Open GL Cards

[trekiej]

Hello.
I would like to get your opinion on OpenGL video cards.
Do you think they have better quality output than their game counterparts?
I know they can be expensive and usually do not have high frame rates compared to game oriented cards.
Has any company matched a card with a monitor for better quality?
Here is a possible dumb question.
In two chapters or less, how does a card have directx or opengl compatability?
Thanks.

[trekiej]

I wonder if the manufacture makes their own graphics engine in hardware and then has some sort of hardware interface that DirectX or OpenGL accesses. Maybe that is the acceleration part of a card. Creating a hardware function that replaces something that software would usually do is common.

I guess Blender 3D could use an OpenGL card's extra functionality. Since Linux does not use DirectX, I wonder if it uses all OpenGL functions or maybe just enough to run the game.
Thanks.

[trekiej]

I have a mother board that has 760G chip set with HD3000 graphics.
I have had my eye on a FireGL V7700. It seems to be a HD 3870 equivalent.
edit:

[trekiej]

With Blender if I got to 1 to 4 million vertices it chugs. This is with a card that is not an OpenGL branded card that has up to 512MB and system ram of 4GB.
How do you think a V7700 would faire with 512 MB Ram?