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GPUs & Beryl: What is Needed?

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Software

We thought it was already clear what graphics processors and drivers work and don't work with Linux desktop eye candy such as Beryl and Compiz, but it seems based upon the number of e-mails we have been receiving along with messages in community bulletin boards that the line isn't so clear after all.

For those that have never tried out Beryl, it is a compositing window manager branched from Compiz (though Beryl will merge back with Compiz soon) that provides a variety of window decorations and other desktop "eye candy" for X.Org users. In this article we hope to make it clear for you what GPUs will make your Linux desktop look the most pleasurable and what ones just sweat thinking about these desktop effects. We have taken eight different systems, benchmarked them using the Beryl Benchmark, and have our thoughts on these ATI/AMD, Intel, and NVIDIA solutions with Beryl v0.2.

For the ATI graphics processors in this article we will be testing the R200, R300, and R400 series with comments on Beryl for the R500/R600 generation processors. On the NVIDIA side we will be testing the GeFore FX, 6, and 8 series. Finally, we will also be testing the Intel GMA 3000 IGP.

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Now, if they'd just post the details

Now, if they'd just post the details -- e.g. did they invoke AIGLX in xorg.conf? What video driver did they use for each card? What other modifications did they make to xorg.conf? -- this article might actually be useful!

Inflated recomendations

Beryl runs BEAUTIFULLY on a Intel x835 (one step above the venerable 810).

These guys are claiming that you need Vista type specs to run nicely.

And bashing XGL in the beginning isn't very nice either. Sure, XGL isn't quite AS stable AIGLX, but its supported by ATI cards far better than the OSS drivers support AIGLX. Here am I on a Xpress200 chipset(turion X2 laptop) running beryl PERFECTLY. In addition. of the XGL guys didn't make their revolutionary product, AIGLX might never have happened.

Beryl Benchmark with a Gigabyte 7600 GS

There's an interesting article on Phoronix titled "GPUs & Beryl: What is Needed?" The article covers the video cards and associated driver combinations they've tested with Beryl, and it's quite the read. I wish it'd been available when I was working with Beryl and Compiz under Ubuntu 7.04. One feature brought out in the article was the Beryl Benchmark indicator, which the authors describe as "not an incredibly accurate benchmark." Nevertheless, it can provide a reasonable figure of merit when attempting to compare when different hardware platforms and combinations. And I'm also posting this because they didn't test with any 7x generation video cards.

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