200 will suffice and is
cheaper than the 7600gt (I found the agp 8x cards fx5500, 6200a and
7600gt also on ebay, that is in order of ascending price).
If someone has experience with the cheapest fx5500 and can confirm that
it will be sufficient it would likely help as I never had experience
with that model.
In any case if you can find a proper description of your motherboard (by
online search for example) to make really sure what exact kind of slot
you have you should post it for everyone here who comments so that we do
not give you bad advice and tell you to buy something which turns out as
wasting money.
One warning about flashplayer on linux: Often people have anyway to
disable hardware acceleration in flashplayer which means the cpu is used
and is the limiting factor not the graphics adapter, the same is not
true for the standard video players like vlc and mplayer which can use
hw acceleration.
–
PC: oS 13.1 x86_64 | i7-2600@3.40GHz | 16GB | KDE 4.11 | GTX 650 Ti
ThinkPad E320: oS 13.1 x86_64 | i3@2.30GHz | 8GB | KDE 4.11 | HD 3000
HTPC: oS 13.1 x86_64 | Celeron@1.8GHz | 2GB | Gnome 3.10 | HD 2500
New AGP 8x GeForce EVGA 6200 4X 8x 256 MB Video Graphic Card VGA Windows 7 XP | eBay
Well I finally purchase this one from China. New for ~$34 plus free shipping. So it says there are Linux drivers on the CD-ROM but not sure if that’s the way to go. Probably use the drivers from the repositoires when it finally gets here. Should be a couple of weeks but I think with your all’s help that I will get this adapter swap accomplished without too much problem. Thanks again for everyone’s helpful responses.
Am 14.12.2013 18:16, schrieb chuckenheimer:
> Looking at the 6200 version I see various onboard RAM sizes and was
> curious what the difference between say the 256MB and 512MB cards?
The dedicated RAM in the graphics card is difficult to judge because the
desktop environment you have tries to use some for rendering and for
example video decoding uses it also if hardware accelerated (how much
depends obviously on the resolution of the video and output, full HD
needs more than a DVD resolution) in addition if you use some 3d related
things via OpenGL it also uses it additional RAM in the card (some
desktops use the 3d capabilities and compositing for effects).
Maybe someone else knows if 256 is enough, I would almost bet it is.
What is the price difference?
With 512 you are really on the safe side, the question remains if you
need it.
It would also be interesting to see if someone has one of that cards in
use even if not the agp version and can comment how well it works (my
older test machine died where I had the possibility to see the
performance of a 6150 which would give some indication).
–
PC: oS 13.1 x86_64 | i7-2600@3.40GHz | 16GB | KDE 4.11 | GTX 650 Ti
ThinkPad E320: oS 13.1 x86_64 | i3@2.30GHz | 8GB | KDE 4.11 | HD 3000
HTPC: oS 13.1 x86_64 | Celeron@1.8GHz | 2GB | Gnome 3.10 | HD 2500
Am 14.12.2013 18:46, schrieb chuckenheimer:
> So it says there are Linux drivers on the CD-ROM but not sure
> if that’s the way to go. Probably use the drivers from the repositoires
> when it finally gets here.
Use the drivers from the repositories or download them directly from
nvidia.com if you want to build it yourself.
Most likely what you get on a cd is old and not compatible with current
linux versions.
When it arrives and you have trouble installing, open a new thread (or
open it even before you have trouble if something is unclear).
–
PC: oS 13.1 x86_64 | i7-2600@3.40GHz | 16GB | KDE 4.11 | GTX 650 Ti
ThinkPad E320: oS 13.1 x86_64 | i3@2.30GHz | 8GB | KDE 4.11 | HD 3000
HTPC: oS 13.1 x86_64 | Celeron@1.8GHz | 2GB | Gnome 3.10 | HD 2500
On Sat 14 Dec 2013 04:44:18 PM CST, Martin Helm wrote:
Am 14.12.2013 17:26, schrieb chuckenheimer:
> I do notice on the available boards that they seem to all have the DVI
> connector only which is not what I require, only the VGA to my
> knowledge. I do not know any difference between the DVI and VGA
> connectors but for one is analog whereas the other is digital.
The two agp nvidia cards I looked at amazon have also all vga output (in
addition to digital output). You can not simply put an adapter into a
dvi to make it vga, for that you would need a converter (more
expensive). The 6200 and 7600 should both be supported by the nvidia
G02 driver from the repositories with hardware acceleration (of course
not as performant as newer cards with PCIe).
I am not sure what driver supports the FX5… cards.
Hi
Sure you can, my Nvida GTS8600EN comes with two DVI outputs plus DVI to
VGA adaptors, works fine for vga… they are passive devices
–
Cheers Malcolm °¿° SUSE Knowledge Partner (Linux Counter #276890)
SLED 11 SP3 (x86_64) GNOME 2.28.0 Kernel 3.0.101-0.8-default
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Am 14.12.2013 19:28, schrieb malcolmlewis:
> Hi
> Sure you can, my Nvida GTS8600EN comes with two DVI outputs plus DVI to
> VGA adaptors, works fine for vga… they are passive devices
>
Freudian slip on my side, had myself such a card with a DVI->VGA adapter
which worked for years, I was somehow fully focused on HDMI instead of
DVI where it is not that easy.
Sorry.
But the OP already found a cheap card with both VGA and DVI.
Thanks for correcting my mistake.
–
PC: oS 13.1 x86_64 | i7-2600@3.40GHz | 16GB | KDE 4.11 | GTX 650 Ti
ThinkPad E320: oS 13.1 x86_64 | i3@2.30GHz | 8GB | KDE 4.11 | HD 3000
HTPC: oS 13.1 x86_64 | Celeron@1.8GHz | 2GB | Gnome 3.10 | HD 2500
On Sat 14 Dec 2013 06:39:30 PM CST, Martin Helm wrote:
Am 14.12.2013 19:28, schrieb malcolmlewis:
> Hi
> Sure you can, my Nvida GTS8600EN comes with two DVI outputs plus DVI
> to VGA adaptors, works fine for vga… they are passive devices
>
Freudian slip on my side, had myself such a card with a DVI->VGA adapter
which worked for years, I was somehow fully focused on HDMI instead of
DVI where it is not that easy.
Sorry.
But the OP already found a cheap card with both VGA and DVI.
Thanks for correcting my mistake.
It happens 
My card also has HDMI out with and adapter with the 4
different colored rca plus, but also works with a DVI to HDMI output.
In fact I hook up my external monitors via the HDMI output from my
laptops and connect to the DVI input, works fine
–
Cheers Malcolm °¿° SUSE Knowledge Partner (Linux Counter #276890)
SLED 11 SP3 (x86_64) GNOME 2.28.0 Kernel 3.0.101-0.8-default
If you find this post helpful and are logged into the web interface,
please show your appreciation and click on the star below… Thanks!