Nvidia tearing?

[pvrdude]

I am planning to buy a new video card for my new computer build but I have read that nvidia graphics cards have 'tearing' but this mostly applies to HTPCs?

I often have a dual boot with a Linux distro and Nvidia is usually better for drivers so I was going to go with an Nvidia card but I'm concerned about the tearing element.

Can anyone tell me how bad the problem is and if it is solved in any way? Many of the more advanced Nvidia cards are going down in price so this was another reason to go Nvidia. Also, they don't produce as much heat as ATI's as far as I know.

There is also the PureVideo part of Nvidia but I don't know anything about it. I was hoping someone could enlighten me on it. I know I can read about it but it's good to learn about other people's experiences with both that and the actual cards.

I will still consider ATI if Nvidia's tearing is still a major problem. ATI might have better drivers for Linux eventually as they're becoming open source, I believe. But, Nvidia seems to be better with overall performance and heat/cooling but the tearing is an issue with me if it still occurs.

Thanks for any information, advice and recommendations.

Btw, the cards I'm considering include:
Nvidia 7950GT, 8800GTS (want option of High Definition), 7600GS (maybe) (7600 series to 8800)
ATI X1950XTX, X1950XT (I could buy an aftermarket cooler for the card?)

[nitrogen_widget]

For me, tearing was basically an mpeg2 decoder issue that had no rhyme or reason.

I've used the winDVD decoder on a PC with no problems.
Then re-installed windows without changing hardware & i'd have to use the cyberlink decoder because the winDVD decoder gave me tearing.

But, for the most part, as long as I use Overlay I havn't seen any tearing problems on my 5200 or my 6200 & the 6200 is PCI.

In fact, even with my gforce 2 mx 400 using overlay with a fast CPU I don't get tearing.

[capone]

I had tearing when the ratio was wrong, but this was before the ratio was auto. But anything where the image is being pressed into a shape not compatible w/ what it wants to show would cause this. It never happened again after that (in last 2-3yrs or so of using both nvid card/pureVid)

If you do have it, you can also try setting purevideo to "content deafault", "film" and "display fields separately"...this passes through the video w/o deinterlacing or any resizing (so you can rule it out).

I don't think it would help, but turning on/off V-sync in the nvidia card settings is supopsed to help w/ tearing (but I don't think that would include video).