Re: Nvidia graphics on AMD64
On Saturday 02 February 2008, I wrote: I'm contemplating building a system around an Athlon 64 X2 4200+ CPU. I'm not into games and overclocking so a relatively low end motherboard with integrated graphics should suffice. I've been looking at a few specs, many of them use Nvidia chipsets and I understand that there isn't a Nvidia graphics driver for FreeBSD on the AMD64 platform. Thanks to everybody who replied to my enquiry, your comments have helped to fill some gaps in my knowledge on this matter. It looks like the xorg driver should meet my 2D requirements quite well. I was under the impression that I would need to install the AMD64 version of FreeBSD for an Athlon 64 but I now understand that since I'll only have 1 or 2 GB of memory I might just as well use i386 in which case I'll have the choice of using either the xorg or Nvidia driver. -- Mike Clarke ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Nvidia graphics on AMD64
Kimi wrote: xorg-driver-nv will be more then good enough, providing 3D is not needed. 2D can also be pretty sluggish at times. The following shows the nv driver in its fully glory as I was leafing through a page of photos: http://home.no/tl18/misc/mincemeat.jpg Moreover, the nv driver does not provide a way to properly control brightness and contrast. I would say it is strictly necessary for anyone who is into photography to use the nvidia-driver, even if they are not remotely interested in 3D. -- Tore ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Nvidia graphics on AMD64
http://home.no/tl18/misc/mincemeat.jpg Moreover, the nv driver does not provide a way to properly control brightness and contrast. I would say it is strictly necessary for anyone who is into photography to use the nvidia-driver, even if they are not remotely interested in 3D. -- for desktop i would rather prefer (and did that many times) to run some fast computer headless and have at least 1 (but more preferably) X terminal made from 486-Pentium with old, but supported graphics. i made cut-down X terminal distro with NetBSD 1.5 (takes 25MB total, with all possible X servers), works fine, sound supported through nas. most old PCI Matrox cards are best for that, all hardware 2D acceleration works like it should, supports high refresh rates and gamma correction by hardware. and with X terminal price equal to about 0+monitor you may have many of this for single computer. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Nvidia graphics on AMD64
After running a 90 hour portupgrade job on my current Duron 1600 based system I've persuaded myself that a hardware upgrade is due. I'm contemplating building a system around an Athlon 64 X2 4200+ CPU. I'm not into games and overclocking so a relatively low end motherboard with integrated graphics should suffice. I've been looking at a few specs, many of them use Nvidia chipsets and I understand that there isn't a Nvidia graphics driver for FreeBSD on the AMD64 platform. If I choose a Nvidia based motherboard would I have to install the i386 version of FreeBSD if I wanted to use the onboard graphics, in which case to what extent would the overall performance suffer? My graphics needs are fairly modest, so long as I can use the Gimp to edit some photos I'm OK, but playing the occasional DVD fairly smoothly would be a bonus but not essential. Is there any alternative graphics driver which would meet my needs? ... or should I just keep away from Nvidia and concentrate on something with ATI graphics? -- Mike Clarke ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Nvidia graphics on AMD64
After running a 90 hour portupgrade job on my current Duron 1600 based system I've persuaded myself that a hardware upgrade is due. simply use precompiled ones if it's a problem. anyway - i don't what bloatware you have compiled but on my 1200Mhz Thinkpad i needed few hours to install things i use. I'm contemplating building a system around an Athlon 64 X2 4200+ CPU. I'm not into games and overclocking so a relatively low end motherboard with integrated graphics should suffice. I've been looking at a few specs, many of them use Nvidia chipsets and I understand that there isn't a Nvidia graphics driver for FreeBSD on the AMD64 platform. by general there are lots of problems with nvidia as it's closed source. i always avoid closed source. If I choose a Nvidia based motherboard would I have to install the i386 version of FreeBSD if I wanted to use the onboard graphics, in which case to what extent would the overall performance suffer? i would check if it will really work as it should - AT ALL, before buying. My graphics needs are fairly modest, so long as I can use the Gimp to edit some photos I'm OK, but playing the occasional DVD fairly smoothly would be a bonus but not essential. Is there any alternative graphics driver which would meet my needs? any WORKING card should suffice for your needs. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Nvidia graphics on AMD64
Mike Clarke wrote: After running a 90 hour portupgrade job on my current Duron 1600 based system I've persuaded myself that a hardware upgrade is due. I'm contemplating building a system around an Athlon 64 X2 4200+ CPU. I'm not into games and overclocking so a relatively low end motherboard with integrated graphics should suffice. I've been looking at a few specs, many of them use Nvidia chipsets and I understand that there isn't a Nvidia graphics driver for FreeBSD on the AMD64 platform. If I choose a Nvidia based motherboard would I have to install the i386 version of FreeBSD if I wanted to use the onboard graphics, in which case to what extent would the overall performance suffer? My graphics needs are fairly modest, so long as I can use the Gimp to edit some photos I'm OK, but playing the occasional DVD fairly smoothly would be a bonus but not essential. Is there any alternative graphics driver which would meet my needs? ... or should I just keep away from Nvidia and concentrate on something with ATI graphics? I had a machine with integrated NVidia graphics running FreeBSD/Amd64 for a few weeks. It was an Athlon X2 4600+ and the onboard graphics was GeForce 7100. Usually the integrated graphics come from the lower-spec graphic chipsets and are well supported by the open source nv driver. As long as you don't need fancy 3D effects, the combination works perfectly and is absolutely suitable for a desktop. DVDs were no problem, and the whole feeling was the machine was flying. (Pitty I had to part with it...) There are lots and lots of cheap 'n' cheerful micro-atx boards to choose from. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Nvidia graphics on AMD64
It was an Athlon X2 4600+ and the onboard graphics was GeForce 7100. Usually the integrated graphics come from the lower-spec graphic chipsets and are well supported by the open source nv driver. As long as you don't need good to know at least partially things changed to better. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Nvidia graphics on AMD64
On Saturday 02 February 2008 23:13:25 Wojciech Puchar wrote: After running a 90 hour portupgrade job on my current Duron 1600 based system I've persuaded myself that a hardware upgrade is due. simply use precompiled ones if it's a problem. anyway - i don't what bloatware you have compiled but on my 1200Mhz Thinkpad i needed few hours to install things i use. I'm contemplating building a system around an Athlon 64 X2 4200+ CPU. I'm not into games and overclocking so a relatively low end motherboard with integrated graphics should suffice. I've been looking at a few specs, many of them use Nvidia chipsets and I understand that there isn't a Nvidia graphics driver for FreeBSD on the AMD64 platform. by general there are lots of problems with nvidia as it's closed source. i always avoid closed source. That's a very unfounded statement. Nvidia is probably the best supported graphics card family for FreeBSD, *because* it actually has a vendor provided driver. The only 'problem' is that Nvidia decides when they want to support platform/release X/Y and FreeBSD to have certain interfaces they desire in place. Last I heard, it was 7.0-RELEASE for new (as in, not COMPAT5X) native drivers, but this long topic seems to indicate otherwise: http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=41545 There is however for X an nv driver from xorg that does it's job for most cards, if you don't need hardware accelerated OpenGL. Which OP doesn't need for gimp/dvd's. I'd really stay away from ATI, for your purposes, either go with nvidia or Intel onboard. -- Mel ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Nvidia graphics on AMD64
On Saturday 02 February 2008, Wojciech Puchar wrote: After running a 90 hour portupgrade job on my current Duron 1600 based system I've persuaded myself that a hardware upgrade is due. simply use precompiled ones if it's a problem. anyway - i don't what bloatware you have compiled but on my 1200Mhz Thinkpad i needed few hours to install things i use. The main culprits are some of the the KDE applications which never seem to have up to date precompiled packages available when I need them. The 90 hour run was using portupgrade -P to use packages wherever possible. Some of the ports were very heavy going, with kdepim taking 11 hours to compile. Admittedly it is a lot of bloat but I've never regretted switching from MS Windows to FreeBSD, despite the tedious portupgrades. -- Mike Clarke ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Nvidia graphics on AMD64
On 02/02/2008, Wojciech Puchar [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [...] i needed few hours to install things i use. not a very helpful comment at all. Durons were pretty crap. [...] by general there are lots of problems with nvidia as it's closed source. i always avoid closed source. again, not helpful. some people do not have choice but to use a closed source driver. [...] i would check if it will really work as it should - AT ALL, before buying. xorg-driver-nv will be more then good enough, providing 3D is not needed. [...] any WORKING card should suffice for your needs. hehe -- Regards, Kimi ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Nvidia graphics on AMD64
On Sat, Feb 02, 2008 at 09:12:27PM +, Mike Clarke wrote: After running a 90 hour portupgrade job on my current Duron 1600 based system I've persuaded myself that a hardware upgrade is due. I'm contemplating building a system around an Athlon 64 X2 4200+ CPU. I'm not into games and overclocking so a relatively low end motherboard with integrated graphics should suffice. I've been looking at a few specs, many of them use Nvidia chipsets and I understand that there isn't a Nvidia graphics driver for FreeBSD on the AMD64 platform. There are nvidia chipsets such as nforce4 which work with FreeBSD, I don't know about more recent ones but you can have a grovel through here: http://www.freebsd.org/platforms/amd64/motherboards.html If I choose a Nvidia based motherboard would I have to install the i386 version of FreeBSD if I wanted to use the onboard graphics, in which case to what extent would the overall performance suffer? No. You can use the nv driver: x11-drivers/xf86-video-nv You might want to use i386 if you've got less than 4GB of memory as some applications are only 32 bit such as Flash. My graphics needs are fairly modest, so long as I can use the Gimp to edit some photos I'm OK, but playing the occasional DVD fairly smoothly would be a bonus but not essential. Is there any alternative graphics driver which would meet my needs? You'd be ok with nv which builds on i386 or AMD64. There is a proprietory driver which can be used on i386 but not AMD64: x11/nvidia-driver ... or should I just keep away from Nvidia and concentrate on something with ATI graphics? I've just switched from an Nvidia card to ATI onboard and the nvidia card was better. The onboard ATI gives me a rather washed out picture. So my advice would be to avoid onboard graphics and get a cheap nvidia card. You can get them for about 20 quid for a 128MB card. -- Frank Contact info: http://www.esperance-linux.co.uk/misc/contact.html ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Nvidia graphics on AMD64
On 02/02/2008, Mel [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [...] I'd really stay away from ATI, for your purposes, either go with nvidia or Intel onboard. nothing wrong with xorg-driver-radeonhd or xorg-driver-ati for ATi/AMDs graphics cards, providing you don't need 3D now on newer hardwares. -- Mel -- Regards, Kimi ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Nvidia graphics on AMD64
On Sat, 2 Feb 2008 21:12:27 + Mike Clarke [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: After running a 90 hour portupgrade job on my current Duron 1600 based system I've persuaded myself that a hardware upgrade is due. I'm contemplating building a system around an Athlon 64 X2 4200+ CPU. I'm not into games and overclocking so a relatively low end motherboard with integrated graphics should suffice. I've been looking at a few specs, many of them use Nvidia chipsets and I understand that there isn't a Nvidia graphics driver for FreeBSD on the AMD64 platform. As others have said it's only the proprietary binary driver that doesn't support amd64 (nvidia are waiting for kernel changes). As well as the lack of 3d-support the nv driver has always seemed to me to be less efficient even on 2d. If I choose a Nvidia based motherboard would I have to install the i386 version of FreeBSD if I wanted to use the onboard graphics, in which case to what extent would the overall performance suffer? It depends on the application, there are a few things like mp3 encoding that benefit, but generally the difference is small. It's more a matter of memory and address-space support - amd64 supports more. However i386 uses memory more efficiently if you have less than about 3.5 GB, and it avoids the overheads of running both 64 and 32 binaries (many desktop installations are not pure 64-bit). ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
