low performance of Nvidia driver under Redhat 8

[rowens01]

I downloaded and installed the latest driver for my GForce 4 Mx card from the site and went through the steps as outlined. The driver is definitly there because I get the splash screen when X starts up and I checked the OpenGl acceleration and that appears to be working fine. However the 2D performance still sucks and it acts like it is still in VESA mode even though the control panel shows it is using the "nvidia" driver. Also when I try to specify any options in the XF86Config file for the card X won't start. Anyone seen this behavior? What the heck is going on?

I am able to run the driver using the 2.4.18 kernel but the newer .27 kernel will not accept the driver.

[Cheshiremackat]

if you are using the 4193 driver, there are known 2d issues! See the Official redhat 8.0 thread at the top of the page...

If you are confident enough to build from source you can use the older 3123 drivers built from source, a minor difference in 3d performance, but a major increase in 2D performance...

Anyway see the above thread for a full discussion.

_CMK

[Wolfman [TWP]]

In what way can one tell if the 2D performance sucks??

I haven't really noticed any difference in the 3123 & 4191 drivers. With the exception of the 3D performance increase in the 4191 drivers.

Wolf

[rowens01]

yep I think I am using the newer 4 series driver. I noticed another individual asked how I could tell the performance in 2D was poor and the answer is it is quite obvious when you attempt to drag windows around the screen. There is a noticable lag and the window redraw is sluggish.

Will the standard Geforce "nv" driver work with the Geforce 4 cards? I noticed when I used the Xconfigurator utility (or it's newer equivalent) it probed the card at Generic Geforce 4 with the VESA driver.

If I pop in my older Geforce 2 GTS card would that work better in 2D mode? I have been out of the Linux scene for a couple of years so I am unsure what level the Nvidia cards are supported.

Thanks for your responses.

[Wolfman [TWP]]

I noticed another individual asked how I could tell the performance in 2D was poor and the answer is it is quite obvious when you attempt to drag windows around the screen. There is a noticable lag and the window redraw is sluggish.

Ok thanks. I guess that's why I haven't really noticed, as I don't move windows around that often.

Wolf

[Cheshiremackat]

Just use the 3123 driver, I *think* the Nvidia drivers are better/faster than the nv or VESA ones... just build from source... I'm using 8.0 and the 3123 and have no complaints...

_CMK

[Cheshiremackat]

Just use the 3123 driver, I *think* the Nvidia drivers are better/faster than the nv or VESA ones... just build from source... I'm using 8.0 and the 3123 and have no complaints...

_CMK

[bwkaz]

Originally posted by rowens01
Will the standard Geforce "nv" driver work with the Geforce 4 cards? I noticed when I used the Xconfigurator utility (or it's newer equivalent) it probed the card at Generic Geforce 4 with the VESA driver. Only if you use XFree86 4.3.0. 4.2.1 and earlier (basically, any distro out now) have a version of the "nv" driver that only works with GF3 and lower cards.

If I pop in my older Geforce 2 GTS card would that work better in 2D mode? Not with 4191 -- AFAICT the performance drop is across-the-board.

There have been reports, though, of it helping to set the background to a solid color rather than a pixmap. Maybe worth a shot?

[rowens01]

Hmmm well it sounds like the 3123 driver is probably the best bet. That is really pretty shoddy of Nvidia to release a driver though that can't do 2D worth a damn. I mean that is pretty basic functionality that should be there. The other thing that was a real nuisance was the driver doesn't work with the latest kernel. So if I want to use it at all I have to stick with the older 2.4.18 kernel which stinks. Maybe I should dig through my pile of video cards and throw in an old Voodoo or S3 card but damn it would be nice to use newer hardware. Thanks to all for the excellent feedback.

[bwkaz]

Which "latest kernel" doesn't it work with? Works fine for me with 2.4.20 plus -preempt and the ptrace exploit fix that was posted to lkml the other day...

Do you mean the kernel used in RH's latest beta, Phoebe? If so, you're right, it doesn't work with that.

[rowens01]

I believe it was 2.4.18_27 from what I remember off the top of my head...my machine is at work so I don't have it here with me at the moment. I got it via the built in update mechanism in RedHat so I assume it downloaded the latest and greatest. In any case when I tried to install the Nvidia driver against the newer kernel I got an error stating that the driver was written for an older kernel version and that it was not compatible with the newer version I was attempting to install against.

[bwkaz]

That's easy enough to fix -- just get the .src.rpm (or the .tar.gz, if you're me), install the kernel source for 2.4.18-27.whatever the rest of the version is, and recompile the nVidia kernel module.