# Hardware



## unix$ (Feb 23, 2019)

Are there any hardware recommendations for:

graphics cards
audio cards
I'd like my hardware to play nicely with FreeBSD


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## Phishfry (Feb 24, 2019)

I can only speak to video cards.
What you have to ask yourself is what you want out of your video card.
Console only or Xorg based desktop.
I have only dealt with Nvidia and I don't like all the stuff they drag in.
So I use only graphics on the Intel CPU.
That suffices for me. Maybe you want to drive 4K monitors with Occulus VR. Who knows...
What are you expecting from your SuperVGA card?
I have never met a video adapter that did not play nice on the console.


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## unix$ (Feb 24, 2019)

My BSD desktop performs flawlessly on eleven year old Intel hardware with the Xorg x86-intel-video driver. My BSD Desktop is x10 faster than the latest version of Windows 10.

Drawbacks with my current hardware configuration:

some image rendering in Gimp is a little slow
i'm sure some video editing would suffer
latest 2D/3D games is it even possible?

Just wanna fine tune my Desktop for audio and video purposes (handbrake etc).


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## Phishfry (Feb 25, 2019)

I use both Blender and kdenlive for video editing on Sandy Bridge and better Dell laptops and I have no problems.
We don't get the "latest games'' but I have played games/openarena with no issues at all.

So really nvidia would be the best choice for an video card on FreeBSD.
In our ports system there is a legacy driver for older cards and a driver for the newer cards.


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## mefizto (Feb 25, 2019)

Hi Phishfry,

noticing that you have "better Dell laptops", is sleep working for you?  I have Latitude E6410 and although:
`sysctl hw.acpi.supported_sleep_state` returns 
	
	



```
hw.acpi.supported_sleep_state: S3 S4 S5
```
, the computer does not wake up.

Any advice, settings I should try?

Kindest regards,

M


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## shepper (Feb 25, 2019)

Sleep states are progressive; S5 is deeper than S4 which is deeper then S3.

https://onlinehelp.ncr.com/Retail/W... Management/3-ACPI Sleep States (S0 - S5).htm

The deeper the sleep state, more code, more time and a greater chance of experiencing problems when returning to a normal, power-on state.

For me the greatest power savings is to turn off the laptop when I'm not actively using it. (I could not pass up the Roger Stone smilie - pardon meee!)


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## mefizto (Feb 25, 2019)

Hi shepper,

indeed.  Hence I started with S3; the computer goes to sleep, _e.g._, upon closing the lid, but does not wake up, and I have to power it down by pressing the power button.  I cannot see any setting in BIOS (UEFI), hence my question to Phishfry, who has Dell laptop with the hope that he could steer me to the right direction.

Roger Stone smile, I love it.  BTW, are you "shep" on daemonforums.org?  

Kindest regards,


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## unix$ (Feb 25, 2019)

So, any audio-freaks around, who loves to play with alsa?


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## shepper (Feb 26, 2019)

mefizto said:


> BTW, are you "shep" on daemonforums.org?


Yes,  I used to be shep here but a period of inactivity, interim new email provider and a forgotten password lead to a new membership name


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## Sevendogsbsd (Feb 26, 2019)

Running FreeBSD 12 RELEASE using an on-chip Intel HD630 and it works perfecly using the drm-kmod driver. I was running on an Nvidia GTX 1050Ti and although it was better for gaming, it was terrible in terms of problems: can't wake screen from DPMS being the primary issue. I completely gave up on Nvidia and switched to Intel when I built my new machine. Of course since Intel is on-chip, this implies a nw CPU.

As for audio, I use whatever audio is built onto my MSI Z270-A Pro. I honestly don't know what the chipset is, but it works perfectly. I can gather that and post back after work when I am on my BSD machine.


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## olli@ (Feb 26, 2019)

*Video:* I have bought an Nvidia 1030 (to be exact, it's the MSI GeForce GT 1030 2G LP OC, but there are 1030-based cards from other vendors that work the same, basically). It is fairly cheap, doesn't consume much power, and it works well with FreeBSD, using the latest nvidia driver and the `nvidia-modeset` module. The performance is more than enough for Gimp, video playing and editing, DTP, the usual office stuff and so on. Even 3D OpenGL games like games/crack-attack run smoothly with maximum details setting on my UWQHD screen (1440p), but I guess that high-end 3D shooter games won't run well (I haven't tested this, though). By the way, DPMS works fine, too.

*Audio:* I haven't bought an audio card in the past 15 years (in ancient times, I used to have Gravis UltraSound, Creative AWE32 and others), but I rather use whatever the mainboard provides onboard. It usually works out of the box with FreeBSD. Some mainboards even provide digital S/P-DIF output if standard analog jacks aren't sufficient for you. Another possibility is to use the HDMI audio output of the graphics card; this also works well with the above-mentioned Nvidia card. In this case, either your monitor should have built-in speakers (or a way to connect external speakers), or you need a separate HDMI switch box to extract the audio signal for your amplifier.


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## mefizto (Feb 26, 2019)

Hi shepper,



shepper said:


> Yes, I used to be shep here



In that case, thank you for the OpenBox setup tutorial and included files.

Kindest regards,

M


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## unix$ (Feb 26, 2019)

I've found a suitable (I think) Sound Card with a built-in DAC. MicroConnect - Audio Card - 24-bits - 192 kHz - 5.1 - PCIe - CMI-8738.

It's probably going to be an upgrade in sound quality compared to your existing on-board audio.


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