A card, N card, or I card?

A card, N card, or I card? -- Linux general technology-Linux technology and application information. For details, refer to the following section. From: wowubuntu
For new Linux users, because they do not know much about the video card driver support on the Linux platform, they may not be able to choose a video card brand. In this article on Ubuntu Gamer, the drivers of Nvidia, AMD, ATI, and Intel, the three most common brands of graphics cards, on the Linux platform, are described in a concise language, I have simply translated it and hope it will help you.
-Nvidia
In addition to providing the most basic open-source drivers that only support 2D (built-in drivers for various releases have now been replaced by Nouveau drivers), Nvidia basically only provides closed-source drivers. However, the performance of the closed-source driver is very good, which is almost the same as that of Windows. In addition, Nvidia drivers are updated frequently, and some are updated once a month. They also use the VDPAU acceleration API to provide fast Video acceleration. This acceleration API is only supported by the latest Adobe Flash beta. Therefore, if you often watch full-screen HD videos, it would be the best solution to add a Nvidia graphics card with their drivers.
However, unfortunately, close-source Nvidia also has a bad side, mainly because Nvidia has not yet supported the xrandroid Protocol (which has been around for several years, the xrandroid protocol allows X to adjust the display resolution or expand/clone to an external display. If you are using Nvidia graphics, this is why you cannot use the screen resolution tool that comes with Ubuntu to adjust the resolution. In addition, some software depends on the output information of xrandroid to be located in the monitor, so some causes of errors are also corrected here. The other point is that the closed-source driver of Nivida does not support kernel mode setting (kernel mode setting? KMS), so it is impossible to provide a high-definition Plymouth uth startup display screen (of course, this situation should be said to exist in all closed-source drivers ).
With regard to the open-source Nouveau driver project, we developed a 2D and 3D Nvidia driver using reverse engineering and made great progress. However, compared with the closed-source driver, the performance is much different, but it is enough to run some simple games. There is also a need to note that Nvidia has no intention to help the Nouveau project at present.
-AMD/ATI
Before AMD acquired ATI, it could be said that there was basically no decent ATI driver on Linux. However, the situation has become quite different since it was acquired by AMD. ATI's closed-source Linux driver has developed by leaps and bounds and supports the xrandroid protocol, so that you can use the Ubuntu built-in resolution adjustment tool. It also has good performance and can work well with Wine. In addition, AMD also works with Canonical to get pre-release drivers in every Ubuntu release. Of course, it is similar to the Nividia driver, that is, KMS is not supported. The AMD driver of the closed source uses a different video API from Nvidia, but calls it a VA-API, unfortunately Adobe has not yet supported it, therefore, Flash-based HD videos are affected. What is lacking compared with Nvidia is that the AMD driver takes more time to support the new kernel version and the new X Server version, but it is not a problem for Ubuntu users, because it is installed in the Ubuntu release by default.
In terms of open-source, AMD is also perfect. It will not only release details of the card specifications to the open-source community, but also hire staff to work full-time for open-source driver development. The driver is now transitioning to the new Gallium3D framework, but it is nearing completion. From now on, we can see that the performance of these drivers has been greatly improved. Basically, if you have an AMD card, you can use the 3D acceleration feature on Ubuntu. Although the performance may not be as good as the closed-source driver, if you want to install the closed-source driver, it's just a click. Therefore, AMD has made great contributions to the Linux driver!
-Intel
It can be said that Intel is the king of open-source Linux graphics card drivers. They only release open-source drivers on the Linux platform, which also means you can experience all the features such as KMS and Xrandar support. However, Intel is not perfect either. If you have a GMA500-based card, it basically cannot work on Ubuntu, because it was renamed after Intel bought a chipset from another company, moreover, they cannot develop open-source drivers for them, although Intel is still solving this problem.
Another major disadvantage of Intel is that their hardware performance is far inferior to AMD and Nvidia, and their support for games is not good enough.
-Conclusion
If you have an open-source driver, you can use an Intel or AMD card. If you are more concerned about performance, you can use an AMD or Nvidia card. In general, AMD/ATI is more cutting-edge and more recommendable, because they provide stable and open-source drivers while also providing reliable and fast closed-source drivers, which are both perfect.