Difference between revisions of "NVidia Cards"

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m (Ditched PureVideo column, as it is not relevant for us. Populated several more card models (page still far from complete))
Line 13: Line 13:
 
! Available Forms
 
! Available Forms
 
! XvMC
 
! XvMC
! PureVideo
 
 
! Composite
 
! Composite
 
! S-Video
 
! S-Video
Line 20: Line 19:
 
! DVI  
 
! DVI  
 
! HDMI
 
! HDMI
 +
! VDPAU
 
|-
 
|-
 
|5200
 
|5200
Line 28: Line 28:
 
| No
 
| No
 
| Yes
 
| Yes
| No
 
 
| Yes
 
| Yes
 
| Yes
 
| Yes
Line 37: Line 36:
 
|PCI, AGP, PCIe
 
|PCI, AGP, PCIe
 
|Yes
 
|Yes
|Not under Linux
 
 
|Yes
 
|Yes
 
|Yes
 
|Yes
Line 49: Line 47:
 
|PCI, AGP
 
|PCI, AGP
 
|Yes
 
|Yes
|Not under Linux
 
 
|No
 
|No
 
|Yes
 
|Yes
Line 61: Line 58:
 
|Integrated
 
|Integrated
 
|Yes
 
|Yes
|Not under Linux
 
 
| No
 
| No
 
| No
 
| No
Line 72: Line 68:
 
|NV47/G70
 
|NV47/G70
 
|Integrated, PCIe
 
|Integrated, PCIe
| Some
 
 
| Some
 
| Some
 
| No
 
| No
Line 85: Line 80:
 
|Integrated, PCIe
 
|Integrated, PCIe
 
| Yes
 
| Yes
| Not under Linux
 
 
| No
 
| No
 
| Yes
 
| Yes
Line 93: Line 87:
 
| No
 
| No
 
|-
 
|-
|8400
+
|8300 GS
 +
|G86
 +
|PCI Express
 +
|No
 +
|No
 +
|Yes
 +
|Yes
 +
|Yes
 +
|Yes
 +
|No
 +
|-
 +
|8400 GS
 
|G86
 
|G86
 
|PCI Express
 
|PCI Express
 
|No
 
|No
|Not under Linux
 
 
|No
 
|No
 
|Yes
 
|Yes
Line 105: Line 109:
 
|No
 
|No
 
|-
 
|-
|8600
+
|8400M G/GS/GT
 +
|G86M
 +
|Integrated
 +
|?
 +
|?
 +
|?
 +
|?
 +
|?
 +
|?
 +
|?
 +
|-
 +
|8500 GT
 +
|G86
 +
|PCI Express
 +
|No
 +
|No
 +
|Yes
 +
|Yes
 +
|Yes
 +
|Yes
 +
|No
 +
|-
 +
|8600 GS/GT/GTS
 
|G84
 
|G84
 
|PCI Express
 
|PCI Express
 
|No
 
|No
|Not under Linux
+
|No
 +
|Yes
 +
|Yes
 +
|Yes
 +
|Yes
 +
|No
 +
|-
 +
|8800 GTX
 +
|G80
 +
|PCI Express
 +
|No
 +
|No
 +
|Yes
 +
|Yes
 +
|Yes
 +
|Yes
 +
|No
 +
|-
 +
|8800 Ultra
 +
|G80
 +
|PCI Express
 +
|No
 +
|No
 +
|Yes
 +
|Yes
 +
|Yes
 +
|Yes
 +
|No
 +
|-
 +
|8800 GS
 +
|G92-150
 +
|PCI Express
 +
|No
 +
|No
 +
|Yes
 +
|Yes
 +
|Yes
 +
|Yes
 +
|No
 +
|-
 +
|8800 GT
 +
|G92-200
 +
|PCI Express
 +
|No
 +
|No
 +
|Yes
 +
|Yes
 +
|Yes
 +
|Yes
 +
|No
 +
|-
 +
|8800 GTS
 +
|G80
 +
|PCI Express
 +
|No
 +
|No
 +
|Yes
 +
|Yes
 +
|Yes
 +
|Yes
 +
|No
 +
|-
 +
|8800 GTS
 +
|G92-400
 +
|PCI Express
 +
|No
 
|No
 
|No
 
|Yes
 
|Yes

Revision as of 18:43, 17 February 2009

nVidia cards are generally a fine choice for use with Linux. There are many who would complain that the proprietary nature of the closed-source video driver is a handicap, but in practice nVidia has been very, very good about maintaining support for all their cards with minimal user effort required. Nvidia has released VDPAU, which in essence provides what PureVideo/DirectX Video Acceleration is on the Windows platform.

nVidia Chipset Feature Matrix

Note that nVidia makes the chips that drive the cards, but it is the choice of the OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) as to specifically which outputs a given card will have. The outputs listed in the chart represent the type of outputs typically found on a given product line. Don't order something blindly based on this chart if you need a specific output because these can differ from model to model.

The 7xxx series were the last models nVidia included support for X-Video Motion Compensation ( for MPEG-2 video) acceleration through the hardware. The 6xxx series of cards have the first chips nVidia has made which feature support for PureVideo (a more broadly-applicable form of accelleration which can be used for h.264 decoding in addition to MPEG-2) but unfortunately the nVidia proprietary driver does not support this at the present time. The 7xxx and higher models appear to be PCI Express x16 only.

The chart below only lists native video outputs. Note that most DVI outputs can be converted to HDMI with a reasonably inexpensive adapter.

Number Core Type Available Forms XvMC Composite S-Video Component VGA DVI HDMI VDPAU
5200 NV34 PCI, AGP Yes No No Yes Yes Yes No
6200 NV44 PCI, AGP, PCIe Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes No
6600 NV43 PCI, AGP Yes No Yes Yes Yes Yes No
7050 PV NV44 Integrated Yes No No No Yes Yes No
7100 NV47/G70 Integrated, PCIe Some No Yes Yes Yes Yes No
7200 G72 Integrated, PCIe Yes No Yes Yes Yes Yes No
8300 GS G86 PCI Express No No Yes Yes Yes Yes No
8400 GS G86 PCI Express No No Yes Yes Yes Yes No
8400M G/GS/GT G86M Integrated ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
8500 GT G86 PCI Express No No Yes Yes Yes Yes No
8600 GS/GT/GTS G84 PCI Express No No Yes Yes Yes Yes No
8800 GTX G80 PCI Express No No Yes Yes Yes Yes No
8800 Ultra G80 PCI Express No No Yes Yes Yes Yes No
8800 GS G92-150 PCI Express No No Yes Yes Yes Yes No
8800 GT G92-200 PCI Express No No Yes Yes Yes Yes No
8800 GTS G80 PCI Express No No Yes Yes Yes Yes No
8800 GTS G92-400 PCI Express No No Yes Yes Yes Yes No
  • Note: The above list is not a complete list by any means, and lacks mention of the oldest cards (MX440 and so forth) which makes the composite video output column somewhat useless. The main utility being that for the composite-output-only cards, a different 'nvtv' driver is usually needed. nVidia's "standard" driver will work fine for all manner of TV output with all cards newer than those.