FreeBSD x64 NVIDIA DRIVER - now possible

[srinivas]

Now with TLS (thread-local storage) and GART support well supported for FreeBSD-amd64/6.0-STABLE, with Linux x86-64 and FreeBSD x86 supported, it seems that there is no reason that there should not be a FreeBSD x86-64 driver, as the community is growing, and those in this forum only represent a small minority of the total FreeBSD AMD64 users with NVIDIA (we all know open-sourcers love NVIDIA_; exp. that now the 7800 is the BEST GRAPHICS CARD, AMD64 - the BEST PROCESSOR; FreeBSD - the BEST OS).

Because of this, I am forced to use the x86 version of FreeBSD (I need 3d graphics b/c I use them a lot and hope my 64 bit addressing will save me sometime). It is not that the FreeBSD Kernel (or any other kernel) support 32 bit drivers, so it seems that we need a 64 bit driver for the best processing and best graphics possible (with X.Org).

[Forge]

I heard Nvidia was waiting on some memory management controls to be added. Can anyone @nvidia.com comment on this? If there is something yet to be done on the BSD side, I'd like to go bug the BSD devs instead, but if there's nothing left pending on their side, Nvidia should really get on this.

[AnXa]

BSD isn't that good for gaming, but better server than most of the servers in market... ^^;

..thought I prefer GNU more than anything.

[arokh]

Why are you running 64-bit on workstations anyways? I don't get it.

[Marcin Komar]

FreeBSD is still missing the PAT feature
On freebsd lists John Baldwin (jhb@) told me: http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/f...er/057808.html

"It's not finished, no. The WIP is being done in the p4_pat branch (though it has some crud in it now that probably isn't needed). For more info about PAT and memory caching modes on x86 including MTRR's, etc. you can go download the vol 2 IA-32 arch PDF from developer.intel.com. It's not a conspiracy, there are no black helicopters."

Documentation can be downloaded from here:
http://www.intel.com/design/pentium4.../index_new.htm
System programming guide (253668) chapter 10.12 PAGE ATTRIBUTE TABLE (PAT)

John's code branch is here:
http://perforce.freebsd.org/depotTre...at&HIDEDEL=YES

John Baldwin released a patch against CURRENT (still not ready to commit) here:
http://people.freebsd.org/~jhb/patches/pat.patch


So.. the only way to get nvidia amd64 driver faster is to dig into the code and send patches to jhb at freebsd dot org

m.

[jjthomas]

Originally Posted by arokh

Why are you running 64-bit on workstations anyways? I don't get it.

I do video and audio editing. Why should I penalize myself with being forced to run in a mode (i386) thats supports half the capacity of what my hardware (amd64) is capable of doing?

...besides, why would one want to do something based on technology that is so old it is already in the history books?

-J

[arokh]

Originally Posted by jjthomas

I do video and audio editing. Why should I penalize myself with being forced to run in a mode (i386) thats supports half the capacity of what my hardware (amd64) is capable of doing?

...besides, why would one want to do something based on technology that is so old it is already in the history books?

-J

Half capacity? When are people going to learn, 64 bits does not mean double the performance. Most likely you'll have worse performance.

[saphire]

Are there any short term solutions for AMD64/nv support. The problem is that I got a 64Bit system (because it was at the right price) and I have a 6800GT. I'm running FreeBSD because it offers 64bit support, which a lot of other OS's aren't in full yet. Also is there any ETA when the driver might be complete?

[arokh]

Why does everybody think they NEED to run 64 bit because their CPU supports it? I'll let you in on a secret, you don't! It's not gonna double your performance, and if you don't know what 64 bit is you don't need it.

[gilboa]

Originally Posted by arokh

Why does everybody think they NEED to run 64 bit because their CPU supports it? I'll let you in on a secret, you don't! It's not gonna double your performance, and if you don't know what 64 bit is you don't need it.

Let me think about it for a second (and I'm talking about FreeBSD and Linux.)
A. Double the number of GP registers. (No more need to keep pushing registers in and out of main memory)
B. Direct support for >1GB of memory. (2G/2G is slowing down memory hungry user-land applications; high memory kills the performance).

Cheers,

[uOpt]

Originally Posted by gilboa

B. Direct support for >1GB of memory. (2G/2G is slowing down memory hungry user-land applications; high memory kills the performance).

Nope.

[gilboa]

Flame-bait?