WTF I have no clue about graphics cards any more.

[Clara D.]

No matter how much GB of video RAM you will throw at the Second Life viewer, it will only use a fraction of it (most viewers do 2GB) and then it stop

Firestorm 64 has dynamic texture memory that uses a card's full memory.

I don't know the upper limit, but it'll use all 4G if I let it. (I cut it down to 3072 so Youtube doesn't glitch).

 

[Fionalein]

Always use Nvidia cards with the proprietary Nvidia drivers on Linux, you'll get better performance and fewer problems. Do not use the built in Nouveau drivers, they work, but not quite as well as the proprietary ones. If you're running Fedora use the Nvidia drivers packaged by rpmfusion.

I never had problems with proprietary NVIDIA drivers on Linux either - sadly I can't say the same for proprietary AMD drivers...

 

[Monica Dream]

I never had problems with proprietary NVIDIA drivers on Linux either

I've had more than my share -in fact, I probably had your share too.

- sadly I can't say the same for proprietary AMD drivers...

I don't think you can even get proprietary AMD drivers any more, at least not for the card I have...

 

[Fionalein]

I don't think you can even get proprietary AMD drivers any more, at least not for the card I have...

to use them I had to switch to LTS release - so I did...
after that I installed the AMD drivers...

Spoiler

and the I had reinstall all my graphics drivers via ssh because my screen was dead

 

[Monica Dream]

to use them I had to switch to LTS release - so I did...
after that I installed the AMD drivers...

Spoiler

and the I had reinstall all my graphics drivers via ssh because my screen was dead

Yep, I had that experience one too many times myself -and that's a very, very large part of why I've mostly stuck to windows for the last six years.

 

[Soen Eber]

You might luck out on CraigsList buying not a graphics card but someone's old rig which happens to have a decent (but not killer) graphics card. There is still the 10-15% of the user base that upgrades to a new system and sees their old one as more as a space sink to get rid of and doesn't need or want to squeeze every dollar out of it. Not like on eBay. I've bought a lot of nice computers and other stuff that way, but you have to check daily because a few others have the same buying strategy.

Just remember to pay it forward when you can, there are already too many a$$hats out there trying to squeeze everything they can - turning another persons "kind and decent gesture" into a revenue stream.