On Tue, Dec 21, 1999 at 03:31:06PM -0500, Jon Lindgren wrote:
> This is most likely a well worn question, but I must ask again:
> 
> Has anyone had any excellent experiences with PCI cards for X?  Perhaps
> any which I should actively avoid?  I need to bring up a new workspace, so
> I figured I'd shell out the bucks (hey, it's the holidays :-/ and buy a
> good card.
> 
> I figured I'd eventaully end up with an ATI card, but if anyone wanted to
> persuade me to another, I'd certainly be appreciative.

*DO NOT* buy an ATI card that uses the "Rage 128" chipset -- these are
the TV Wonder 128, Rage Fury, XPERT99, and a few others.  There is no
X server for these except a very buggy Linux server for which the
maintainer piously claims the source is availble but for which, as far as
I can tell, it actually is not.

An older ATI card -- XPERT98, for example -- will work well.

The other option is a Matrox Millenium MGA200 or MGA400.  The MGA400
may require -current, or at least that you run an X server built
from current source.  Either will work great; the MGA400 is a
dual-head model and is only about $20 more.

I just switched from an 8MB XPERT98 to a 32MB MGA400 and I am
very happy with it.  The Matrox cards also have an accelerated
GL available, nice if you like to do 3D stuff.

-- 
Thor Lancelot Simon	                                      tls@rek.tjls.com
	"And where do all these highways go, now that we are free?"