Re: Intel C2D COREs not used equally in FreeBSD 7.0-CURRENT i386

On Tuesday 05 June 2007 12:40:34 eculp_at_encontacto.net wrote:
> Quoting Garrett Cooper <youshi10_at_u.washington.edu>:
> > Diego Depaoli wrote:
> >> 2007/6/5, Ed Schouten <ed_at_fxq.nl>:
> >>>> In practice there's (almost) only one reason not to run
> >>>> FreeBSD/amd64 on amd64-capable hardware:  If you depend
> >>>> on a certain piece of software which is known not to run
> >>>> correctly in 64bit mode.  Fortunately those are not many.
> >>>
> >>> I guess most of those are still waiting for a 64-bits nvidia.ko.
> >>
> >> That's true.
> >> Is there any news?
> >
> >    Yeah, a lot of people are still waiting for that (including me..
> > can't get nv to work under amd64 :(...).
> >    We should band together and get nvidia to speed up amd64
> > development a bit more *sigh*..
>
> Boy am I glad that I am reading this thread.
>
> As weird as it may sound, I was going to go buy a new laptop, amd64
> with nvidia.  In fact the explanation given by Oliver helped push me
> over to AMD in addition to past experience has always been good with
> them.  I also had the idea that AMD had purchased a chunk of nvidia
> which made the decision make even more sense to me.  Luckily  I saw
> these, before rather that after the fact.
>
> I understand from this that the nvidia will not run the new xorg-7.2
> with AMD64?  Am I reading this right or am I just having a case of
> PRE-buyers remorse?  ;)

It is true that the closed source nvidia driver will not work on an AMD64 
system.

However, bear in mind that Xorg does not support any recent AMD cards (X1300 
or newer) with anything other than the vesa driver.  The open source drivers 
support up-to the x850 (actually, the x1050 now, iirc).  The AMD/ATI Xpress 
chipsets are supported by the open source 2D drivers, but not (yet) the 3D 
drivers.

Your best bet might be to go with a laptop with intel graphics.

Adam