As mentioned in The Sunday Chip Fiasco and Do You Want to Know More? I use a Linux machine to access Eve Online about half the time, perhaps a bit more.
Over time I'd noticed a bit of graphics performance degradation while playing Eve, this is caused by Eve updates, operating system updates or a combination of the both.
The display card was a Gigabyte 8500GT 512Mb with passive cooling. A nice quiet card and fast enough when I bought it three years ago but as mentioned above getting a bit slow.
So over the last couple of months I'd been putting in low ball bids on Ebay for a better display card, either a 9600GT or a GT240. The reason for the low ball bids was I didn't really need a new card, I could soldier on if I had too (such a first world problem), so I couldn't justify spending much money on the card.
After about three months of unsuccessful bids I finally snagged a GT240 for about $35 AUS, a bargain!
In a week the card arrived, a GT240 with active cooling (but quiet fan), and 1Gb of memory.
The upgrade procedure couldn't have been easier. Simply exited Ubuntu, switched the machine off, pulled the old card, replaced with new, booted machine and a working computer.
Tested the new card with various things but also Eve of course and we once again have smoothness.
If you are interested here are the current specifications of the Ubuntu machine:
O/S:Ubuntu 10.10 (Maverick)
CPU: AMD Phenom 9550 Quad
RAM: 4Gb
Display: GT240, 1Gb, PCiE
etc, etc, etc.
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