Gateway 2000 video card

[mikebw at bilow.bilow.uu.ids.net (Mike Bilow)]

Dan Murphy wrote in a message to Mike Bilow:


 DM> One video card they offer is an ATI CT Mach 64 w/ 2MB DRAM.
 DM> The problem is that ATI doesn't market such a card with that
 DM> name to the public. I called Gateway and asked if this was
 DM> an ATI card with another name, and nobody knew the answer.

 DM> ATI _does_ have a Mach 64 series of cards, just none with
 DM> this name. 

ATI uses a series of proprietary ASICs, known as Mach 8, Mach 32, and Mach 64.
These are the chipsets used on the card, and may not indicate any meaningful
level of compatibility between board-level products.

 DM> I also emailed to ATI and have gotten no response yet.

That's not surprising.

 DM> I have fears about getting drivers for this supposedly
 DM> mongrel card. Are these fears unfounded? For example, since
 DM> this card uses the same 64-bit graphics accelerator chip as
 DM> the other Mach 64 cards, do they use the same driver? It
 DM> looks like it from the .zip file I downloaded.

The fact that a card uses the ATI Mach 64 chipset is no guarantee that is it
actually manufactured by ATI.  The chipsets are sold to other manufacturers for
use on motherboards and even on video cards.  Unless the card itself is an ATI
product, it may not be register-compatible and may not use ATI drivers.

Linux has much wider video support than NT.  If an NT driver exists, then it is
likely that Linux support exists also.

 DM> Also, another video card choice for an additional $50 is a
 DM> Matrox that is a standard card (and a fast one) that Matrox
 DM> sells to the public. Matrox cards aren't supported for
 DM> Linux, so I would need to go third party, like Accel-x(?)
 DM> and pay for an X-server - I think it's $50. Anybody gone
 DM> this route? 

Personally, I would not buy a Linux machine from Gateway.  You are much better
off dealing with a vendor who will sell you standard parts, will answer the
phone, will not ignore you when you say you are not running Windows 95, etc.
 
-- Mike