NVidia with TV OUT and Matrox Card

10-19-02, 02:06 PM

Hello,

I'm trying to get the following to work:
One CRT connected to a Matrox G550 AGP
One CRT connected to a NVidia GeForce4 MX 420 PCI
TV connected to the NVidia card.

I'd like to use the two CRTs as one Xinerama-like desktop and have one copy (of the part of the desktop displayed on the NVidia card) on the TV or, as an alternative, have the possibility to copy a windows content to the TV (or even Overlays like in Windows?).

I can set up each card seperately not using Xinerama and having only one CRT as my Desktop and either of the cards works, the NVidia even with TV out showing a copy of the desktop.
But as soon as I enable both video cards with or without Xinerama, X won't start up and the NVidia card will get locked showing vertical white stripes on black background (on both the CRT and the TV) while the Matrox card shows a black screen. One can't revert NVidias card to a normal state, even killing the X-Server or switching to the console doesn't help, although the system does not hang.
The X server doesn't produce any error message in its log files. When setting up two MetaModes for the NVidia card, one using just the CRT, the second enabling TV, X starts correctly. When I then try to switch the Mode to turn TV out on, X crashes with fatal error: "caught signal 11" (no other error messages appear), but before it's crashing, one can (for half a second or so) see the correct image on both the CRT and the TV.

I'm using Debian 3.0 on a Elitegroup K7S5A with Duron 800 processor with kernel 2.4.19. I'm using the newest drivers available from matrox and nvidia. I tried X 4.1 and 4.2 and I replaced the matrox card by another NVidia to make sure the failure is NVidia-related and is not some strange bug in the matrox drivers, which it isn't.

Would be great if anyone could help...

spokkie · 01-02-03, 07:25 AM

i want to do the same thing you are trying and i wonder if you managed to get both cards working?? If you did i can purchase a nvidia card with TV out

nico_from_tlse · 01-15-03, 11:03 AM

I have the same problem, so I someone have the solution, please tell me too...

spokkie · 01-16-03, 03:04 AM

It is possible to use both cards with the XFree86 nv driver But this driver does not support (TV out as far as I know). Both video cards work with this driver. This is with a standard XFree86 installation from the ports dir.

To use the TV out i think i have to use the NVidia driver.
With the newly released nvidia driver which supports TV-out the error line i get when starting X is: Failed to initialize the NVdriver kernel module...............

Did have this error line???? And of course (how) did you fix it...

Greetings and have a good day

10-19-02, 02:06 PM	#1
jaywalker Guest Posts: n/a	NVidia with TV OUT and Matrox Card Hello, I'm trying to get the following to work: One CRT connected to a Matrox G550 AGP One CRT connected to a NVidia GeForce4 MX 420 PCI TV connected to the NVidia card. I'd like to use the two CRTs as one Xinerama-like desktop and have one copy (of the part of the desktop displayed on the NVidia card) on the TV or, as an alternative, have the possibility to copy a windows content to the TV (or even Overlays like in Windows?). I can set up each card seperately not using Xinerama and having only one CRT as my Desktop and either of the cards works, the NVidia even with TV out showing a copy of the desktop. But as soon as I enable both video cards with or without Xinerama, X won't start up and the NVidia card will get locked showing vertical white stripes on black background (on both the CRT and the TV) while the Matrox card shows a black screen. One can't revert NVidias card to a normal state, even killing the X-Server or switching to the console doesn't help, although the system does not hang. The X server doesn't produce any error message in its log files. When setting up two MetaModes for the NVidia card, one using just the CRT, the second enabling TV, X starts correctly. When I then try to switch the Mode to turn TV out on, X crashes with fatal error: "caught signal 11" (no other error messages appear), but before it's crashing, one can (for half a second or so) see the correct image on both the CRT and the TV. I'm using Debian 3.0 on a Elitegroup K7S5A with Duron 800 processor with kernel 2.4.19. I'm using the newest drivers available from matrox and nvidia. I tried X 4.1 and 4.2 and I replaced the matrox card by another NVidia to make sure the failure is NVidia-related and is not some strange bug in the matrox drivers, which it isn't. Would be great if anyone could help...

01-16-03, 03:04 AM	#4
spokkie Registered User Join Date: Jan 2003 Posts: 2	NVidia driver It is possible to use both cards with the XFree86 nv driver But this driver does not support (TV out as far as I know). Both video cards work with this driver. This is with a standard XFree86 installation from the ports dir. To use the TV out i think i have to use the NVidia driver. With the newly released nvidia driver which supports TV-out the error line i get when starting X is: Failed to initialize the NVdriver kernel module............... Did have this error line???? And of course (how) did you fix it... Greetings and have a good day

01-02-03, 07:25 AM	#2
spokkie Registered User Join Date: Jan 2003 Posts: 2	i want to do the same thing you are trying and i wonder if you managed to get both cards working?? If you did i can purchase a nvidia card with TV out

01-15-03, 11:03 AM	#3
nico_from_tlse Registered User Join Date: Jan 2003 Posts: 1	I have the same problem, so I someone have the solution, please tell me too...