Kurt Granroth wrote:
> Eric "Shubes" wrote:
>> Ok, I've narrowed it down to eVGA 256-A8-N341-L2 Geforce 6200 256MB
>> 64-bit DDR AGP 4X/8X Video Card. Newegg has it for $45.99 after $10 rebate.
>>
>> Two questions:
>> 1) Any gotchas?
>> 2) Will this card be a noticeable improvement? I'm assuming that my
>> onboard will do 1680x1050 wide format.
> 
> It all depends on what you are doing.  If you are just trying to make
> sure that the video can output to your new viewsonic, then the onboard
> will be more than adequate.  If all you are doing is surfing the web,
> doing email, playing older or non-3d games, then the onboard is more
> than up to the task.
> 
> If, however, you want to play the latest Quake or Half Life or what have
> you, then your onboard will almost surely not suffice.  Likewise, if you
> want to try out the new Xgl OpenGL-enabled X server with compositing,
> then you will likely need a new dedicated 3d card.
> 
> Kurt
> 
Just wanted to follow up on this for posterity.

I ended up with the eVGA GeForce 6200 with subject monitor.

First problem was that my power supply (300w, stated miniumum) didn't have 
enough amps on the 12v rail (15a, needed 18a). EVGA technician was extremely 
helpful diagnosing this, and I give high marks to everyone on their support 
staff that I talked with. I bought a UltraXFinity 500W PS from Fry's ($70 w/ 
$50 MIR), and they work fine together.

Next hurdle was the configuring X. Thanks to Carl's xorg.conf settings, this 
was a breeze. Until I discovered that I couldn't adjust the resolution to my 
liking. It seemed like it just wouldn't take the specified resolutions. Then
I realized that the specified driver was (the generic) 'vesa'. After 
googling a bit, I found that the nvidia driver is named 'nv'. When I changed 
that, voila. Everything was worked well.

This was on FC5. The bottom bar was a little beyond the bottom of the 
display, so I selected the "Auto Image Adjust" function on the monitor menu, 
and it straightened right up. Cool.

Then I tried Ubuntu 5.10. Same X config settings I used in FC5. Two problems:
1) the bottom bar was off the screen, and I couldn't make it right. AIA 
monitor function didn't fix it, and there's no manual vertical size 
adjustment, only vertical position. This left me at a loss.
2) the fonts on Ubuntu were very fuzzy. I noticed that Ubunto's X 
configuration specifies various font files, while Fedora uses a font server. 
Don't know if this changed in Ubuntu 6.06 or not, but I found Ubuntu's fonts 
basically unusable at 1680x1050 (the monitor's recommended resolution).

Then I tried CentOS4.3. No nv driver on this distro. I didn't try to bring 
it over from FC5. I was having other thoughts by now.

I'm wondering at this point, why do I have 3 distros on my desktop machine? 
Granted, it's kinda nice to be able to check out other distros' config files 
on occasion, but is it worth it? I'm thinking, what's the point? I have 
CentOS on my server, so I really don't need it on my desktop any more. I 
have Ubuntu on my notebook (as well as CentOS and that other one), so do I 
really need it on my desktop machine?

I've concluded that it's not worth the effort, and that it's just not 
productive. I'll leave the free space on my HD, and will probably use it to 
try other distros as I get the itch. Otherwise, I'm settling on FC5 for the 
time being.

That's my story, and I'm sticking to it! ;)

-- 
-Eric 'shubes'
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