[SOLVED] Video Card Upgrade - ATI x800 -> Nvidia 7900GTO - Advice Wanted

[crjackson]

I'm about to purchase an Nvidia 7900GTO to replace my ATI X800. Not that there's anything worng with the x800, it's a great card.

The problem is I'm tired of waiting for good driver support. I'm currently using the restricted driver from the repos. I suspect I should disable that...???

Here's what I THINK I need to do. Please correct me if I'm worng or missed any steps.

sudo gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf
Make sure or change the device to VESA

Then I plan to..
sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg

Reboot

Install restricted driver

Also I would appriciate any advice as to the BEST/STABLE driver to use with this new card.

Thanks in advance.

[crjackson]

Well I just made the purchase. It's a done deal. I hope to get some info soon.

[rfruth]

Please do tell cause I'me about to do something similar (MIS = MSI in your sig?)

[rsambuca]

Be warned that the nvidia-glx-new drivers have a slow memory leak. You will have to restart X every so often. The video quality with them is much better than the older ones though, so I have kept them for now.

[crjackson]

Please do tell cause I'me about to do something similar (MIS = MSI in your sig?)

I just fixed the SIG, and yes, it was supposed to be MSI. Thanks for pointing that out.

[crjackson]

Be warned that the nvidia-glx-new drivers have a slow memory leak. You will have to restart X every so often. The video quality with them is much better than the older ones though, so I have kept them for now.

Is that the driver that is loaded from the restricted driver manager? Can you reccomend a driver without a memory leak?

Also, does the procedure above seem to be correct or does it need some adjustments?

Thanks

[rsambuca]

Yeah, that will work. The Restricted Drivers Manager will load the glx-new driver though. You can always change it later, so I would just get it up and running and it is an easy switch later if you want.

[crjackson]

Yeah, that will work. The Restricted Drivers Manager will load the glx-new driver though. You can always change it later, so I would just get it up and running and it is an easy switch later if you want.

Thanks - If I decide to use a later driver with envy or something, do I need to disable the restricted driver before doing so?

[rsambuca]

You would just change your xorg back to nv driver, and then remove the driver (I would just use Synaptic), and then install nvidia-glx driver.

[crjackson]

You would just change your xorg back to nv driver, and then remove the driver (I would just use Synaptic), and then install nvidia-glx driver.

Got it - Thanks. I won't have the card for a few days (online purchase). I'll post back with results once I get it.

[crjackson]

Still waiting for the beautiful brown truck that says UPS.

[crjackson]

WOW! That was easy...

I got lazy and didn't edit my xorg.conf or turn off restricted drivers. I just booted into recovery mode, and it told me my video card driver was wrong. It automatically set it to VESA, and gave me the option to PICK my driver from a long list. I picked Nvidia and it booted right up. Then it told me about the available restricted driver so I enabled it and rebooted.

BANG! New card working great, and desktop effects enabled for the first time. NICE...

I finally have a splash screen for the 1st time too. The only problem is that now my login screen shows at 640x480. How do I change the rez of the loging screen to match the 1024x786 of the splash screen?