FreeBSD-amd64 driver ?

[rnejdl]

I switched from the GT 220 back to the 9600 GT I had from my older PC and it can exit X windows without a kernel panic. It seems that the issue is due to something with the specific video card instead of something on the BSD side.

Rusty Nejdl
http://networking.ringofsaturn.com

[jnr]

If that is the case then maybe I should mention that my problem-free experience has been with an 8600GT.

Well, problem-free except I think the card might be a little underpowered for compiz and vdpau and all the other niceties at 3840x1200.

[mlobo]

No more host Freezes !!
------------------------------------------------------------------
Machine:

OS: FreeBSD 8.0-STABLE #0 r198930M: Sat Dec 12 12:49:49 BRT 2009
MB: AOD790GX/128M
VB: nvidia0: <GeForce 9800 GT> on vgapci0
RAM: 8 G
CPU: Phenom 955 black

(II) Module nvidia: vendor="NVIDIA Corporation"
compiled for 4.0.2, module version = 1.0.0
Module class: X.Org Video Driver
(II) NVIDIA dlloader X Driver 195.22 Mon Nov 30 14:03:12 posix/SystemV/PST
2009
(II) NVIDIA Unified Driver for all Supported NVIDIA GPUs

X: X.Org X Server 1.6.1
KDE: 4.3.4 with OpenGl composite enabled

VBOX: 3.1.2 OSE
------------------------------------------------------------------

Stability is back!. No more host freezes !

I found out that compiling the nvidia driver WITHOUT the linux_emulation
option did it! The instability and freeze issue with vbox+openGL active is
GONE!

As per the attached image, I have started:

2 XP
1 Win7 32
1 Win7 64
2 Win 2003
1 Fedora

Plus a few other kde apps.

Before doing this, if I started only one of the win7 VM, my host would
freeze!.

[rikrose]

Seems like it's card-specific for the moment...

[cervo]

When is next version of the amd64 driver released?

[zander]

Unfortunately, I can't say at this time. There are a few different stability problems that need to be investigated, and we have a list of functional improvements we need to make. Time is currently tight, but hopefully we'll be able to make some within the next few weeks.

[mlobo]

Well ... so much for my "No host freezes" excitement.

All it took to bring the freeze back again was an svn to the latest FBSD sources.

And I just don't want to go through the process of finding out which specific point in time and FBSD release allowed the stability. All I know is that it is located between December and January.

I'll just wait for the next nvidia revision.

[rnejdl]

Zander,

I saw that another i386 driver was released for FreeBSD but it doesn't look like any update for AMD64 yet. Do you have any ETA on when we might see something?

Thanks!
Rusty Nejdl
http://networking.ringofsaturn.com

[zander]

Not yet, no. FreeBSD/amd64 support fell behind due to Fermi and I don't feel comfortable releasing a new BETA driver until the crash-on-X-shutdown issue is understood. I did find a little bit of time to look at that particular problem last week, but while it's not as elusive anymore as it used to be (I found a way to reproduce it somewhat reliably and believe I have a reasonable idea as to what is happening), it's still unresolved. There also is some menial work to be done as a result of recent release branch transitions.

[Gnusix]

Originally Posted by zander

Not yet, no. FreeBSD/amd64 support fell behind due to Fermi and I don't feel comfortable releasing a new BETA driver until the crash-on-X-shutdown issue is understood. I did find a little bit of time to look at that particular problem last week, but while it's not as elusive anymore as it used to be (I found a way to reproduce it somewhat reliably and believe I have a reasonable idea as to what is happening), it's still unresolved. There also is some menial work to be done as a result of recent release branch transitions.

This is one problem (I do not have it with my NVS-135M). The other one that comes to my mind is the 4Gb barrier problem. Will you resolve it in the next driver release ? I think it would be very interesting to solve it, as 4Gb is a normal amount of memory in nowadays machines.

[rnejdl]

I am not sure what barrier problem you are referring to. I'm running with 12GB without issue. You have to go 64bit if you want to go to 4GB or above though but that's normal.

Rusty Nejdl

[zander]

I've tested the FreeBSD/amd64 driver internally on a system with 8GB of RAM and didn't see any problems specific to that system memory configuration. The Linux/x86-64 driver has been used on configurations with 64GB of RAM for a very long time, so there's a high level of confidence in the core driver. However, I haven't really had a chance to test PAE-enabled FreeBSD/i386 on large memory configurations.