hot to tell at run-time whether using NVidia driver?

[CaptainPinko]

I believe I have installed the NVidia display driver correctly, but I don't thin it is actually being used as the Solar Winds (GL) screen saver runs extremely slow and takes 100% CPU according to Karamba. I looked at my config file and found that the driver said "nv" so I changed it to "NVidia" like I remember doing for my FC1 box and rebooted the box and no improvement. Although I was surprised that YaST didn't change the actual driver name itself... but then again neither did the RPM back in the day. Then I thought that perhaps it was the screensaver being beyond the capabilities of my gfx card... and realized there probably is a way of telling through the /proc filesystem... which I know little about. I think the NVidia driver is a kernel module so I posted this here.


My /etc/X11/XF86Config currently:
...
Section "Device"
BoardName "GeForce4 MX 420"
BusID "1:0:0"
Driver "nvidia"
Identifier "Device[0]"
Screen 0
VendorName "NVidia"
EndSection
...

[JohnT]

Refer to the NVIDIA Doc's that come with your installed driver...there is an excellent section for setting up and tweaking your display correctly.

[CaptainPinko]

Originally posted by JohnT
Refer to the NVIDIA Doc's that come with your installed driver...there is an excellent section for setting up and tweaking your display correctly.

I just YaSTed them though... will the ones off the site still apply you think?

---
Edit:What it says on NVidia's Page (ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i386/supplementary/X/XFree86/nvidia-installer-HOWTO) sounds exactly like what I did.

[XavierP]

If you see the nvidia logo screen before you get to your login screen, it's installed.

[CaptainPinko]

Didn't see the logo... although IIRC there is a way to not show the logo by changing some setting so that does not preclude that YaST did that.

[JohnT]

Originally posted by CaptainPinko
I just YaSTed them though... will the ones off the site still apply you think?

---
Edit:What it says on NVidia's Page (ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i386/supplementary/X/XFree86/nvidia-installer-HOWTO) sounds exactly like what I did. Try these.....ftp://download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86/1.0-5336/README

[Loki3]

From your that section of your XF86Config it doesn't seem like the option for disabling the nvidia splash screen is present.

[CaptainPinko]

I downloaded the files and ran the .run.... which said you use SaX2 to configure XF86. So I did. There was an option to enable 3D Hardware accleration, I clicked it... then noticed it still said Driver "nv". Rebooted and now the screensavers don't even work slowly. So I realized that if I was using Windows the driver would work and I'm be struggling with something else and realized that sometimes just aren't worth doing in Linux. *sigh*

---

Edit: reran SaX2 and it said 3D disabled (which I'm sure I enabled before... :mad: ) and it works now. The SolarWinds screensaver doesn'twork at all now... but all the others are a million times faster. I also get that lovely NVidia splash screen.No to figre how to turn that off and probably break it all over again!

[JohnT]

The nvidia installer does not change your XF86Config file in anyway. It only installs the driver and doc's. Any XF86Config editing to be done is manual, thats why I pointed you to the doc's.

[bsm2001]

Section "Device"
Identifier "device1"
VendorName "NVidia"
BoardName "NVIDIA GeForce FX 5600 Ultra"
Driver "nvidia"
Option "DPMS"
Option "NoLogo" "TRUE"
Option "NvAGP" "1"
Option "HWCursor" "TRUE"
Option "CursorShadow" "TRUE"
Option "CursorShadowAlpha" "75"
Option "CursorShadowXOffset" "10"
OPtion "CursorShadowYOffset" "5"
Option "TwinView" "TRUE"
OPtion "TwinViewOrientation" "RightOf"
Option "SecondMonitorHorizSync" "30-70"
Option "SecondMonitorVertRefresh" "50-120"
Option "MetaModes" "1280x1024,1280x1024"
EndSection

Thhis is the relevant part of my config.

[CaptainPinko]

Originally posted by JohnT
The nvidia installer does not change your XF86Config file in anyway. It only installs the driver and doc's. Any XF86Config editing to be done is manual, thats why I pointed you to the doc's.

Open up the /etc/X11/XF86Config file and you'll find

# Automatically generated by [ISaX] (4.8)
# PLEASE DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE!


Any editing must be done by SaX2 and not manually. SaX2's interface could use the most improvement IMHO. Where something like NoLogo is considered an "Expert Option". An it's not even obvious that NoLogo.

[JohnT]

I stand corrected .......I use a distro that allows one more control than behind the scenes auto-configuration, so I mistakenly assumed that most mainline distros where similar. No..all my editing is done manually.

[bsm2001]

see if there is an XF86Config-4 file. If so then edit that file. the order of file search should be XF86Config-4 if not available then XF86Config.