Hardware that works with Trisquel and Ryzom

Your best option would be an integrated graphics from Intel. I'd wait for the
Ivy Bridge release in the end of the month to get the new Intel HD 4000
graphics in the i5 3570k, which is planned to sell for around 200usd. Some
confirmation that HD 4000 would work with free software would be nice.

We have wanted to sell a desktop graphics card for a long time. The problem
is none of them work sufficiently with free software. We actually did a bunch
of testing on some of the older graphics cards. Long story short- don't
bother. You can probably replace your motherboard and get an acceptable /
better supported 3d accelerated graphics for less. We are still looking into
one chipset that is virtually unheard of that has GPL drivers. What we don't
know at the moment is if the chipset has a free or closed firmware.

I just made a follow up call on the company we are talking with and with any
luck I'll have more information on this issue shortly.

The news isn't sounding good for a few reasons. One being cost. My estimate
on the cost is probably going to kill it. Not to mention there would be quite
a bit of work involved.

Hi there,

after two non-successful tries (Windows-version of Ryzom required some DLLs
under WINE which I didn't find easily. 7zip packaged Linux client simply died
after startup with a blank window) I used the deb package for the Ryzom
client their provide via ppa and it worked like a charm.

I recorded a small video. If there is interest I can upload it to youtube.
Performance is quite acceptable. Since I am no MMO guy I only spent 5 minutes
walking around. So far I didn't notice any issues.

This are the specs of my gaming box used for the experiment:
AMD Athlon 64 X2 5200+ (2x2.7GHz)
4 GB DDR2 RAM
ALiveXFire-eSATA2 motherboard
Galaxy nVidia Geforce 9800 GT 512
Realtek-based PCIe 1GB NIC (since my mainboard NIC requires non-free
firmware)

Depending on how restricted your budget is I either would suggest you buy the
newly available GeForce card from thinkpenguin:
https://www.thinkpenguin.com/gnu-linux/geforce-9500gt-1gb-pci-express-20-video-card-gnulinux
or simply grab an older NVidia card from E-Bay. Cards like a GeForce 8600GT,
9500GT, 8800GTS or 9800GT are available very cheaply. I got most of my cards
for around 20€ inkluding shipment. You have to calculate what a Euro is in
your currency.

To my best knowledge older cards are better supported by the open source
drivers (Noveau / ATI) than the latest bleeding edge cards. I am pretty shure
that this will not change. Buying older hardware has simply two advantages:
The card is better supported by free drivers and is available at a much lower
price than new because most gamers toss out their graphic adapters 2 years
after buying.

Regards,
Holger

Chris,
I understand your criteria to evaluate the 9500GT and I didn't want to
question it. I just wanted to point out for baptistredbloom that there are
other valid options beside buying the card you just recently offered.

I think this is fair esp. since he pointed out that he is on budget. When I
say "older" card I talk about GeForce 8X00 at least from the newer
generation. A GeForce 8800 with 512 MB is technically pretty much identical
with my GF9800GT. Check out the specs or simply wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeForce

The chip is codenamed G92. So it is quite fair to say that a GeForce 9800GT
is simply a G92-based relabeled 9800GT.

I have not done intensive testing but I have three different versions of
GeForce cards in three different systems and if even the trusty GeForce 4
works nicely (within its limits) then I find it a valid point to say that
GeForce cards based on the G92 should work pretty well.

In the end you do not loose much if you only spent only 20€ on an old
graphic adapter. If it fails to work with your hardware, then simply re-sell
it.

HD 4000, and more generally the Ivy Bridge processors, already are well supported in Linux. I believe this support only involves free drivers, i.e., that Linux-libre perfectly supports these processors as well. They will even be able of GPGPU via OpenCL.

The i5-3570K model is a good choice as it does not involve treacherous computing... contrary to some other Ivy Bridge models: i5-3475S, i7-3770T, i7-3770S and i7-3770. Other models that do not have the problem (i.e., they obey you and not Intel) are i3-3225 and i7-3770K.

HD 4000, and more generally the Ivy Bridge processors, already are well
supported in Linux. I believe this support only involves free drivers, i.e.,
that Linux-libre perfectly supports these processors as well. They will even
be able of GPGPU via OpenCL.

The i5-3570K model is a good choice as it does not involve treacherous
computing... contrary to some other Ivy Bridge models: i5-3475S, i7-3770T,
i7-3770S and i7-3770. Other models that do not have the problem (i.e., they
obey you and not Intel) are i3-3225 and i7-3770K.

I'm really not trying to disagree with you although I think we have slightly different perspectives and I'd just like to make people aware of why we chose what we did. I'm not sure you understood our criteria / evaluation so I'd just like to point out why we went with this card (the other posting is more detailed response to your comments).

I'd be weary of going with an older card. Unfortunately some of these older cards will lose support and some aren't any better than the Intel chipsets people already have accelerated drivers for on newer systems. The newest cards may not work as well (or at all) either... and we are not making available anything terribly recent either. The driver support just doesn't exist. The 9500GT is already quite a few years old although the best currently available given all the factors involved. This isn't solely our view. We sought more expert advise from those who deal with evaluating graphics cards on a day to day basis and the developers themselves who are working on the drivers. So again between performance/compatibility/support/etc this is what we decided on. That isn't to say there aren't slightly better performing cards as you pointed out in another post (9800GT).

I'm really not trying to disagree with you although I think we have slightly
different perspectives and I'd just like to make people aware of why we chose
what we did. I'm not sure you understood our criteria / evaluation so I'd
just like to point out why we went with this card (the other posting is more
detailed response to your comments).

I'd be weary of going with an older card. Unfortunately some of these older
cards will lose support and some aren't any better than the Intel chipsets
people already have accelerated drivers for on newer systems. The newest
cards may not work as well (or at all) either... and we are not making
available anything terribly recent either. The driver support just doesn't
exist. The 9500GT is already quite a few years old although the best
currently available given all the factors involved. This isn't solely our
view. We sought more expert advise from those who deal with evaluating
graphics cards on a day to day basis and the developers themselves who are
working on the drivers. So again between
performance/compatibility/support/etc this is what we decided on. That isn't
to say there aren't slightly better performing cards as you pointed out in
another post (9800GT).

You know from this conversation we are going to see a dozen or more people for the next several years go buy cheap nvidia cards that work well although provide no benefits or cards too new to work.

Anyway. I think we are mostly in agreement. The Geforce 8/9 are at least the cards at the moment one should be looking at. Some of the older stuff is even better supported. I think all of this though is misleading to those who don't understand the various implications and aspects of what they are buying.

You know from this conversation we are going to see a dozen or more people
for the next several years go buy cheap nvidia cards that work well although
provide no benefits or cards too new to work.

Anyway. I think we are mostly in agreement. The Geforce 8/9 are at least the
cards at the moment one should be looking at. Some of the older stuff is even
better supported. I think all of this though is misleading to those who don't
understand the various implications and aspects of what they are buying.