Are there ANY working nVidia drivers for Quantal?

[bamyasi]

Hi,

I have just installed Kubuntu Desktop (amd64) on a new PC and was bitterly disappointed with the results. KDE is slow as a dog: attempts to drag a window causes it to jump over the screen, typing into a konsole terminal displays characters with 1 sec delay, etc. The computer has NVidia GeForce GT 610 card in it and I've tried each and every version of NVidia binary drivers I could find (current, current-updates, current-experimental and x-updates PPA) with no difference. Disabling desktop effects did not help either. The only way to get a fast system is to switch to open source drivers but they are extremely unstable. I can sort of use the system only with all desktop effects disabled and even then X Window server crashes every half an hour (vs. every 30 seconds with the effects enabled).

Is there any version of the nVidia driver that is stable when used with the recent nVidia cards? Is this a known problem? Where do I report this bug?

Thanks,
bamyasi

[whatthefunk]

I have a GeForce 550 ti, use driver version 304.51 and it works fine. No issues at all. In a terminal find out which version you are currently using.

nvidia-settings --version

You can find out which drivers will work with your card here:
http://www.geforce.com/drivers

[oshunluvr]

Yes

[bamyasi]

I have a GeForce 550 ti, use driver version 304.51 and it works fine. No issues at all. In a terminal find out which version you are currently using.

nvidia-settings --version

I'll do, as soon as I get back to work tomorrow. Looks like my student has shut down the system before leaving so I cant ssh into it now...

You can find out which drivers will work with your card here:
http://www.geforce.com/drivers

It says 310.19 but it looks like this release has not been packaged for Quantal yet. I am not brave enough to attempt a manual installation I'm afraid.

Thanks

[Spadge]

spadge@Jupiter:~$ nvidia-settings --version

nvidia-settings:  version 310.19  (buildd@litembilla)  Tue Nov 13 23:04:41 UTC 2012
  The NVIDIA X Server Settings tool.

  This program is used to configure the NVIDIA Linux graphics driver.
  For more detail, please see the nvidia-settings(1) man page.

  Copyright (C) 2004 - 2010 NVIDIA Corporation.

spadge@Jupiter:~$ uname -a
Linux Jupiter 3.7.0-4-generic #12-Ubuntu SMP Wed Nov 28 09:30:01 UTC 2012 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

I'm on Quantal, nv660ti.

[schnelle]

Try with disabling oxygen animations. On many graphic cards/drivers they cause choppy desktop effects. One oxygen animatons cripples desktop effects more then others: "Window active state change transitions" http://www.dodaj.rs/f/35/iS/4mtkHq33/1/snapshot105.png

Press alt+f2 and type oxygen-settings and turn off animations and see if it helps.

[luckyone]

There_may_be_something_else_going_on_with_this. --My_old_7300GS_handles_things_well.--Including_most_effects._I'm_using_the_304.51_drive r_here.

[Spadge]

There_may_be_something_else_going_on_with_this. --My_old_7300GS_handles_things_well.--Including_most_effects._I'm_using_the_304.51_drive r_here.

That hurts my bRanes.

[GreyGeek]

My Acer Aspire V3-771G has two video chips. The first is an Intel HD Graphics chip and the second is an NVIDIA GT 650M. Unfortunately, the BIOS does not allow me to disable the Intel chip so that the NVIDIA chip is the one detected and configured.

However, BumbleBee (in the repository) offers a driver for the NVIDIA chip. After it is installed a binary called "optirun" is available. I edited my menu and prefixed each command with "optirun " for those apps that I want to run using the NVIDIA chip. Works perfectly. Glxspheres gives me around 180 fps. When I run Minecraft it show about 50-60 fps. Using a cheat like X-Ray, which causes many video chips to start lagging in Minecraft, doesn't slow down my Minecraft game at all.

[bamyasi]

Is this a separate setting from the System Settings->Desktop Effects->All Effects tab? Because when I disable effects completely under System Settings->Desktop Effects->General the KDE desktop is still very choppy and even typing in konsole characters are echoed with noticeable delay.

[dmeyer]

Thus guide is for an older version but worked fine on an install I recently did.

http://dragly.org/2012/05/04/install...kubuntu-12-04/

[GreyGeek]

Enabling Desktop Effects is turning on 3D acceleration. In my Acer the Integrated Intel HD chip gives KDE satisfactory acceleration, but the BumbleBee app gives me the ability to run very demanding graphic apps with the better NVIDIA video chip, which is roughtly 3X or faster than the Intel Chip. You can download BumbleBee from the repository. BUT, if you BIOS allows you to disable your primary video chip then you can do so and Upstart will detect the NVIDIA chip. In that case you might find the NVIDIA binary driver your best option, buy YMMV.

[dmeyer]

Enabling Desktop Effects is turning on 3D acceleration. In my Acer the Integrated Intel HD chip gives KDE satisfactory acceleration, but the BumbleBee app gives me the ability to run very demanding graphic apps with the better NVIDIA video chip, which is roughtly 3X or faster than the Intel Chip. You can download BumbleBee from the repository. BUT, if you BIOS allows you to disable your primary video chip then you can do so and Upstart will detect the NVIDIA chip. In that case you might find the NVIDIA binary driver your best option, buy YMMV.

I also use Bumblebee. Do you use Bumblebee with VirtualGL or Primus?I know there are a host of benefits to Primus but I just can't be bothered right now to have to mess with a perfect install. Bumblebee is amazing. I actually think its a better implementation than what Windows has even though its just a workaround. With Primus it becomes even more so! Pity we still have issues with some games.

[bamyasi]

GreyGeek, dmeyer: I don't think BumbleBee discussion is relevant to this thread. We are talking about a desktop PC with discreet PCI video card. Specifically, this model:

# lspci -v | grep -A1 VGA
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation GF119 [GeForce GT 610] (rev a1) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
Subsystem: Giga-byte Technology Device 3546

We recently purchased 4 desktops with these cards. If I am the only one experiencing problems with Nvidia drivers and KDE desktop in Kubuntu/QQ then I will certainly request my vendor to replace the cards. They are a local company with good support for Linux but I was hoping for some simple solution to avoid RMA. I appreciate any feedback but please do not try to hijack this thread.

Thanks,
bamyasi

[GreyGeek]

GreyGeek,.....We are talking about a desktop PC with discreet PCI video card. Specifically, this model:

# lspci -v | grep -A1 VGA
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation GF119 [GeForce GT 610] (rev a1) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
Subsystem: Giga-byte Technology Device 3546

.... but please do not try to hijack this thread.

Whoa, partner, pull in the "touchie feely" hairs. No one was trying "hijack" this thread. I didn't notice the reference to "desktop". Thinking you had a laptop I was merely pointing out what I found to be the case on my laptop, which has an "integrated" Intel VGA chip and a second NVidia VGA chip, as shown below. Since my laptop does not have a BIOS switch to turn off the Intel chip the only way I can get access to the NVidia chip is with BumbleBee. I thought you may be in the same situation.

lspci | grep VGA00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller (rev 09)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation Device 0fd1 (rev ff)