Ati Vs Nvidia

[Phoenix1701]

Dont shoot the newbie if the seems like a stupid question, but I'm looking at building my next PC around Linux, Which graphics card manufacturer is better for Linux distros(driver,support etc...)?

[techieMoe]

In my personal experience, you're likely to have much better luck with an Nvidia card. Their 3D drivers work well and aren't that much of a pain to install. I haven't used an ATI card in a few years, so it's possible they've improved.

[Zelmo]

Nvidia has historically been far superior to ATI in terms of Linux support. The current state is pretty well reflected by comparing the two "Year in Review" articles on Phoronix dealing with ATI drivers and Nvidia drivers. In short, performance stayed pretty steady across driver releases from both companies (suggesting that each release was mainly intended to support new graphics cards and/or Linux kernels), with Nvidia's tested card(s) giving 50-100% higher frame rates than ATI's card(s).

I think each company has released one driver since those reviews, but performance hasn't changed at all.

[oz]

nVidia cards have always worked well under Linux for me with no issues to report, so that's what I'm sticking with. I generally see more video card grief being reported by ATI users. That said, lots of ATI users swear by them.