New Nvidia Graphics Card

[MoonRise]

Any words of Wisdom out there for this? I'm getting this in a couple of days:

EVGA 01G-P3-N945-LR GeForce 9400 GT 1GB DDR2 PCI-E 2.0 Graphics Card


Cant Wait!!!!

[dibl]

Re: New Nvidia Graphics Card

Well, Merry Christmas, Moon!

It's a nice card. I've had two EVGA Nvidia cards -- presently running a 9600GT. I'm running the 180.18 Beta driver, and it works beautifully, but getting past the boot splash is a PITA. A boot option that will show the Kubuntu splash screen properly, but not always boot straight into the GUI, is "xforcevesa". A boot option that will break the Kubuntu splash into two pieces, while booting perfectly into the GUI, is "vga=788". Other "vga=" options seem to do about the same with the splash. I've been busy and just settled for the 788 option -- it gets me to the desktop faster.

Your mileage may vary ......

But the display is great -- no problems with any of KDE 4.2 video stuff.

[MoonRise]

Re: New Nvidia Graphics Card

Yep, been waiting for a good deal and found this on Tiger. Thanks for the info. That will help. Glad to see the VGA GRUB setting still works. That is probably what I'll use. Glad to know how KDE4.2 works. Is Envy (may have mis-spelled that) in the Repos or is it better to download that elsewhere? I also got a Hauppauge USB WinTV- tuner to play with. Have you heard of anyone using this in a Linux system?

[dibl]

Re: New Nvidia Graphics Card

Yep, I've got a Hauppauge PVR-150 laying in a box here somewhere. It served its purpose last year when I was digitizing my old VHS tapes of kids, and I haven't used it since. Way back in the "How-Tos" I wrote a piece on how to set up -- probably that was Feisty or so.

In the repos is envyng-qt. That's the one you want for Kubuntu. Just let it pick the latest released driver, unless you want to go for the downloaded beta driver, from here:

http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=122606

[MoonRise]

Re: New Nvidia Graphics Card

Thanks, Dibl! Looking forward to some fun!

[kbunt]

Re: New Nvidia Graphics Card

So, envy is still the program to use if upgrading or installing the latest (beta or otherwise, updated one") video driver regardless of whether it's nvidia or ati?

If you are physically upgrading or switching in a new card, what do you do? I am just curious. I wonder if you need to switch to VESA or whether the currently installed driver can detect a change of card. This is of course, assuming to stick with ati or nvidia.

Where are manual instructions found? I tried to find the sticky but couldn't find one. I didn't find one in the Ubuntu forums either but I didn't look very hard. I am mostly curious. I would like to have the info handy, though.

[MoonRise]

Re: New Nvidia Graphics Card

Well, first I installed envyng-qt. Which was a good thing because after putting the new card in and letting it boot straight through will give you your login screen, but once you try to log in it goes south. So instead of logging into the Desktop, I logged into terminal. From there I ran envyng and choose textual install. Rebooted and logged into the desktop...Happy Camper! Did some clean up. unfortunatly my monitor doesn't accept a DVI connection, just VGA. The converter evidently doesn't allow correct communication with the monitor to determine correct resolutions. So at the moment I don't have my 1440x900. I did find one that gives a good feel, so I may keep it at that. This is one sweet card!!! Boy what a difference from Intel embedded.

[dibl]

Re: New Nvidia Graphics Card

Cool!

@kbunt, my one experience swapping in a new card was basically to do it like so:

1. Reconfigure to a VESA display, lower resolution, like 1024 x 768.
2. Remove old card and install new card.
3. Boot the system and (hopefully) observe same VESA display.
4. Run envyng and install Nvidia driver.

But, with EnvyNG installed on the system, it really doesn't frighten me to boot to the CLI. You just run envyng with the -t option, and install your driver, and proceed on your way. It happens with new kernels anyway.

My 9600GT is kind of a pain to get through the boot screens -- worse than my 8800GTS, and that one was worse than my 7900GT. At present, I'm using the vga=788 option, which screws up the Kubuntu splash screen, but boots straight into the GUI. If I use the "xforcevesa" option, the Kubuntu splash looks good, but half the time KDM crashes trying to load the GUI and leaves me at a tty prompt (after waiting several minutes for the graphics card to beep and give up). Being a person who doesn't spend much time looking at the splash screen, I'm not inclined to spend time fiddling with the many other possible combinations of boot options -- there might be one that will display the splash properly and still be happy with KDM. :P

[MoonRise]

Re: New Nvidia Graphics Card

Well, this new card is great! What a difference between this and what is built on-board. Nothing against Intel or other embedded GDs, but something can be said about the differences. I still don't have my full resolution and can't get it to even say it's available. While poking around I found that the NVidia configuration program reports my flat screen as "CRT-0 (CRT-0)". Is that normal? Shouldn't it be detected as a Flat instead of a CRT?

[dibl]

Re: New Nvidia Graphics Card

Yep, a real graphics system is a whole lot more than a chip on the motherboard, huh?

OK, I'm not experienced with LCDs, but here's what my GF 9600GT found, as it appears in xorg.conf:

Section "Monitor"

# HorizSync source: edid, VertRefresh source: edid
Identifier "Monitor0"
VendorName "Unknown"
ModelName "Samsung SyncMaster"
HorizSync 30.0 - 130.0
VertRefresh 50.0 - 160.0
Option "DPMS"
EndSection

This is part of what gets written when you run nvidia-xconfig after the driver is installed.

So, whatever yours found and configured is probably right for your LCD panel, I would think. Unless Mr. Google turns up something better.

Here's the other important section -- do you know about "Coolbits"?

Section "Device"
Identifier "Device0"
Driver "nvidia"
Option "IgnoreDisplayDevices" "TV"
Option "Coolbits" "1"
Option "RandRRotation" "1"
Option "AddARGBGLXVisuals" "1"
Option "TripleBuffer" "disable"
Option "DynamicTwinView" "enable"
#BusID "PCI:1:0:0"
VendorName "NVIDIA Corporation"
BoardName "GeForce 9600 GT"
EndSection

[MoonRise]

Re: New Nvidia Graphics Card

Coolbits? No.

I had to use a DVI to VGA adapter. I think that is why my monitor isn't detected correctly. I'll play with the DPMS setting you had there.

[andybleaden]

Re: New Nvidia Graphics Card

Well I just tried the envy programme out over the holidays as I was having awful troubles with my ati radeon 2400 card and tried all sorts to fix it...usually ending in going back to vesa and plug and play after swearing at the display in front of me ( usually giant screen character grr!

Followed someones helpful advice and downloaded the envy set up I waited a day to install it as I was rather tired of restarting and having to unplug graphic cards plug into other sockets, resetting etc etc. ( ok I was grumpy!)

Set up envy running and it started straight away to unintall bits and pieces in a pop up terminal ( agghhh!...panic!) but carried on installing new stuff over the top..( double panic aggh!)and then I had to do a restart which had to wait a few secs for auto config, flashed abit a .................it worked!! Yippee!. Went to the system settings and the graphics card was recognized as an ati with a flgrx driver (or which ever way round it is supposed to be) .

My screen size was right first time and more importantly with the fglrxinfo command at terminal gave me the correct info about my graphics card for the first time including make model etc which showed me success for the first time since I had bought the pc.

Next evening after some updates I even mananged to intall and get compiz working...AT LAST it works. I get 3d spinning desktops and all that...which is ace. Now to see if I can sort out a nice install of Intrepid.

SO envy worked for me on this occassion.

[kbunt]

Re: New Nvidia Graphics Card

Cool!

@kbunt, my one experience swapping in a new card was basically to do it like so:

1. Reconfigure to a VESA display, lower resolution, like 1024 x 768.
2. Remove old card and install new card.
3. Boot the system and (hopefully) observe same VESA display.
4. Run envyng and install Nvidia driver.

But, with EnvyNG installed on the system, it really doesn't frighten me to boot to the CLI. You just run envyng with the -t option, and install your driver, and proceed on your way. It happens with new kernels anyway.

My 9600GT is kind of a pain to get through the boot screens -- worse than my 8800GTS, and that one was worse than my 7900GT. At present, I'm using the vga=788 option, which screws up the Kubuntu splash screen, but boots straight into the GUI. If I use the "xforcevesa" option, the Kubuntu splash looks good, but half the time KDM crashes trying to load the GUI and leaves me at a tty prompt (after waiting several minutes for the graphics card to beep and give up). Being a person who doesn't spend much time looking at the splash screen, I'm not inclined to spend time fiddling with the many other possible combinations of boot options -- there might be one that will display the splash properly and still be happy with KDM. :P

Hey, so dibl, are you recommending upgrading to the Nvidia 180 version driver?

I was wondering if I should upgrade KDE to 4.2 as well. The concern is having two 'beta' (Nvidia driver is not a release, is it?) versions that deal with GRAPHICS! It sounds very risky.

I'm not really sure how to upgrade KDE either. I have been shown links but it's mostly been about descriptions of the upgrades but not really instructions. Unless I missed something.

Also, I assume I just use envyNG to upgrade the nvidia driver to 180 (from 177) even though I used the native Ubuntu Hardware Drivers program to install 177.80. I had to install the drivers upon the original/initial install of the OS, IIRC.

I'm willing to try all this (on an experimental system) but if I install on the current OS, I would like to read/know of a few experiences of users saying their system is okay and not displaying bugs left, right and center. I'm putting up with the strange flickering so far and that's enough for me for now.

[dibl]

Re: New Nvidia Graphics Card

The Nvidia beta 180.18 driver is working great on my 9600GT and Samsung CRT monitor -- so yeah, I would recommend it for someone who is having troubles with earlier driver versions.

However, you can't install beta drivers with EnvyNG -- it only supports released drivers. So I think 177.82 is as new as you can get with EnvyNG. If that one works for you, then fine, but if it has issues, then you might want to try the downloaded beta driver.

If you haven't used the downloaded driver/installer, I will give you fair warning that it can be a little tricky (that's why there's EnvyNG!).

As far as upgrading to KDE 4.2 -- well, good luck. Mine has seemed quite stable for weeks now, but there are other reports ....

[MoonRise]

Re: New Nvidia Graphics Card

Yea!!! Don't know exactly what I did. I did add your stuff and cleaned the XORG file from "conflicting" entries before running the NVidia Configuration tool and it reported everything perfectly. Had it create a new file and saved over the old and rebooted and it is sticking so far!! Cool!! Now if i can just get that darn WinTV 850 working. Again, as always, Thanks Dibl!