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[finster]

Hi all,

I have an old AMD Sempron desktop PC that I've got Ubuntu 10.10 installed on. Everything works great, but the built-in "S3 UniChrome Pro" motherboard graphics isn't the best.

The motherboard has an AGP slot, so I was thinking of picking up a very cheap dedicated graphics card from ebay.

Is there a minimum I should be aiming at to get Compiz working for example? I'd prefer a nVidia card, as that's what I have always used, but all opinions welcome.

Thanks.

[PCNetSpec]

Minimum would probably be a GeForce 4 MX

or anything supported by the 96.43.19 driver.
(MUST be the 96.43.19 as this is the only 96 driver that works with Xorg 1.9 as used in Maverick)

http://www.nvidia.com/object/linux-display-amd64-96.43.19-driver.html
(click Supported Produts at above link)

But personally I'd say go for a minimum of a Geforce 5 series card, that uses the 173 drivers.

Or even better...
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/222279

See here for an NVIDIA chip comparison chart:
http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/132
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[finster]

Thanks for the great info.

That product from ebuyer is a little on the expensive side - probably worth more than the PC!

I'm thinking of going for a nVidia Geforce FX5200 128MB - this seems to be supported on the nVidia 173.14.28 page.

Thanks again.

[finster]

Just as an update to this - I bought an nVidia AGP 128mb FX5200 card off ebay (under £9 including postage) and Ubuntu works great with "extra" visual effects. The restricted driver version 173 was installed after I went into "Additional Drivers".

Thanks again for the pointer.