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**dibl** · Jul 19, 2007, 04:29 PM

Re: Any recommendations for my xorg.conf file?

Well, you've got TWO cards and monitors working, so you're already doing things I've never done -- Linux or Windows, for that matter.

It looks like a clean, well-organized xorg.conf file. As far as you can tell, are the graphics performing pretty much at the full capabilities of those chips? Does that GeF 4 have glx capabilities? I'm pretty sure the SiS chip does not, but I'm not the expert on that one.

**SheeEttin** · Jul 19, 2007, 04:33 PM

Re: Any recommendations for my xorg.conf file?

Originally posted by Death Kitten

option "ForceDevice" "ISDV4"# Tablet PC ONLY

If you insist on changing something that isn't broken... it says only, so does it work better without it?

**DeathKitten** · Jul 19, 2007, 05:20 PM

Re: Any recommendations for my xorg.conf file?

Originally posted by dibl

Well, you've got TWO cards and monitors working, so you're already doing things I've never done -- Linux or Windows, for that matter.

It looks like a clean, well-organized xorg.conf file. As far as you can tell, are the graphics performing pretty much at the full capabilities of those chips? Does that GeF 4 have glx capabilities? I'm pretty sure the SiS chip does not, but I'm not the expert on that one.

I'm really not sure what the capabilities of the two video cards are, I got both of them second hand from friends. I'll google up and see what I can find for specs on both though and report back. The only real thing that stands out is when I turn the Packard Bell monitor on after multiple hours of non-use, it can take it a minute or three to stop looking fuzzy, and forcing it to degauss doesn't make any difference.

There is something wrong on the main monitor, and I'm not sure if it's a combination of sound driver and video drivers or just one or the other, but when I play back a video on the main screen (Vibrant/SiS) I get all sorts of sound interference and feedback, but if I move the video to the second monitor the sound problems go away. This happens across media players, and sometimes even becomes a problem with embedded media in the web browser and other frequently updating gui items.

Originally posted by SheeEttin

Originally posted by Death Kitten

option "ForceDevice" "ISDV4"# Tablet PC ONLY

If you insist on changing something that isn't broken... it says only, so does it work better without it?

Do we know what that line is supposed to do? After I research the graphics cards I have to provide some specs, I can give that a go.

**dibl** · Jul 19, 2007, 05:26 PM

Re: Any recommendations for my xorg.conf file?

Originally posted by Death Kitten

The only real thing that stands out is when I turn the Packard Bell monitor on after multiple hours of non-use, it can take it a minute or three to stop looking fuzzy, and forcing it to degauss doesn't make any difference.

I'll spare you the sensitive treatment, DK -- that's a cheap old monitor and it performs like, er ..... a cheap old monitor!

**DeathKitten** · Jul 19, 2007, 05:34 PM

Re: Any recommendations for my xorg.conf file?

Originally posted by dibl

Originally posted by Death Kitten

The only real thing that stands out is when I turn the Packard Bell monitor on after multiple hours of non-use, it can take it a minute or three to stop looking fuzzy, and forcing it to degauss doesn't make any difference.

I'll spare you the sensitive treatment, DK -- that's a cheap old monitor and it performs like, er ..... a cheap old monitor!

Good thing I wasn't the one who bought it then. It's a hand me down from the mother's boyfriend who was just going to throw it away, so I decided to see if I could get the dual monitor set up running. No big though, I was just hoping there might be something I could do to coax it into playing nicer.

**SheeEttin** · Jul 19, 2007, 05:39 PM

Re: Any recommendations for my xorg.conf file?

Whoa. My post disappeared.

Anyway, it's probably electromagnetic interference from a CRT. Speakers manufactured in the last several years are magnetically shielded. Depending on how old they are, this may be the cause.

**DeathKitten** · Jul 19, 2007, 05:50 PM

Re: Any recommendations for my xorg.conf file?

Originally posted by SheeEttin

Whoa. My post disappeared.

Anyway, it's probably electromagnetic interference from a CRT. Speakers manufactured in the last several years are magnetically shielded. Depending on how old they are, this may be the cause.

The speakers I'm currently using are fairly recent, Creature II from JBL Their user manual specifies they are magnetically shielded, even the subwoofer.

The Packard Bell monitor just looks somewhat pixelated, and the display doesn't stretch to fill the whole screen until it's warmed up a few minutes. I'm inclined to believe the "It's a cheap old monitor" theory provided by dibl.

Also, I'm pretty sure there are either conficts or problems with the sound driver that's causing the problem when watching videos on the Vibrant monitor.

**DeathKitten** · Jul 19, 2007, 06:03 PM

Re: Any recommendations for my xorg.conf file?

Okay, now I'm confused as to what I have for video cards. I googled SiS 6326 to find out anything I could about it, and everything I got back talked about AGP and an RCA jack for TV input. The card is an old PCI video card that a friend had laying around and shipped to me.

The NVIDIA card is in the AGP slot, and googling supports that the GeForce4 cards are AGP, but I don't know ~which~ card it is, as I said it is a second hard card from someone else.

I suppose if I want to continue on this xorg.conf optimization adventure, I get to pull apart my computer and figure out just what I have. The person I got the NVIDIA card from, I don't talk to anymore because he was getting creepy and kinda scaring me a bit. The SiS card, my friend I got that one from probably wouldn't even remember what it was other than PCI and video card. meh.

**dibl** · Jul 19, 2007, 06:09 PM

Re: Any recommendations for my xorg.conf file?

wait wait -- before you attack that PC with a screwdriver, what does your KMenu>System>KInfocenter say about the graphics chips?

**DeathKitten** · Jul 19, 2007, 06:25 PM

Re: Any recommendations for my xorg.conf file?

Pretty much all the information I have right now has come from various KDE components. Pulling up KInfoCenter, it won't let me copy and paste out of the PCI section. Meh. I didn't want to have to hand type that much crap. *grumble*grumble*kicks whoever made kInfoCenter not let her copy and paste*

Code:

00:0d.0 VGA compatable controler: Silicon Intergrated Systems [SiS] 86C326 5598/6326 (rev 0b) (prog-if 00 [VGA])
 Subsystem: Silicon Intergrated Systems [SiS] SiS6326 GUI Accelerator
 Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 32
 Memory at ee800000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=8M]
 Memory at e2000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=64K]
 I/O ports at 9800 [size=128]
 Expansion ROM at 50040000 [disabled] [size=64K]
 Capabilities: <access denied>

01:00.0 VGA compatable controller: nVidia Corporation NV25 [GeForce4 Ti 4200] (rev a3) (prog-if 00 [VGA])
 Subsystem: XFX Pine Group Inc. Unknown device 1214
 Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 248, IRQ 18
 Memory at e7000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16M]
 Memory at f0000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=128M]
 Memory at ef800000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=512K]
 [virtual] Expansion ROM at ef7e0000 [disabled] [size=128K]
 Capablities: <access denied>

**dibl** · Jul 19, 2007, 06:59 PM

Re: Any recommendations for my xorg.conf file?

Well, here's good news -- Nvidia says their latest driver will run that GeF4 ti 4200:

http://www.nvidia.com/object/IO_18897.html

So, theoretically you could download Envy, install it, and end up with the 3D accelerated driver, running Beryl eye-candy.

I'm guessing the friend that gave you that card would be chagrined to see that!

**DeathKitten** · Jul 19, 2007, 07:11 PM

Re: Any recommendations for my xorg.conf file?

The former friend who gave me the card runs Windows, so he wouldn't know what he's missing. Until I get a little faster processor and more RAM, I'm not looking at doing fancy pants stuff with my desktop. 1.6gHz processor, and 1GB of RAM only seems to be making due right now. The annoying thing with the RAM is I also gave myself 1GB swap space, and the RAM is almost always 90-something % in use, and the swap is almost always less than 10%.

**DeathKitten** · Jul 19, 2007, 07:21 PM

Re: Any recommendations for my xorg.conf file?

I have the nvidia-glx package currently installed. What's the difference between that and the nvidia-glx-new package?

**dibl** · Jul 19, 2007, 07:25 PM

Re: Any recommendations for my xorg.conf file?

nvidia-glx has the -9631 driver, if memory serves. nvidia-glx-new has the -9755 driver. Envy installs the 100.14.11 driver (newer). But I don't know what difference it makes on your GeF4 ti4200 card.

I don't think the graphics load of Beryl will hit your CPU too hard -- it's mostly the GPU that does the work.

I know about the swap thing. I have the luxury of 4GB of RAM, and I've never seen 1 byte of my 1GB swap used -- I think I could have saved the space.

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Any recommendations for my xorg.conf file?

Any recommendations for my xorg.conf file?

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