I have no problems with Nvidia, and that would be putting it mildly. I won't buy ANY video card that isn't Nvidia. Flat out. I like being able to use more than Windows when I buy something, and when it comes to using UNIX, it's Nvidia, or nothing... I know some people think ATI is great, but when you're setting up a machine where you want actual 3D and performance, and you aren't a user of Windows, it just doesn't cut it.

Here is a great example:

My Wife likes ATI cards. She has a machine with an ATI X1900 in it that costed almost 500 dollars. Currently this machine, with that card, and a gig of RAM and a 64bit processor, is sitting under a desk doing nothing. Why? Because the video card is barely working after hardly 2 years of use.

The video card in it is going bad already, and when using Linux, getting actual 3D means trying to get their crap drivers to work. When you download the driver, first off, it doesn't matter if you selected 64 bit, or 32 bit, the only difference I noticed was the directory on the ATI server it came from. The name is the same, and as far as I can tell from looking, the driver is the exact same. And installing it pops up error after error.

Now normally I might think it was some weird problem, but when you're installing a fresh copy of Linux and everything is supported and you have the right driver, and it not only doesn't work but says it won't even install... Seriously now.

With Nvidia? Easy, grab the driver, install restart X if it was loaded, done. Just of course making sure that you checked to see what card you have and which version works with that card. Easy.

Not only that but Nvidia actually makes their drivers for Linux, FreeBSD, and Solaris.

I have a laptop here with Linux and it doesn't matter which distro I use, I grab the driver for my card, which given that my card is a bit old, I use the older driver for it, and just save it on my FTP server, which has two versions of drivers, one for the laptop, and one for a desktop I have here, and another for a card I was using for a bit, and install it, and I'm all done.

And if I'm using SUSE, or Mandriva, I don't need to, it just works with 3D out of the box. Or I use YAST2 to install it.

Nvidia makes not only good cards, but cards you can use with an OS that is not Windows or a Mac OS. Any other and you have to try to make ti work, and of course, the fact that Nvidia actually makes those drivers, so you know it's made by people who kn ow the hardware, kind of makes this a very easy answer.