Nvidia or AMD for Free Software?
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Just out of curiosity, which company's high end models function better with free software? I know that Nvidia has a bad reputation for being uncooperative with free softare and AMD tends to contribute some code, but does that translate directly to performace? If an AMD 7970 were put against a Nvidia GTX 680 running entirely free software, which would win?
No AMD GPU has working 3d acceleration without nonfree microcode.
GTX 680 is too new to have it supported by Nouveau. Older (NV5x) Nvidia
cards are better supported.
Alright. I know wine is in the Trisquel repositories. Is there any way to get real graphical performance while playing games or even for video? Is the nouveau driver capable of that with say the Nvidia Fermi cards?
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WINE is an implementation of the Microsoft Windows APIs on GNU/Linux. The graphics chipsets have little to nothing to do with it really. DirectX calls translate into OpenGL I believe. This is for compatibility with GNU/Linux. DirectX is a proprietary Microsoft solution though. Chances are if the games you are looking at work on GNU/Linux with it the software is not free.
In theory however you could write something for Microsoft Windows, release it under a free software license, and use the WINE technology to “port” it to GNU/Linux. Then it would be 100% free.
Almost forgot. The NVIDIA graphics chipsets do not support video acceleration using the Nouveau driver.
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The AMD and NVIDIA drivers are not freedom friendly. They both are dependent on proprietary pieces. AMD released some code/specifications to win over the community. Unfortunately the move was a public relations stunt. The ATI chipsets are not at all compatible with any free software system without a proprietary component.
If you are looking at the desktop there is some support for the older NVIDIA graphics chipsets through a reverse engineered driver. NVIDIA has been uncooperative toward the free software community. It is best to avoid NVIDIA/AMD graphics chipsets altogether.
If you still want to get a desktop graphics card the 9500GT is the best supported by the free Nouvau driver.
We stock one such card that has good support for the Nouvau driver:
http://libre.thinkpenguin.com/
Intel's latest graphics chipsets are comparable and in some ways better than the lower end NVIDIA graphics chipsets. On a newer system you are likely better off just sticking with an Intel CPU/graphics chipset. Particularly if you have no intention of playing 3D intensive games. Even if you are chances are the NVIDIA chipsets which are supported won't play the latest and greatest games anyway. They will though still enable you to play quite a few older games and some newer enhanced games which have had the code released.
So, If I use free software exclusively, I won't be able to play mainstream games. I know that the games themselves are not free software, but that's not something I see changing any time soon. If the rest of the software on the system was free, I'd be okay with that for now. I also know that there are free games, but as a gamer, who's friends are gamers, it's pretty hard to explain that I can't go to the LAN or play the latest online game because I only use free software. Saying that I had to get the game running in Linux was hard enough. It's also pretty hard justifying my 7970 when it has no 3D capabilities and free distributing computing(folding etc.) is virtually no-existant to my knowledge. ...rock meet hard place...
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That depends. If you are referring to recently released mainstream games the answer is almost certainly no. If you are referring to 1990s mainstream games like Doom, Wolfenstein, Quake, and others most of these games have been free'd and will work with free drivers or do not require 3D acceleration.
There are also quite a few free software games out that aren't that terribly old. Some of them are so new that the free drivers aren't capable of handling them yet.
If it were easy everybody would switch to free software. It's not easy. It's a slow process for most. There are lots of entertainment options though from movies and music to games. Instead of following try leading for once. Try making some new friends. This is of course harder to do than simply following the pack.
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