1.0-7667 for FreeBSD i386 released

[zander]

* Added support for the latest NVIDIA GPUs, including GeForce 7800 GTX and GeForce 6200 AGP.

* Added OpenGL 2.0 Support.

* Added initial support for Xinerama + OpenGL; see APPENDIX V in the Linux text README.

* Added support for the EXT_framebuffer_object OpenGL extension.

* Added NV-CONTROL support for manipulating DDC/CI settings; see the AllowDDCCI X config option in the Linux text README.

* Added support for GPU clock manipulation; see the "Coolbits" X config option documented in Appendix D.

* Improved support for Quadro FX 4000 SDI.

* Added support for NVIDIA Quadro G-Sync.

* Improved DPMS behavior on flatpanels.


Please see the 1.0-7664 and 1.0-7667 NVIDIA Accelerated Linux Graphics Driver Set release changelogs for a list of additional changes made since the 1.0-7174 NVIDIA Accelerated FreeBSD Graphics Driver Set release.

The 1.0-7667 NVIDIA Accelerated FreeBSD Graphics Driver Set for FreeBSD/i386 is available for download via HTTP (http://www.nvidia.com/object/freebsd_1.0-7667.html) and FTP (ftp://download.nvidia.com/freebsd/1.0-7667/).


Please note: the `nvidia-settings` utility can be built from source (available from ftp://download.nvidia.com/XFree86/nvidia-settings/) if the binary included in the 1.0-7667 .tar.gz package doesn't work (e.g. due to a ports/ library version conflict).

[Harvey Pooka]

Thank you for the driver update.

I created a patch for the port and submitted a PR. If anyone wants to try it out, here is the PR (http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=ports/82554).

[Radea]

Still no 64bit support?

[AlienZoo]

FreeBSD 5.4 i386; 6600 GT; AMD64 939 pin on Asus A8V Deluxe.

No matter what I do, cannot use NVidia AGP driver. Have followed instructions for disabling AGP device in kernel, but kernel module agp.ko is loaded as soon as nvidia.ko is loaded.

When starting X I get:

NVRM: AGP cannot be enabled on this combination of the AMD CPU and OS kernel
NVRM: kernel upgrade recommended.

Am I doing something stupid or is something not supported by the driver?

Thanks.

[raul_assis]

You are using a driver for 32 bit machine on a 64 bit machine. This will not work. Let us hope that Nvidia develops a driver for AMD64 :(

[zander]

@Alienzoo: this is a known problem with newer Athlon64 processors and the FreeBSD kernel; we're investigating a workaround for future NVIDIA FreeBSD graphics driver releases.

[AlienZoo]

@zander. Thanks for the information. I look forward to NVidia finding a resolution.

@raul_assis. Yes, let's hope for real AMD64 support, however I am running in 386 mode so I think chip "pretends" to be 32-bit.

[troll2]

Still no 64bit support?

And this was surprise for you? Perhaps you should not buy nVidia cards before you have free and open drivers for them.

[freebsd_daemon]

Still no 64bit support?

Some people say that an amd64-port will never be released. Is it true?

[signal3]

On Wednesday 13 July 2005 22:43, BW wrote:
> On Thu, 14 Jul 2005 04:18 am, owner-freebsd-stable@freebsd.org wrote:
> > On Wednesday 13 July 2005 10:26 am, KC wrote:
> > > Quoting BW <xxx@xxx.xx>:
> > > > To all my fellow FreeBSD users,
> > > >
> > > > I assume I am not the only one who is in this predicament. I
> > > > have just bought seven AMD 64s with NVIDIA PCI-X graphics. With
> > > > 5.4 I can get everything bar the network and X to work, with
> > > > 6.0 I can get the network to work also. However no matter what
> > > > I do I can't get X to work.
> > > >
> > > > Why doesn't NVIDIA make a graphics driver for FreeBSD AMD64.
> > > > They make one for
> > > > Linux x86-64 and one for FreeBSD-x86.
> > > >
> > > > Perhaps would could all post a message on nvforum. I see some
> > > > people already have.....
> > > >
> > > > Perhaps NVIDIA think FreeBSD is just a hobby OS......
> > >
> > > Last I heard, nvidia had no plans to make a FreeBSD amd64 driver.
> > > Just post that
> > > you're pissed about it like the rest of us are... maybe they'll
> > > reconsider.
> >
> > Not true. FreeBSD's kernel doesn't provide some things needed for
> > an amd64 driver to be feasible.
>
> Like what???? what are these features? and if they are really
> important why aren't they on the cards to be included into
> FreeBSD......

There are a few missing VM features that any high-performance graphics
card driver would require for decent performance with PCI Express. John
is working on adding those features - have patience.

:cool:

[kot]

There are a few missing VM features that any high-performance graphics
card driver would require for decent performance with PCI Express. John
is working on adding those features - have patience.


1) I don't have PCI Express. I have a "server" motherboard with AGP and PCI-X. What's the excuse for there not being a driver for these?

2) Which John?

[signal3]

First let me qualify this post by saying that I'm merely trying to pass on relevant information and I am by no means the final authority on any of this stuff. FFS, I don't even have an AMD64 - nor am I particularly familiar w/ the architecture. That being said...

1) I don't have PCI Express. I have a "server" motherboard with AGP and PCI-X. What's the excuse for there not being a driver for these?
C'mon bro, no one is making excuses here... we're looking for reasons. In any case, I'm under the impression that the cause is the same. That is... "FreeBSD's kernel doesn't provide some things needed for an amd64 driver to be feasible."

This statement doesn't mention AGP, PCI-X, PCI express, or any other bus for that matter - it simply says the FreeBSD kernel needs enhancements to make an AMD64 driver feasible. Thus, I would have to assume that all Nvidia cards (and quite possibly all high-performance graphics cards) on FreeBSD for AMD64 are adversely affected.


2) Which John?
I think the John you are looking for is here: http://www.baldwin.cx/~john/
But I'm not 100% sure.

It's my opinion that the most important thing mentioned in the communication is to "have patience". Nvidia clearly likes freebsd users (after all, we do have an i386 driver) and the FreeBSD project certainly has quite a number of capable developers. It should just be a matter of time.

Remember, the AMD64 platform isn't exactly "mainstream". A conservative guess is that x86 machines outnumber AMD64 machines by 100:1

Can we really expect the FreeBSD folks (or the Nvidia folks for that matter) to make this their top priority? If you really really want to use spankin' new hardware you're almost certainly better off running Windows or Linux. Of course, being an early adopter of any new technology has it's drawbacks. So, even though the Windows and Linux communities are much more zealous about supporting the "latest and greatest", I wouldn't be surprised if there were hic-ups in those environments too. I believe this to be caused by the [relative] infancy of the [AMD64] platform more than anything else.

I prefer giving credit to placing blame. As such, I have to take my hat off to Nvidia as well as FreeBSD because the i386 driver is pretty darn good IMHO. If this is any indicator, the AMD64 driver should be pretty darn good too (when it's released).

It's easy to point the finger at Nvidia and at the FreeBSD folks for the missing functionality. Unfortunately, it is also very easy to point the finger at the user who prematurely purchases a piece of hardware without investigating whether or not that hardware is supported in their operating system of choice.

Good things come to those who wait and I'm sure when/if AMD64 becomes more popular and moves further along the lifecycle it will be more broadly supported. Then again, AMD64 may lose the 64-bit battle to ia64 or sparc64 or who knows... alpha may make a resurgence. It's my belief that the jury is still out on this one, so putting your eggs in the AMD64 basket might not be such a good idea at this stage of the game.

Then again, I can be awefully pessemistic sometimes, and we just might see the precious AMD64 nvidia driver sooner than we think - cross your fingers!!

[kot]

This statement doesn't mention AGP, PCI-X, PCI express, or any other bus for that matter - it simply says the FreeBSD kernel needs enhancements to make an AMD64 driver feasible. Thus, I would have to assume that all Nvidia cards (and quite possibly all high-performance graphics cards) on FreeBSD for AMD64 are adversely affected.

It may be. And yet video-cards work on AMD64 (I'm typing this somehow). Even if some features aren't there yet, why can't I have even a decent 2D driver, that would support dual-head?

It's my opinion that the most important thing mentioned in the communication is to "have patience". Nvidia clearly likes freebsd users (after all, we do have an i386 driver) and the FreeBSD project certainly has quite a number of capable developers. It should just be a matter of time.

On this very board there are posts inquiring about FreeBSD/amd64, that are over a year old. And the only answer we are getting from NVidia is "no current plans, but do keep begging for it". Either they are lying (having plans, but denying it) or patience is not going to help.

Your theory (of loving NVidia being helpess in the face of the OS' shortcomings) completely falls apart, though, from another fact. NVidia's network adapter has no FreeBSD driver at all, and an apologist would also try to explain this by missing functionality in the OS. But FreeBSD folks made NVidia's Linux driver work -- on both i386 and amd64 (http://www.freshports.org/net/nvnet/)... Perhaps, NVidia should hire a few of these people -- just to improve its own pool of developers.

Remember, the AMD64 platform isn't exactly "mainstream". A conservative guess is that x86 machines outnumber AMD64 machines by 100:1

Linux/ia64 is not mainstream either. And I suspect, there are more FreeBSD/amd64 machines out there, than Solaris. Yet of all these "obscure" OSes, only FreeBSD/amd64 has no drivers.

It's easy to point the finger at Nvidia and at the FreeBSD folks for the missing functionality. Unfortunately, it is also very easy to point the finger at the user who prematurely purchases a piece of hardware without investigating whether or not that hardware is supported in their operating system of choice.

Oh, yes, right. Blame the victim... It is all my fault. I saw FreeBSD (i386) support and I saw amd64 support (Linux). How foolish it was of me to expect NVidia to have enough software talent to put the two together...

A FreeBSD user for the last 10 years, I'm used to hardware makers ignoring the OS. But the drivers got created anyway -- because there was enough painful demand for them. NVidia's partially available drivers make things worse for us -- users of obscure platforms... Not only do we have no "official" drivers, there is a lot less incentive for an "unofficial" (free or commercial) one to appear...

[signal3]

C'mon kot... whining and moaning won't help the situation any.

There are a myriad of valid reasons as to why there is no support for nvidia cards on FreeBSD/AMD64 yet. However, none of the reasons involve a conspiracy against FreeBSD/AMD64 users.

I'm pretty sure there is no support for nvidia cards on my old 200mhz Apple G3 running Darwin (which I still use on occasion), but you don't hear me crying about it. Why not... because I don't expect it to be supported.

This really comes down to an issue of managing expectations. As an early adopter of a new technology (i.e. the AMD64 architecture) you need to have realistic expectations. Think about it... AMD64 users (for now) are a tiny tiny minority. In addition, FreeBSD (on any architecture) is also a relatively small population. How can you honestly expect a top-notch driver on such a new and uncommon platform?

Referring to users as 'victims' is completely ridiculous. No one is holding a gun to your head and forcing you to run FreeBSD/AMD64 with an nvidia card. You have alternatives. If you are fed up with nvidia's lack of responsiveness then find another vendor (that will promise you what you want) and use their equipment. If you are fed up with FreeBSD/AMD64's lack of kernel functionality, then run Linux or Windows or Solaris or whatever makes sense for your situation. Better yet, you could add the features into the kernel yourself.

Undoubtedly, you've misinterpreted my statement regarding placing blame. I specifically said that I DON'T like to place blame and would rather give credit where credit is due. I don't like placing blame because the finger could so easily be pointed in nvidia's direction or FreeBSD's direction or the user's direction too, perhaps each is slightly to blame. No matter what, the fruits of a witchhunt are going to be spoiled. So, instead, I give credit to Nvidia and FreeBSD for providing FreeBSD/x86 drivers. This is a good thing. I don't see ATI releasing drivers for FreeBSD/x86 - do you?

Now, if we take a deep breath, think with our heads, and come back down to earth for a little while, we should see support soon enough... perhaps 3-6 month, perhaps a year. But, unless you break out your checkbook, find the right resources and make it your own priority you will certainly not get any guarantees.

Can you agree that we've beaten this dead horse enough? For crying out loud, every moment that we spend bickering could be spent researching the changes that are required of the kernel or reverse engineering other Nvidia drivers so that the hardware will be functional sooner rather than later.

In summary, you may have been using FreeBSD for 10 years, but you certainly haven't been using AMD64 for 10 years. And that is where the real difference lies. Intel x86 is a much more popular and mature platform than AMD64... this is the reason why a driver doesn't exist yet, plain and simple. As you said, "the drivers got created anyway -- because there was enough painful demand for them", unfortunately the demand for FreeBSD/AMD64 nvidia drivers just isn't as large as you think.

Trust me, I feel your pain, but for now we can only do one of two things - wait and see, or write the code ourselves.

Just my 2 cents

[kot]

C'mon kot... whining and moaning won't help the situation any.

Unfortunately, there is nothing else left possible...

[raul_assis]

Hi,
This is what John Baldwin had to say

On Monday 25 July 2005 11:24 am, raul_assis wrote:
> Hi John,
> I'm just a FreeBSD user that is greeving for not having Nvidia driver
> support for the amd64 platform. According to the thread
> http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=263c57fe3ca3c14861dd2166d2
>7591ec&t=52388 you are workingin providing features to the FreeBSD kernel
> that are needed for a driver to be implemented. So, I'm asking how is your
> work going? Since I'm a Computer Science graduate I think I could help in
> the coding stuff. I'd only need some background in FreeBSD's kernel.

It is coming. Unfortunately, I'm juggling several things at once. The
current work has more to do with reworking some how device mmap works.

[lanjoe9]

First of all thanks for the new driver.
Now, I've found a few details, the most important being, that since the 2 or 3 last releases I've been unable to set up TwinView in my laptop to work with the laptop's DFP and the CRT output (by the way this happens in linux also). I know my xorg config is ok because changing CRT-0 to TV-0 turns on the tv-out and the image comes correctly on both the TV and the DFP. I've written to the nvidia freebsd folks, first the e-mail just bounced and bounced, then it managed to get through, but anyway I never have had a reply or any sort of indication it was read or that the problem is being investigated. I hope someone who reads this can help me out.

My laptop is a toshiba 5205 s503, it has a nvidia 4 go 460 GPU with 32 MB.

[signal3]

I've been unable to set up TwinView in my laptop to work with the laptop's DFP and the CRT output (by the way this happens in linux also).
I had a similar problem with twinview on my desktop at one point. I eventually resolved my problem and posted the 2 working cfg files. I'm pretty sure that removing the "ConnectedMonitor" option fixed my problem, but your cfg doesn't seem to be using this option... go figure.

Anyway, if you wanna take a gamble, and try either of the cfgs you can find the post here:
http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=621156#post621156

BTW, I like to keep things simple and since I don't use alt-ctrl-+/- that often, I'm pretty sure the cfgs I posted only have one resolution in them (1280x1024 or 1280x960, can't remember now) - you may wanna edit that if your displays dont support it.

[splat]

Hi,

I've installed 1.0-7667 from the ports and I am pleased to say that now multi-card does work in some cases. The primary AGP card I'm using is MX4000 based, if the PCI cards are other than MX440 or MX4000 based (say FX5200) then the machine reboots as soon as X is started.

I can live with this by restricting the card choice, the biggest problem I have is that I want to use the TV ouput on ALL of the cards. The TV ouput from the second card is distorted - looks like the encoder is not being correctly set on the 2nd card. The VGA output on both cards is good, and the TV output on the first card is good as well. I've tried this under FreeBSD 5.4 and 6.0B2 with std. Xorg server and a snap version - same results for all cases. The only differenece being that under 6.0 I had to include hw.pci.allow_unsupported_io_range="1" in the start up config in order for the second card to be accessed.


Regards

[BrakezoneII]

FreeBSD 5.4 i386; 6600 GT; AMD64 939 pin on Asus A8V Deluxe.

No matter what I do, cannot use NVidia AGP driver. Have followed instructions for disabling AGP device in kernel, but kernel module agp.ko is loaded as soon as nvidia.ko is loaded.

When starting X I get:

NVRM: AGP cannot be enabled on this combination of the AMD CPU and OS kernel
NVRM: kernel upgrade recommended.

Am I doing something stupid or is something not supported by the driver?

Thanks.


I have the exact same issue, no matter what I do on the x86 driver in freebsd 5.4, the driver works fine but it registers as a PCI card and the performance is 30% worse than it probably should be and much worse with lots of graphics memory usage.

I've discussed it in the freebsdforums and nobody has had any answer; however, it must have something to do with socket 939 and agp.

[AlienZoo]

@BrakezoneII. Did you see the reply from Zander two below my post? Seems it's a question of wait and see. Issue persists in 1.0-7676. :(