Nvidia Question...

[grofaz]

...how do you know if your cards 3D Acceleration is on or not ? Is there a way to check ??

[Mishura]

The easiest way, is to restart X (CTRL + ALT + BACKSPACE) and if the Nvidia Splash screen (A white screen with the nvidia logo on it) appears for a second before hitting GDM/KDM, that means you are 3D accelerated.

There is much easier unix-y ways of checking.. but I can't remember them..

[grofaz]

So if I see the nvidia logo screen during boot up 3D Acceleration is working ??

[Sunil]

just open up a terminal and type glxgears and check the frame rate, anything above 800 is good

[Mishura]

So if I see the nvidia logo screen during boot up 3D Acceleration is working ??

Should be. I can't see why not. I know that everytime I see the splash, I know that my nVidia stuff is working.

just open up a terminal and type glxgears and check the frame rate, anything above 800 is good

Kind of. To get a real reading with GlxGears, resize the gears window as large as you can while still seeing some of your terminal. At that size, you'll start to get glxgears readings that look more realistic.. (You'll never see above 150 fps on a game now will you?)

Lets see... there was supposed to be a way to check using the "cat" command and your sys or proc directory...

Doing a "cat /proc/modules | grep nvidia" gave me:

nvidia 3923452 24 - Live 0xf17e2000
agpgart 33608 2 nvidia,intel_agp, Live 0xf1080000

Which looks about right. Nvidia module is loaded, meaning that its using the 3D accellerated drivers, and agpgart is loaded as well.. which is *I THINK* the kernel driver for AGP.

There is, of course a much more cleaner way of checking.. but the way it goes is: If "nvidia" driver module is loaded, and you see a Nvidia boot splash when starting X, and get a much higher fps in glxgears.. then you are probably good to go. Final test, download a 3D game like Enemy Territory or Nexuiz and give that a go. If it plays with anything above 1 fps, then you are good.

[grofaz]

Thanks for the replies, I appreciate it.

[c-m]

i used to see the nvidia logo on boot, when i used Yoper, I have just installed ubuntu and the logo doesn't appear. To top it off i get around 240fps on gears (small) and only about 30fps with them enlagred.

Does ubuntu no come with the nvidia driver by default? How do i go about setting it up?

[grofaz]

Use synaptic to install nvidia driver and nvidia-settings, or apt-get.

[c-m]

Use synaptic to install nvidia driver and nvidia-settings, or apt-get.
i have nvidia-glx, nvidia-settings and nvidia-kernel-common Is there anything else i need to install from synaptic?

[Lord Illidan]

Is the driver in /etc/X11/xorg.conf "nvidia"?

[c-m]

Is the driver in /etc/X11/xorg.conf "nvidia"?
no its "nv"


Section "Device"
Identifier "NVIDIA Corporation NV31 [GeForce FX 5600]"
Driver "nv"
BusID "PCI:2:0:0"
Option "TwinView" "true"
Option "TwinViewOrientation" "Clone"
Option "TVOutFormat" "COMPOSITE"
Option "TVStandard" "PAL-G"
Option "SecondMonitorHorizSync" "30-50"
Option "SecondMonitorVertRefresh" "60"
Option "MetaModes" "1024x768,1024x768;800x600,800x600;640x480,640x480; 512x384,512x384"
EndSection

[Lord Illidan]

Change it to nvidia, then..and restart and experience open gl support!

[c-m]

worked a treat cheers.

[c-m]

worked a treat cheers.

how do i get the nvidia driver to work with a new kernel.

everything works fine with the defualt ubuntu 386 kernel, but if i use synaptic to get the -k7 kernel or even if i compile my own, X will not start. X complains that the nvidia module cannot be loaded, and as a result i have to change my xorg.conf back to "nv" rather than "nvidia".

[grofaz]

Here's another nvidia question for you. I just installed a new 6800 GT card. I uninstalled nvidia-glx etc. and reinstalled after installing my new card. How come my xorg.conf file still reflects my old card ? Do I need to update that file somehow ? Or can I safely leave it alone. My new card seems to be working. I went from 900 fps to 12000+ fps. Cool!

It just bugs me that it lists the old FX 5700 XT card and not the new puppy.

[Ubunted]

how do i get the nvidia driver to work with a new kernel.

everything works fine with the defualt ubuntu 386 kernel, but if i use synaptic to get the -k7 kernel or even if i compile my own, X will not start. X complains that the nvidia module cannot be loaded, and as a result i have to change my xorg.conf back to "nv" rather than "nvidia".
I just now installed the k7 kernel via Synaptic, rebooted into it, removed the 386, rebooted again and all was fine. I had that error when I tried to remove the 386 and install the k7 at the same time.