Jump to content

Nvidia video card drivers [solved]


AussieJohn
 Share

Recommended Posts

I have noticed an oddity for the first time.

 

I am using a Samsung Syncmaster 913v TFT Monitor (19 inch) and a Video card Asus V9520 Magic GeForceFX5200 128mb.

The stated spec by Samsung is that the refresh rate is AOK at 75 for 1280 x 1024.

I have regularly used the NVIDIA drivers direct from their website, and since first using the Monitor in Mandriva have only been able to see the refresh rate at 60 with no seeming ability to change it unless I go changing text files. ( for me, Not on).

This was the case for all driver versions from 8774 and earlier.

With version 8776 I was suddenly getting a setting of 75. Great I thought, at last.

 

Then I got the 9269 version ( the latest) and suddenly the choice was 55 or 57.

You don't have to guess I have gone back to the 8776 driver.

These changes are apparent with just simply installing the driver and no special tweaking.

Has anyone else noticed this in the past ??

I had always assumed that the variation was caused by Mandriva and it isn't.

 

Cheers. John.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Refresh rates dont matter on LCD/TFT's.

 

On a CRT, it draws the screen, and has to keep drawing the screen otherwise it will fade. On an LCD/TFT, it draws the screen, and whatever it drew remains, so even on a low refresh rate, you will not see any flickering or effects.

 

James

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Refresh rates dont matter on LCD/TFT's.

 

On a CRT, it draws the screen, and has to keep drawing the screen otherwise it will fade. On an LCD/TFT, it draws the screen, and whatever it drew remains, so even on a low refresh rate, you will not see any flickering or effects.

 

James

 

Interesting.. I never knew that. So in essence on a LCD/TFT if you have 60 or 75 it makes no difference? What about with regards to say clarity?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I had always assumed that the variation was caused by Mandriva and it isn't.

The variation is caused by a combination of (in no special order)

your unwillingness to edit 2 lines of a file .....

The reported supported modes of your monitor

The reported supported modes of your GPU

The ability of the driver to detect these modes

The fallback order in a specific version of xorg....

"randomly" generated modelines by mandrake tools

bad luck!

 

As a general rule .. if you use MCC you will get the most mediocre settings...be that making a file system or configuring graphics... and its also a bit luck dependant... usually the more you spend on a monitor tends to give better EDID info but sometimes that just doesn't mesh with the modelines....

 

I always type in (or paste) the values direct from the monitor handbook...

 

eg

Section "Monitor"

Identifier "projector"

VendorName "Projector"

HorizSync 31.0 - 68.0

VertRefresh 60.0 - 85.0

 

EndSection

 

Section "Screen"

Identifier "screen1"

Device "NVIDIA1"

Monitor "projector"

DefaultDepth 24

SubSection "Display"

Depth 24

Modes "1152x864"

EndSubSection

EndSection

 

as a minimum.... although its better to actually look up the actual Hsynch and Vrefresh for the resolution your using... thus eliminating chance....

 

It depends what your interest and motivation is.... think about it like a coffee machine....

I can choose between a kettle and instant coffee or an expresso machine with intergrated coffee roaster and grinder... it all depends how you want your coffee... and how important it is to you....

 

No such thing exists as the best coffee machine.... it depends what you want ... a hot beverage not totally unlike coffee or a steaming cup of expresso with a thick crema and aroma...

 

If you get home in the middle of winter and your freezing (OK not likely in Cairns) then a cup of instant can be the best coffee you ever had ....

 

However linux is more flexible... you can basically get the super machine ....

You can press a button and get a decent cuppa on fully auto mode OR you can buy your own beans and mix and roast them yourself all with the same machine :D

The fully auto mode will probably never satisfy a coffee snob like me.... but that doesn't make anyone elses enjoyment of it any less!

 

My personal view is I pay good money for a monitor.... so I want to get the most out of it.... so I eliminate chance...

 

I recently stuck linux on a friends laptop with an intel810i chipset.... for a couple of weeks she was happy having a stretched screen then asked why so I decided to fix it ... I found the exact resolution, modes and DPI and actually fxed it so it looks much sharper and crisper than Windows... which was using the right stuff except the dpi....

 

I just thought of a better analogy for you :D

Fully manual or autofocus/program?

Some people take some great accidental pictures using autofocus and fully automatic... perhaps choosing a portrait prog to control the aperture... ?? but they will never take consistently good photo's and never take a great photo unless 1 in 10000 by chance....

 

If you buy a AF lens with no real manual override or focussing method except guess work... you will take mediocre photo's but they will probably be better than a point n shoot.... if you want consistently good photo's you need fully manual in every possible way.... but if you buy a decent SLR and only ever use it in fully auto you are to a certain extent wasting the camera....

You wouldn't believe the number of people I see with real expensive cameras and a few thousands worth of lens on the front trying to get the thing to point and shoot!

Yes the camera and lens got great reviews in pro magazines but it was never intended to be used like that....

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Either way, as I said, refresh rate makes zilch difference on LCD's, it's a technical remnant of CRTs and analog displays.

Iph, is that not only in DVI?

I think..... using VGA 15 pin it does because the driver has to process it.... and for instance you can get a different screen location(higher, lower, wider etc.) and the dpi certainly makes a huge difference....

 

What you say makes sense but its not fitting my experience...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi Gowater. I recognise your points and they are quite valid. Reference cameras....I almost always used manual settings for my pro work. Until my FujiFinePix S9500 had never had an AutoFocus Lens. ( :D :D Got the S9500 because it had the option of manual zoom and Manual Focus as well as Auto).

With my Monitor though I am not wanting to tweak it but just to ensure it runs at an optimum point hence my comment about not wanting to bother too much about altering text files.

 

Thanks Iphitus, for the info about refresh rates for lcd. Indeed something for the personal memory bank.

What I find interesting is that only the nvidia driver changed the refresh rate and I changed nothing in settings. It seems that invidia got it right for the Samsung spec with one driver after using the standard 60 (as you describe) for most earlier drivers and then they change it with the most recent driver to 57 which is less than before. I wonder if maybe this is moves into finally establishing a standard or something?. May be just late coming?

On this one I am possibly more curious about the nvidia reasons than anything. What you say makes a hell of a lot of sense because one certainly cannot see any screen flicker at the 52 or 57 settings so I might just reinstall the newest driver again. It only takes 3 minutes anyway after all and I believe there are possibly some important security fixes in it as well.

 

What both you and Gowater might be able to help me with is where to go to to set the Nvidia flash screen to enable. Unlike many others I like to see the flash screen because after a reboot it reassures me that all is well in the video area (I think you know what I mean). It used to appear in the earlier drivers but I cannot find where in the system to activate it with the two latest drivers.

 

Cheers. John.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

should be under the [driver] section for the card in xorg.conf....

AFAIK in previous versions its on by default so I would expect Mandriva just added the line that turns it off

Its a boolean but if its commented out the default is to show the screen so I'd suggest just commenting it out with a #

(least fiddly and I leave mine on for the same reasons)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Here is my xorg.conf.

 

# nvidia-xconfig: X configuration file generated by nvidia-xconfig

# nvidia-xconfig: version 1.0 (buildmeister@builder3) Wed Nov 1 19:47:17 PST 2006

 

# File generated by XFdrake (rev 57713)

# **********************************************************************

# Refer to the xorg.conf man page for details about the format of

# this file.

# **********************************************************************

 

Section "ServerLayout"

Identifier "layout1"

Screen "screen1" 0 0

InputDevice "Keyboard1" "CoreKeyboard"

InputDevice "Mouse1" "CorePointer"

EndSection

 

Section "Files"

 

# font server independent of the X server to render fonts.

# minimal fonts to allow X to run without xfs

FontPath "unix/:-1"

FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/misc:unscaled"

EndSection

 

Section "Module"

Load "dbe" # Double-Buffering Extension

Load "v4l" # Video for Linux

Load "extmod"

Load "type1"

Load "freetype"

Load "glx" # 3D layer

EndSection

 

Section "ServerFlags"

 

#DontZap # disable <Crtl><Alt><BS> (server abort)

# allows the server to start up even if the mouse does not work

#DontZoom # disable <Crtl><Alt><KP_+>/<KP_-> (resolution switching)

Option "allowmouseopenfail"

EndSection

 

Section "InputDevice"

Identifier "Keyboard1"

Driver "kbd"

Option "XkbModel" "pc105"

Option "XkbLayout" "us"

Option "XkbOptions" "compose:rwin"

EndSection

 

Section "InputDevice"

Identifier "Mouse1"

Driver "mouse"

Option "Protocol" "ExplorerPS/2"

Option "Device" "/dev/mouse"

EndSection

 

Section "Monitor"

 

# Monitor preferred modeline (60.0 Hz vsync, 64.0 kHz hsync, ratio 5/4)

Identifier "monitor1"

VendorName "Plug'n Play"

ModelName "SyncMaster"

HorizSync 30.0 - 81.0

VertRefresh 56.0 - 75.0

ModeLine "1280x1024" 108.0 1280 1328 1440 1688 1024 1025 1028 1066 +hsync +vsync

ModeLine "768x576" 50.0 768 832 846 1000 576 590 595 630

ModeLine "768x576" 63.1 768 800 960 1024 576 578 590 616

EndSection

 

Section "Device"

Identifier "device1"

Driver "nvidia"

VendorName "nVidia Corp."

BoardName "NVIDIA GeForce FX (generic)"

EndSection

 

Section "Screen"

Identifier "screen1"

Device "device1"

Monitor "monitor1"

DefaultDepth 24

Option "DPMS"

SubSection "Display"

Depth 8

Modes "1280x1024" "1152x864" "1024x768" "832x624" "800x600" "640x480" "480x360" "320x240"

EndSubSection

SubSection "Display"

Depth 15

Modes "1280x1024" "1152x864" "1024x768" "832x624" "800x600" "640x480" "480x360" "320x240"

EndSubSection

SubSection "Display"

Depth 16

Modes "1280x1024" "1152x864" "1024x768" "832x624" "800x600" "640x480" "480x360" "320x240"

EndSubSection

SubSection "Display"

Depth 24

Modes "1280x1024" "1152x864" "1024x768" "832x624" "800x600" "640x480" "480x360" "320x240"

EndSubSection

EndSection

 

 

 

I hope I'm not dumb and can't see it for the trees. I have been doing some googling and have found answers as to how to stop the flash screen but not one that enables it when there is no viewable option for it in anything.

I'l still keep hunting though.

Thanks Gowater. Cheers. John.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi Admins and Mods, I think you can close this thread since nothing more is coming in. The generous suggestions made so far have unfortunately been in vain. I am moving on from this one.

I have since reinstalled 2007 and have found some things I will present in another thread.

 

Cheers. John.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The fully auto mode will probably never satisfy a coffee snob like me.... but that doesn't make anyone elses enjoyment of it any less!

 

Hi Gowator: There probably isn't a better person to ask for an advice on how to make a great cup of coffee then a Parisian, like you. Would you care to share the secret? (especially for us, Canadians, who drink bad coffee most of the times).

serge.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
 Share

×
×
  • Create New...