GeForce4 framebuffer driver soon?

[roger]

Does anyone know if there is/will be a GF4 linux framebuffer driver soon? The rivafb one doesn't support it and vesafb is too damn slow.

[bwkaz]

Too slow for what? I don't do anything with it other than run the console driver, and there, I don't see any problems at all.

You aren't running X in VESA mode, are you? :p

[floam]

all I use mine for is so my console looks nice till x starts, what do you need much speed for? I know mplayer can run on a fb and maybe anti x people may use that or somthing, blah dunno

[roger]

I'm not a fan of X so I tend to stick to the console. Nothing better than having vi on one console and fbtv on another :)

[bwkaz]

OK, fbtv then.

Like I said, I think the console (with vim running, for example -- I assume by vi you meant, actually, vim, since you need a Unix source license to be able to get the original vi to work on Linux ;) ) is quite fast enough.

But there are X-based TV programs, right? As much as you don't like X, wouldn't an X TV program be faster than a nonsupported framebuffer TV program?

Although, if your objection to X has nothing to do with speed, then what I said makes no sense. So if that's the case, never mind... ;)

[rshortt]

Roger and others looking for rivafb support on geforce4 cards (maybe more),

I also have a geforce4 (MX-440) and am in real need of framebuffer support, mainly because I want my Freevo setup to use it. See: http://freevo.sf.net

I was searching the kernel mailing list archives and came accross this message:
http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-kernel&m=103702012201441&w=2

Which leads to this kernel patch for 2.4.19:
http://rain.prohosting.com/scftpd/rivafb-richards1.diff.gz

I think it would be cool if people here could give that a try and let others here know how well it works for you. I am not having much luck but I am also using my television as my only display. I am wondering if it works correctly with a real monitor.

-Rob

[tommygunner]

rshortt,

I also have Geoforce 4 440 and plan on using it solely for freevo. Did you get the driver thing figured out? If so, how is your output to TV quality?

I was thinking of Geoforce 4 or Radeon 7000 and ended up with Geoforce.

[rshortt]

The patched rivafb driver will only work for me with accelleration turned off, which makes it pointless, better to use vesafb. Also rivafb has absolutely NO support for the tv-out aspects of the board so that is a no go.

So, running freevo through X is your only option if you want any hardware accelleration. You may want to try the vesa framebuffer driver but things may bog down your CPU since it will be doing all of the work. I am still running everything through X and the quality is not bad but I know that it could be way better.

If only nvidia would get their heads out of their damn asses!!! They have superior hardware than other vendors but insist on all this closed source BS, which makes their hardware perform worse than compettitor's 4-year old discontinued products who had opened their specifications to developers. I am refering to Matrox and their G400.

I am really close to picking up an old G400 but still maintain some glimmer of hope that something good will happen between nvidia and the linux community.

Woo! That rant felt good. Just a little bitter about buying advanced hardware and expecting advanced quality and stuff. :)

-Rob