Nvidia Geforce 9500 GT Driver

[Opt-Crysys]

Hello, I'm new to Ubuntu, and I can't seem to find a driver for my Graphics card, I have been searching for a long time now, and I can't find one. I was looking for one as per the instructions on playing World of Warcraft. It told me to use Envy, but before that I put in:

glxinfo | grep rendering

It should come up with a yes but for me it said no, I was wondering if there is a driver for my particular Card. Thanks in advance, for helping a new person out, sorry if didn't provide information on something.

[ivanvajar]

Open System/Administration/Hardware Drivers. Do you see any proprietary drivers in use? If don't have Hardvare Drivers application installed, say so. We'll install it together.

[ivanvajar]

Generally, you can go to Applications/Add/Remove Applications, search for NVIDIA binary X.Org 'new' driver and install it. nVidia is well supported in Linux.

[Opt-Crysys]

Ok when I go to System/Administration/Hardware Drivers I don't see anything, but I did search it up on the add/remove apps, and I found it and installed, now I don't know if you know but when you do that, before when I tried to start the app World of warcraft, the rendering would be awful, and I'd have to quit out now it says failed to find a suitable display device

[shinobitux]

I commonly encounter this issue with World of Warcraft when running the open source version of the nvidia driver: "nv" (Envy?) which doesn't have hardware acceleration.

First things first, please post your /etc/X11/xorg.conf file. This file is where you setup your appropriate video driver. For example mine looks like this:

# nvidia-settings: X configuration file generated by nvidia-settings
# nvidia-settings:  version 1.0  (buildmeister@builder57)  Mon Oct 27 14:38:08 PST 2008

Section "ServerLayout"
    Identifier     "Layout0"
    Screen      0  "Screen0" 0 0
    InputDevice    "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
    InputDevice    "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
EndSection

Section "Files"
    FontPath        "/usr/share/fonts/default/Type1"
    ModulePath      "/usr/lib/xorg/modules/extensions/nvidia"
    ModulePath      "/usr/lib/xorg/modules"
EndSection

Section "Module"
    Load           "dbe"
    Load           "extmod"
    Load           "type1"
    Load           "freetype"
    Load           "glx"
EndSection

Section "ServerFlags"
    Option         "Xinerama" "0"
    Option         "AIGLX"    "on"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    # generated from default
    Identifier     "Mouse0"
    Driver         "mouse"
    Option         "Protocol" "auto"
    Option         "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
    Option         "Emulate3Buttons" "no"
    Option         "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    # generated from data in "/etc/sysconfig/keyboard"
    Identifier     "Keyboard0"
    Driver         "kbd"
    Option         "XkbLayout" "us"
    Option         "XkbModel" "pc105"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
    # HorizSync source: edid, VertRefresh source: edid
    Identifier     "Monitor0"
    VendorName     "Unknown"
    ModelName      "BenQ FP71G"
    HorizSync       31.0 - 83.0
    VertRefresh     56.0 - 76.0
    Option         "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Device"
	Identifier	"Videocard0"
	Driver		"nvidia"
	#Driver		"nv"
	VendorName	"NVIDIA Corporation"
	BoardName	"GeForce4 Ti 4200 with AGP8X"

	BusID		"PCI:1:0:0"

	Option		"RenderAccel"			"True"
	#Option		"UseEvents"			"False"
	#Option		"TripleBuffer"			"1"
	#Option		"DamageEvents"			"1"
	#Option		"PixmapCacheSize"		"70000"
	#Option		"OnDemandVBlankInterrupts"	"True"

	Option		"AddARGBGLXVisuals"		"True"
	#Option		"NoRenderExtension"		"1" 
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier     "Screen0"
    Device         "Videocard0"
    Monitor        "Monitor0"
    DefaultDepth    24
    Option         "metamodes" "nvidia-auto-select +0+0"
    SubSection     "Display"
        Depth       24
        Modes      "1600x1200" "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"

	#Virtual    1280 1024
    EndSubSection
EndSection

#Section "Extensions"
#	Option	"Composite"	"Enable"
#EndSection

If you look at my 'Section "Device"' you can see I have 'Driver "nvidia"' set up. Find out what yours is...that'll give us a starting point.

I don't recommend you copying my config file as I've tampered with it to get it this way. In most cases, if you don't have an appropriately configured config file your want to do this:

sudo nvidia-settings

A graphical interface for your nvidia card will show up. If you select "X Server Display Configuration" from the left-side menu you'll get a screen with the option to "Save to X Configuration File" on the bottom right, then restart your machine or Ctrl-Alt-BSPC to restart your X server. That's usually where I start with my nvidia cards. I have two computer with nvidia graphics cards (one ubuntu, one fedora) and I have WoW up and running on both of them.

Hope this helps.

PS - It's a good idea to back up your /etc/X11/xorg.conf file every time you make a major change. I think nvidia-settings automatically makes a backup though.

[shinobitux]

Oh! I almost forgot!

You'll get horrible rendering in WoW unless you edit your Config.wtf file for in World of Warcrafts WTF/ directory. Mine's in /home/isaac/.wine/drive_c/Program\ Files/World\ of\ Warcraft/WTF/Config.wtf

I forgot exactly where I learned to configure that file but this line is mandatory in all my nvidia machines:

SET gxAPI "OpenGL"

See: http://www.wowwiki.com/Wine

There's also like a hundred other tweaks you can do to that config file.

Here's mine:

SET locale "enUS"
SET hwDetect "0"
SET gxColorBits "24"
SET gxDepthBits "24"
SET gxResolution "1280x1024"
SET gxRefresh "50"
SET gxMultisampleQuality "0.000000"
SET fullAlpha "1"
SET doodadAnim "0"
SET SmallCull "0.040000"
SET DistCull "500.000000"
SET trilinear "1"
SET frillDensity "24"
SET farclip "450.000000"
SET specular "1"
SET pixelShaders "1"
SET particleDensity "1.000000"
SET unitDrawDist "300.000000"
SET movie "0"
SET readTOS "1"
SET readEULA "1"
SET realmList "us.logon.worldofwarcraft.com"
SET patchlist "us.version.worldofwarcraft.com"
SET gxApi "opengl"
SET readScanning "-1"
SET readContest "-1"
SET readTerminationWithoutNotice "-1"
SET coresDetected "1"
SET videoOptionsVersion "1"
SET showToolsUI "1"
SET Sound_OutputDriverName "System Default"
SET realmName "Twisting Nether"
SET ChatMusicVolume "0.29999998211861"
SET ChatSoundVolume "0.39999997615814"
SET ChatAmbienceVolume "0.29999998211861"
SET Sound_MasterVolume "1"
SET Sound_SFXVolume "1"
SET Sound_MusicVolume "0.40000000596046"
SET Sound_AmbienceVolume "0.60000002384186"
SET Sound_ZoneMusicNoDelay "1"
SET gameTip "95"
SET OutboundChatVolume "1"
SET InboundChatVolume "1"
SET VoiceActivationSensitivity "0.39999997615814"
SET Sound_VoiceChatInputDriverName "System Default"
SET Sound_VoiceChatOutputDriverName "System Default"
SET autoLootCorpse "1"
SET installType "Retail"
SET portal "us"
SET Gamma "1.000000"
SET mouseSpeed "1.2999999523163"
SET accountName "isaacmack"
SET lastCharacterIndex "9"

Make sure you change

SET gxResolution "1280x1024"

to whatever resolution you're running. It's not necessary but in my experience it helps.

[Opt-Crysys]

# xorg.conf (X.Org X Window System server configuration file)
#
# This file was generated by dexconf, the Debian X Configuration tool, using
# values from the debconf database.
#
# Edit this file with caution, and see the xorg.conf manual page.
# (Type "man xorg.conf" at the shell prompt.)
#
# This file is automatically updated on xserver-xorg package upgrades *only*
# if it has not been modified since the last upgrade of the xserver-xorg
# package.
#
# If you have edited this file but would like it to be automatically updated
# again, run the following command:
#   sudo dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg

Section "InputDevice"
	Identifier	"Generic Keyboard"
	Driver		"kbd"
	Option		"XkbRules"	"xorg"
	Option		"XkbModel"	"pc105"
	Option		"XkbLayout"	"us"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
	Identifier	"Configured Mouse"
	Driver		"mouse"
	Option		"CorePointer"
EndSection

Section "Device"
	Identifier	"Configured Video Device"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
	Identifier	"Configured Monitor"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
	Identifier	"Default Screen"
	Monitor		"Configured Monitor"
	Device		"Configured Video Device"
EndSection

Section "ServerLayout"
	Identifier	"Default Layout"
	Screen		"Default Screen"
EndSection

Ok so there it is, I tried

gksudo nvidia-settings

and it said it wasn't a command(sorry if I seem stupid in this), but yea I see at the same my "section" as me having kdb? I'm not sure

[Opt-Crysys]

Ah yes, I have added the line in my configure, no worries on that...

[shinobitux]

Don't worry about it, you don't sound stupid. We all had to start somewhere and I've spent hours on projects like this in the past. Let me check on the nvidia-settings issue. I've found ubuntuguide.org helpfull for setting up nvidia cards...

...give me a minute.

[Opt-Crysys]

OK, thank you very much, yea I actually have been going at this for a while now haha.