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Algenon
n00b
Joined: 27 Jan 2005
Posts: 48
Location: Ashby-de-la-Zouch, UK
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 Posted: Sat Nov 19, 2005 2:06 pm Post subject: Who can explain Gentoo's graphics system? |
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This is just a simple question but I can't find the answer on the forum. If some body could enlighten me, or point me at the information I would be grateful.
I do not use my Gentoo system for games, but I do do a lot of video editing. I have heard about glx, agpgart etc., and fancy video cards, but to play back video files using mplayer (or edit them using Cinelerra) do I need agpgart etc? Is this only for games? I have an AMD64 3500 system with an nvidia FX5200, and video play back with Cinelerra uses 100% of the CPU load. Could the graphics card (which I know is a pretty poor performer) be the culprit?
Algenon. |
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PaulBredbury
Watchman
Joined: 14 Jul 2005
Posts: 7310
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| Posted: Sat Nov 19, 2005 2:55 pm Post subject: |
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The nvidia binary driver will accelerate both 2D (xorg) and 3D (opengl), compared to xorg's built-in "nv" driver. Try it. The README in /usr/share/doc/nvidia-kernel... has lots of info.
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Improve your font rendering and ALSA sound |
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Algenon
n00b
Joined: 27 Jan 2005
Posts: 48
Location: Ashby-de-la-Zouch, UK
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| Posted: Sat Nov 19, 2005 4:59 pm Post subject: |
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| Thanks Paul, I never knew there was so much documentation in /usr/share/docs, it'll take me a while to read the 70 pages on nvidia! One question still puzzles me though, how dependent are the processess which need to use the graphics card dependent on the hardware? Could a slow or mis-configured graphics card cause another program to run slow? |
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i92guboj
Bodhisattva
Joined: 30 Nov 2004
Posts: 10315
Location: Córdoba (Spain)
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| Posted: Sat Nov 19, 2005 5:31 pm Post subject: |
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| Algenon wrote: | | Thanks Paul, I never knew there was so much documentation in /usr/share/docs, it'll take me a while to read the 70 pages on nvidia! One question still puzzles me though, how dependent are the processess which need to use the graphics card dependent on the hardware? Could a slow or mis-configured graphics card cause another program to run slow? |
AGPart is the part of the Linux kernel that manages the AGP interface of your graphics card, taking advantage of its full functionality (where AGP stands for accelerated graphics port). That is the port where your grahics card is plugged into.
The nvidia driver from X-org (and XFree), namely "nv", can do a good job for non intersive applications, but is certainly a cpu hog, because it does not use any of the nvidia extensions (it does its work in a very similar way that if you used a simple VGA driver), so the cpu does most of the work. This can be really a very intensive I/O work with nowadays graphics, note a single frame in 1024x768x24bits takes, exactly 2,359.296 bytes ~ 2,5 mb, and 24 frames per second are 56,623,104 bytes EACH SECOND, which are more than 50 mb per second. In a driver that does not allow the card to use any acceleration this work is done entirely by the cpu. So, YES, a missconfigured card (or simple a not so optimum driver) can bring the whole system to its knees.
To read the documentation is a good idea. Aditionally to the nvidia stuff (you will need to instal nvidia-kernel and nvidia-glx if you did not already) you will need to enable arpart in the kernel and configure your /etc/X11/xorg.conf file for X to use the driver called "nvidia" instead of the 2D driver "nv". |
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Algenon
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Joined: 27 Jan 2005
Posts: 48
Location: Ashby-de-la-Zouch, UK
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| Posted: Sun Nov 20, 2005 10:47 pm Post subject: |
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I am using nvidia-kernel and nvidia-glx. I have also tried compliing agpgart into the kernel and tried the masked verions of these packages, but I still get 100% CPU load. Based on what 6thpink wrote, I wonder if it is just the slowness of the grpahics hardware and I need to try a more suitable card. BTW, is the AGP bus faster than PCI-E?
Algenon. |
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George Ellison
n00b
Joined: 11 Nov 2005
Posts: 33
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| Posted: Mon Nov 21, 2005 12:53 am Post subject: |
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| Try 'eselect opengl set nvidia' This causes Xorg to switch from its own opengl libs to the nvidia ones. nvidia-glx should have told you to do this when it finished merging. |
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i92guboj
Bodhisattva
Joined: 30 Nov 2004
Posts: 10315
Location: Córdoba (Spain)
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| Posted: Mon Nov 21, 2005 4:49 am Post subject: |
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| Algenon wrote: | I am using nvidia-kernel and nvidia-glx. I have also tried compliing agpgart into the kernel and tried the masked verions of these packages, but I still get 100% CPU load. Based on what 6thpink wrote, I wonder if it is just the slowness of the grpahics hardware and I need to try a more suitable card. BTW, is the AGP bus faster than PCI-E?
Algenon. |
PCI Express is later and better, not only due to bus speed, but certainly agp should do ok in most situations, and is still the standard 'de facto' in most new brand computers. In any case, an agp card like the 5200 fx should have no problems at all handling the basic of 3d acceleration (and much more).
First of all, are you sure that you are using the nvidia (and not the nv) driver? What does "gxlinfo | grep rend" says? Does glxgears run ok? In that case, what's the frame rate?
Maybe the wrong thing is with cinelerra, I never used it myself, so can't be in any help about that. I dont know if cinelerra is prepared to use any of these extensions. By the way, what I know is that there are two branches of cinelerra in portage, the one called "cinelerra" is hard masked, so, if it is the one that you are using you should try the other: "cinelerra-cvs", maybe you will have better luck with that. Appart of making sure that you emerge it with the mmx and 3dnow use flags I can't give you a better advice. 
But first I would check what is the behaviour of your card with another prgrams, if it behaves ok with most softwawre, then the problem can be in cinelerra. |
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Algenon
n00b
Joined: 27 Jan 2005
Posts: 48
Location: Ashby-de-la-Zouch, UK
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| Posted: Tue Nov 22, 2005 10:05 pm Post subject: |
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Thanks for the tips, I have tried eselect opengl set nvidia and my gxinfo gives:
| Code: | direct rendering: Yes
OpenGL renderer string: GeForce FX 5200/AGP/SSE2 |
My glxgears gives: 1051 FPS with the window on display, or 7023FPS with the window minimised.
I am using cinelerra-cvs, since I can't compile Cinerlerra (non-cvs).
When viewing video with mplayer, the CPU load is 10% so, no problem there.
I suspect the problem like you say, is in the Cinelerra program (or possibly with the ebuild).
Regards,
Algenon.[/bug] |
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