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View Full Version : Help choosing a 3D capable laptop

divzero
June 1st, 2004, 12:24 am
My current laptop has a hopeless 3D card and I am wanting to upgrade.

As I program with OpenGL in my spare time, I want a high end, linux compatable graphics card. The previous laptop had a SiS650 which wasn't either.

The laptop I'm looking at is the IBM R50p (http://www-132.ibm.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?productId=8672722&storeId=1&langId=-1&categoryId=2302835&dualCurrId=73&catalogId=-840) which comes with a 128MB (dedicated) ATI Mobility FireGL T2 card (http://www.ati.com/products/mobilityfglt2/).

From what I can tell, that's pretty good for a laptop, with most of them just having 64mb of shared video ram. Are the mobile ATI cards good? (my old PC cards are only nVidia, I've never really tested an ATI card), are the linux drivers good? Any other suggestions or advice?

Thanks,

Will.
DanTheManPR
June 1st, 2004, 08:22 am
The best for a laptop nowadays is a mobil radeon 9700 (you will only find it on high-end notbooks, though). I've never heard of that GPU, but since they think its worth slapping 128mb of video ram on it, I'm sure its good.

Otherwise, it looks like a good laptop (the Dell inspirion XPS is a lot better deal, though)
Ojnod
June 1st, 2004, 10:23 am
The linux drivers for ATI cards are not as good as the drivers for the Nvidia cards. I would look into something with. That card is a 2d card designed for stuff like AutoCAD and programs like there. It will not do very well in games. Look into getting something with some sort of mobile Geforce FX5700 for laptop 3d with linux.
wharfshrimp
June 1st, 2004, 03:36 pm
dont get a radeon igp gcard. the thing will not run max payne 1 let alone farcry... ...but get this it will play max payne 2 mad or wh@.
divzero
June 2nd, 2004, 07:20 am
Hi,

Thanks for all your advice. Taking the suggestion to get a normal ATI instead of a FireGL, I went with a 128MB Mobile Radeon 9600 Pro in the end - on a dell laptop. I wanted nVidia for linux reasons but could hardly find any laptops with a recent nVidea card. With Dell I was able to customise my system more which I like, plus I get more for my money.

Thanks again,

Will.