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Hi all,
My machine configuration is as follows
P4, 1.6GHz, Sony vaio desktop with 512 MB Ram and Nvidia TNT2 Video
Card.
I am running both Redhat 9 and debian woody unstable. I have 2.4.20
kernel for redhat and 2.6.1 kernel for debian.
Till 2.4.20 i was happy because the "nv" driver provided by xfree gave
a performance of 220 fps (with the help of glxgears) and when i
install binary driver from nvidia it will go upto 287 fps.
Even though it looks smaller when i read some mails in which people
claim that they get 1000 fps or something like that, but i was happy
to see some difference in the fps between the xfree driver and
original driver provided by the card manufacturer.
Back to the problem, after i installed 2.6.1 in debian first i had
some problem in installing nvidia binary because it complained about
the modversions.h file and sometime later i found about the patch from
http:://www.minion.de and used them and installed them as per their
instructions, i.e., the debian way of make-kpkg.
Now the nvidia driver gives me just 60 fps with the new kernel and
nvidia binary driver, whereas the xfree driver still gives me 220 fps.
If i go back to rh9 and check, nvidia driver gives 290 fps. FYI i use
current nvidia driver 5336.

thanks

jc

On Mon, 02 Feb 2004 06:02:38 -0800, jayachandran kamaraj wrote:

> Hi all,
> My machine configuration is as follows P4, 1.6GHz, Sony vaio desktop with
> 512 MB Ram and Nvidia TNT2 Video Card.
> I am running both Redhat 9 and debian woody unstable. I have 2.4.20 kernel
> for redhat and 2.6.1 kernel for debian. Till 2.4.20 i was happy because
> the "nv" driver provided by xfree gave a performance of 220 fps (with the
> help of glxgears) and when i install binary driver from nvidia it will go
> upto 287 fps. Even though it looks smaller when i read some mails in which
> people claim that they get 1000 fps or something like that, but i was
> happy to see some difference in the fps between the xfree driver and
> original driver provided by the card manufacturer. Back to the problem,
> after i installed 2.6.1 in debian first i had some problem in installing
> nvidia binary because it complained about the modversions.h file and
> sometime later i found about the patch from http:://www.minion.de and used
> them and installed them as per their instructions, i.e., the debian way of
> make-kpkg. Now the nvidia driver gives me just 60 fps with the new kernel
> and nvidia binary driver, whereas the xfree driver still gives me 220 fps.
> If i go back to rh9 and check, nvidia driver gives 290 fps. FYI i use
> current nvidia driver 5336.


I am not if the info spit out by glxgears is all that reliable. In my
system, glxgears reports some 180 fps with the XFree86 nv driver. However
when I use the 5336 nvidia driver from Nvidia it drops to a very
disappointing 50 fps. Indeed, if you look at the gears they seem to spin
much faster with the nv driver.

As it happens, if I use the 4496 nvidia driver then glxgears reports some
400 fps - which is much more satisfactory. However, the gears STILL seem
to spin much slower than with the XFree86 driver. Just as slow, in fact,
as with the 5336 driver.

I decided to test the whole setup finally with the GLX molecule
application, to be found packaged with xscreensaver. This application can
be invoked to report the fps performance, and is extremely
graphics-intensive. The results here were inambiguous: not only do both
4496 and 5336 drivers results in a much higher performance, as far as the
reported fps count is concerned (about 3 times as many fps as the XFree86
nv driver, on average), but, in addition, the molecules animation can be
clearly seen to be much smoother.

I do not know what is the matter with my glxgears, but I just don't trust
it any more. By the way, I am using 2.4.20 and 2.4.22 kernels in Slackware
9.1. My CPU is an old 1 GHz Athlon, in a VIA VT8363 motherboard.

jayachandran kamaraj wrote:
> Back to the problem, after i installed 2.6.1 in debian first i had
> some problem in installing nvidia binary because it complained about
> the modversions.h file and sometime later i found about the patch from
> http:://www.minion.de and used them and installed them as per their
> instructions, i.e., the debian way of make-kpkg.
> Now the nvidia driver gives me just 60 fps with the new kernel and
> nvidia binary driver, whereas the xfree driver still gives me 220 fps.
> If i go back to rh9 and check, nvidia driver gives 290 fps. FYI i use
> current nvidia driver 5336.

Have you tried the latest drivers from Nvidia? These claim to support
2.6 ...

--
Paul Black mailtoaul.black@oxsemi.com
Oxford Semiconductor Ltd http://www.oxsemi.com
25 Milton Park, Abingdon, Tel: +44 (0) 1235 824 909
Oxfordshire. OX14 4SH Fax: +44 (0) 1235 821 141

At earth time Mon, 02 Feb 2004 06:02:38 -0800, the following transmission was received from the entity known as jayachandran kamaraj:

> Hi all,
> My machine configuration is as follows
> P4, 1.6GHz, Sony vaio desktop with 512 MB Ram and Nvidia TNT2 Video
> Card.
> I am running both Redhat 9 and debian woody unstable. I have 2.4.20
> kernel for redhat and 2.6.1 kernel for debian.
> Till 2.4.20 i was happy because the "nv" driver provided by xfree gave
> a performance of 220 fps (with the help of glxgears) and when i
> install binary driver from nvidia it will go upto 287 fps.
> Even though it looks smaller when i read some mails in which people
> claim that they get 1000 fps or something like that, but i was happy
> to see some difference in the fps between the xfree driver and
> original driver provided by the card manufacturer.
> Back to the problem, after i installed 2.6.1 in debian first i had
> some problem in installing nvidia binary because it complained about
> the modversions.h file and sometime later i found about the patch from
> http:://www.minion.de and used them and installed them as per their
> instructions, i.e., the debian way of make-kpkg.
> Now the nvidia driver gives me just 60 fps with the new kernel and
> nvidia binary driver, whereas the xfree driver still gives me 220 fps.
> If i go back to rh9 and check, nvidia driver gives 290 fps. FYI i use
> current nvidia driver 5336.
>
> thanks
>
> jc

I've been getting occasional total lockups which seem to be related to my
nvidia card - often happens if I kill X the wrong way, and it never used
to be a problem before i got that card. One problem with nvidia is
(last i heard) they don't release the card specs or release the
drivers under a free license, so you're stuck with what they're offering
if there's a problem.

I'm just downloading the latest driver, so i'll see if that's any better.

--
http://www.niftybits.ukfsn.org/

remove 'n-u-l-l' to email me. html mail or attachments will go in the spam
bin unless notified with [html] or [attachment] in the subject line.

At earth time Mon, 02 Feb 2004 06:02:38 -0800, the following transmission
was received from the entity known as jayachandran kamaraj:

> Hi all,
> My machine configuration is as follows
> P4, 1.6GHz, Sony vaio desktop with 512 MB Ram and Nvidia TNT2 Video
> Card.
> I am running both Redhat 9 and debian woody unstable. I have 2.4.20
> kernel for redhat and 2.6.1 kernel for debian.
> Till 2.4.20 i was happy because the "nv" driver provided by xfree gave
> a performance of 220 fps (with the help of glxgears) and when i
> install binary driver from nvidia it will go upto 287 fps.
> Even though it looks smaller when i read some mails in which people
> claim that they get 1000 fps or something like that, but i was happy
> to see some difference in the fps between the xfree driver and
> original driver provided by the card manufacturer.
> Back to the problem, after i installed 2.6.1 in debian first i had
> some problem in installing nvidia binary because it complained about
> the modversions.h file and sometime later i found about the patch from
> http:://www.minion.de and used them and installed them as per their
> instructions, i.e., the debian way of make-kpkg.
> Now the nvidia driver gives me just 60 fps with the new kernel and
> nvidia binary driver, whereas the xfree driver still gives me 220 fps.
> If i go back to rh9 and check, nvidia driver gives 290 fps. FYI i use
> current nvidia driver 5336.
>
> thanks
>
> jc

I've been getting system lockups, probably caused by the nvidia graphics
driver (RIVA TNT2 64 card). The crashes all seem to be from doing
something with X, like a ctrl-alt-backspace GUI shutdown, so I think it's
that. I've just installed the latest driver to see if its any better.
Maybe it will work OK, but I'm not impressed with it:

- now I'm getting a 2 second nvidia logo flash screen whenever i start X.
- the driver is released as binary only, and is a generic one for all
nvidia cards, so the kernel module and XFree86 drivers are huge (1.9 M and
559 K).
- they don't release the card specs either, from what i last heard, so
no-one can write an free driver.

altogether I'll give them a miss in the future.

--
http://www.niftybits.ukfsn.org/

remove 'n-u-l-l' to email me. html mail or attachments will go in the spam
bin unless notified with [html] or [attachment] in the subject line.

At earth time Mon, 02 Feb 2004 22:54:25 +0000, the following transmission
was received from the entity known as Andy Baxter:

> At earth time Mon, 02 Feb 2004 06:02:38 -0800, the following transmission was received from the entity known as jayachandran kamaraj:
>
>> Hi all,
>> My machine configuration is as follows
>> P4, 1.6GHz, Sony vaio desktop with 512 MB Ram and Nvidia TNT2 Video
>> Card.
>> I am running both Redhat 9 and debian woody unstable. I have 2.4.20
>> kernel for redhat and 2.6.1 kernel for debian.
>> Till 2.4.20 i was happy because the "nv" driver provided by xfree gave
>> a performance of 220 fps (with the help of glxgears) and when i
>> install binary driver from nvidia it will go upto 287 fps.
>> Even though it looks smaller when i read some mails in which people
>> claim that they get 1000 fps or something like that, but i was happy
>> to see some difference in the fps between the xfree driver and
>> original driver provided by the card manufacturer.
>> Back to the problem, after i installed 2.6.1 in debian first i had
>> some problem in installing nvidia binary because it complained about
>> the modversions.h file and sometime later i found about the patch from
>> http:://www.minion.de and used them and installed them as per their
>> instructions, i.e., the debian way of make-kpkg.
>> Now the nvidia driver gives me just 60 fps with the new kernel and
>> nvidia binary driver, whereas the xfree driver still gives me 220 fps.
>> If i go back to rh9 and check, nvidia driver gives 290 fps. FYI i use
>> current nvidia driver 5336.
>>
>> thanks
>>
>> jc
>
> I've been getting occasional total lockups which seem to be related to my
> nvidia card - often happens if I kill X the wrong way, and it never used
> to be a problem before i got that card. One problem with nvidia is
> (last i heard) they don't release the card specs or release the
> drivers under a free license, so you're stuck with what they're offering
> if there's a problem.
>
> I'm just downloading the latest driver, so i'll see if that's any better.

got it running - there's now an annoying nvidia logo flash screen when i
start X, and it won't run more than one X server at the same time.
Altogether I think i'll avoid them in future.

--
http://www.niftybits.ukfsn.org/

remove 'n-u-l-l' to email me. html mail or attachments will go in the spam
bin unless notified with [html] or [attachment] in the subject line.

At earth time Tue, 03 Feb 2004 00:16:35 +0000, the following transmission
was received from the entity known as Andy Baxter:

> At earth time Mon, 02 Feb 2004 22:54:25 +0000, the following transmission
> was received from the entity known as Andy Baxter:
>

>>
>> I've been getting occasional total lockups which seem to be related to my
>> nvidia card - often happens if I kill X the wrong way, and it never used
>> to be a problem before i got that card. One problem with nvidia is
>> (last i heard) they don't release the card specs or release the
>> drivers under a free license, so you're stuck with what they're offering
>> if there's a problem.
>>
>> I'm just downloading the latest driver, so i'll see if that's any better.
>
> got it running - there's now an annoying nvidia logo flash screen when i
> start X, and it won't run more than one X server at the same time.
> Altogether I think i'll avoid them in future.

managed to get rid of the logo (but not the flash screen) with the
following shell script:


#!/bin/bash
# removes logo from nv driver startup flash screen.
echo "patching nv driver"
cd /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/drivers
if [ `md5sum nvidia_drv.o | tr -s ' ' ' ' | cut -f1 '-d '` != "dae9d62191112964743224569b7daebb" ] ; then
echo "driver md5sum doesn't match - exiting"
exit
fi
cp nvidia_drv.o nvidia_drv.o.old
dd if=nvidia_drv.o of=/tmp/nvdrv1 bs=1 count=`printf "%d" 0x6a990`
dd if=nvidia_drv.o of=/tmp/nvdrv2 bs=1 skip=`printf "%d" 0x6d6bc`
dd if=/dev/zero of=/tmp/nvdrvzero bs=1 count=$(( `printf "%d" 0x6d6bc` - `printf "%d" 0x6a990`))
cat /tmp/nvdrv1 /tmp/nvdrvzero /tmp/nvdrv2 > nvidia_drv.o
rm /tmp/nvdrv*
echo "done"


--
http://www.niftybits.ukfsn.org/

remove 'n-u-l-l' to email me. html mail or attachments will go in the spam
bin unless notified with [html] or [attachment] in the subject line.

Andy Baxter wrote:

> At earth time Tue, 03 Feb 2004 00:16:35 +0000, the following transmission
> was received from the entity known as Andy Baxter:
>
>> At earth time Mon, 02 Feb 2004 22:54:25 +0000, the following transmission
>> was received from the entity known as Andy Baxter:
>>
>
>>>
>>> I've been getting occasional total lockups which seem to be related to
>>> my nvidia card - often happens if I kill X the wrong way, and it never
>>> used to be a problem before i got that card. One problem with nvidia is
>>> (last i heard) they don't release the card specs or release the
>>> drivers under a free license, so you're stuck with what they're offering
>>> if there's a problem.
>>>
>>> I'm just downloading the latest driver, so i'll see if that's any
>>> better.
>>
>> got it running - there's now an annoying nvidia logo flash screen when i
>> start X, and it won't run more than one X server at the same time.
>> Altogether I think i'll avoid them in future.
>
> managed to get rid of the logo (but not the flash screen) with the
> following shell script:
>
>
> #!/bin/bash
> # removes logo from nv driver startup flash screen.
> echo "patching nv driver"
> cd /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/drivers
> if [ `md5sum nvidia_drv.o | tr -s ' ' ' ' | cut -f1 '-d '` !=
> "dae9d62191112964743224569b7daebb" ] ; then
> echo "driver md5sum doesn't match - exiting"
> exit
> fi
> cp nvidia_drv.o nvidia_drv.o.old
> dd if=nvidia_drv.o of=/tmp/nvdrv1 bs=1 count=`printf "%d" 0x6a990`
> dd if=nvidia_drv.o of=/tmp/nvdrv2 bs=1 skip=`printf "%d" 0x6d6bc`
> dd if=/dev/zero of=/tmp/nvdrvzero bs=1 count=$(( `printf "%d" 0x6d6bc` -
> `printf "%d" 0x6a990`)) cat /tmp/nvdrv1 /tmp/nvdrvzero /tmp/nvdrv2 >
> nvidia_drv.o rm /tmp/nvdrv*
> echo "done"
>
>

Sometimes it helps to read the documentation.

From <ftp://download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86/1.0-5336/README>

__________________________________________________ ________________________

(app-d) APPENDIX D: XF86CONFIG OPTIONS
__________________________________________________ ________________________

The following driver options are supported by the NVIDIA XFree86 driver:

..skip...

Option "NoLogo" "boolean"
Disable drawing of the NVIDIA logo splash screen at
X startup. Default: the logo is drawn.

Andy Baxter wrote:
> got it running - there's now an annoying nvidia logo flash screen when i
> start X,

Easily fixable.


> and it won't run more than one X server at the same time.

Yes it will: "X :1" work fine for me.


> Altogether I think i'll avoid them in future.

Yes, that might be wise.


--
Paul Black mailtoaul.black@oxsemi.com
Oxford Semiconductor Ltd http://www.oxsemi.com
25 Milton Park, Abingdon, Tel: +44 (0) 1235 824 909
Oxfordshire. OX14 4SH Fax: +44 (0) 1235 821 141

Hi,

> I've been getting system lockups, probably caused by the nvidia graphics
> driver (RIVA TNT2 64 card). The crashes all seem to be from doing
> something with X, like a ctrl-alt-backspace GUI shutdown, so I think it's
> that.


Which kernel version are you using? 2.4.18 has a definite bug in the AGP
handling that can create lookups on graphics.

> I've just installed the latest driver to see if its any better.
> Maybe it will work OK, but I'm not impressed with it:

> - now I'm getting a 2 second nvidia logo flash screen whenever i start X.

RTFM.

> - the driver is released as binary only, and is a generic one for all
> nvidia cards, so the kernel module and XFree86 drivers are huge (1.9 M and
> 559 K).

That's huge?

So long,
Thomas