Slow Rendering and Performance w/ NVidia Card

Message

whatah · Post by **whatah** » Sat Dec 31, 2005 7:09 pm

Hey, I am having issues with my geforce fx 5500 card. glxgears gives only 1100 - 1300 fps, despite glxinfo claiming direct rendering is enabled. I can't see any obvious problems, I installed nvidia_glx properly and so on. Mesa is not installed, as far as I can tell. I am using iphitus' archck4 patchset on kernel 2.6.14, cpu is an amd athlon 64 3000+.

Thanks.

glxgears:

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[130][~]$ glxgears
5741 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1148.200 FPS
6540 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1308.000 FPS
6544 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1308.800 FPS
6572 frames in 5.0 seconds = 1314.400 FPS

glxinfo

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[130][~]$ glxinfo
name of display: :0.0
display: :0  screen: 0
direct rendering: Yes
server glx vendor string: NVIDIA Corporation
server glx version string: 1.3
server glx extensions:
    GLX_EXT_visual_info, GLX_EXT_visual_rating, GLX_SGIX_fbconfig,
    GLX_SGIX_pbuffer, GLX_SGI_video_sync, GLX_SGI_swap_control,
    GLX_ARB_multisample, GLX_NV_float_buffer
client glx vendor string: NVIDIA Corporation
client glx version string: 1.3
client glx extensions:
    GLX_ARB_get_proc_address, GLX_ARB_multisample, GLX_EXT_visual_info,
    GLX_EXT_visual_rating, GLX_EXT_import_context, GLX_SGI_video_sync,
    GLX_NV_swap_group, GLX_NV_video_out, GLX_SGIX_fbconfig, GLX_SGIX_pbuffer,
    GLX_SGI_swap_control, GLX_NV_float_buffer, GLX_ARB_fbconfig_float
GLX extensions:
    GLX_EXT_visual_info, GLX_EXT_visual_rating, GLX_SGIX_fbconfig,
    GLX_SGIX_pbuffer, GLX_SGI_video_sync, GLX_SGI_swap_control,
    GLX_ARB_multisample, GLX_NV_float_buffer, GLX_ARB_get_proc_address
OpenGL vendor string: NVIDIA Corporation
OpenGL renderer string: GeForce FX 5500/AGP/SSE2/3DNOW!
OpenGL version string: 2.0.1 NVIDIA 81.74
OpenGL extensions:
    GL_ARB_depth_texture, GL_ARB_fragment_program,
    GL_ARB_fragment_program_shadow, GL_ARB_fragment_shader,
    GL_ARB_half_float_pixel, GL_ARB_imaging, GL_ARB_multisample,
    GL_ARB_multitexture, GL_ARB_occlusion_query, GL_ARB_pixel_buffer_object,
    GL_ARB_point_parameters, GL_ARB_point_sprite, GL_ARB_shadow,
    GL_ARB_shader_objects, GL_ARB_shading_language_100,
    GL_ARB_texture_border_clamp, GL_ARB_texture_compression,
    GL_ARB_texture_cube_map, GL_ARB_texture_env_add,
    GL_ARB_texture_env_combine, GL_ARB_texture_env_dot3,
    GL_ARB_texture_mirrored_repeat, GL_ARB_texture_rectangle,
    GL_ARB_transpose_matrix, GL_ARB_vertex_buffer_object,
    GL_ARB_vertex_program, GL_ARB_vertex_shader, GL_ARB_window_pos,
    GL_S3_s3tc, GL_EXT_texture_env_add, GL_EXT_abgr, GL_EXT_bgra,
    GL_EXT_blend_color, GL_EXT_blend_func_separate, GL_EXT_blend_minmax,
    GL_EXT_blend_subtract, GL_EXT_compiled_vertex_array, GL_EXT_Cg_shader,
    GL_EXT_draw_range_elements, GL_EXT_fog_coord, GL_EXT_framebuffer_object,
    GL_EXT_multi_draw_arrays, GL_EXT_packed_depth_stencil,
    GL_EXT_packed_pixels, GL_EXT_paletted_texture, GL_EXT_pixel_buffer_object,
    GL_EXT_point_parameters, GL_EXT_rescale_normal, GL_EXT_secondary_color,
    GL_EXT_separate_specular_color, GL_EXT_shadow_funcs,
    GL_EXT_shared_texture_palette, GL_EXT_stencil_two_side,
    GL_EXT_stencil_wrap, GL_EXT_texture3D, GL_EXT_texture_compression_s3tc,
    GL_EXT_texture_cube_map, GL_EXT_texture_edge_clamp,
    GL_EXT_texture_env_combine, GL_EXT_texture_env_dot3,
    GL_EXT_texture_filter_anisotropic, GL_EXT_texture_lod,
    GL_EXT_texture_lod_bias, GL_EXT_texture_object, GL_EXT_texture_sRGB,
    GL_EXT_timer_query, GL_EXT_vertex_array, GL_HP_occlusion_test,
    GL_IBM_rasterpos_clip, GL_IBM_texture_mirrored_repeat,
    GL_KTX_buffer_region, GL_NV_blend_square, GL_NV_copy_depth_to_color,
    GL_NV_depth_clamp, GL_NV_fence, GL_NV_float_buffer, GL_NV_fog_distance,
    GL_NV_fragment_program, GL_NV_fragment_program_option, GL_NV_half_float,
    GL_NV_light_max_exponent, GL_NV_multisample_filter_hint,
    GL_NV_occlusion_query, GL_NV_packed_depth_stencil, GL_NV_pixel_data_range,
    GL_NV_point_sprite, GL_NV_primitive_restart, GL_NV_register_combiners,
    GL_NV_register_combiners2, GL_NV_texgen_reflection,
    GL_NV_texture_compression_vtc, GL_NV_texture_env_combine4,
    GL_NV_texture_expand_normal, GL_NV_texture_rectangle,
    GL_NV_texture_shader, GL_NV_texture_shader2, GL_NV_texture_shader3,
    GL_NV_vertex_array_range, GL_NV_vertex_array_range2, GL_NV_vertex_program,
    GL_NV_vertex_program1_1, GL_NV_vertex_program2,
    GL_NV_vertex_program2_option, GL_SGIS_generate_mipmap,
    GL_SGIS_texture_lod, GL_SGIX_depth_texture, GL_SGIX_shadow,
    GL_SUN_slice_accum
glu version: 1.3
glu extensions:
    GLU_EXT_nurbs_tessellator, GLU_EXT_object_space_tess

   visual  x  bf lv rg d st colorbuffer ax dp st accumbuffer  ms  cav
 id dep cl sp sz l  ci b ro  r  g  b  a bf th cl  r  g  b  a ns b eat
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0x21 24 tc  0 32  0 r  y  .  8  8  8  0  4 24  8 16 16 16 16  0 0 None
0x22 24 dc  0 32  0 r  y  .  8  8  8  0  4 24  8 16 16 16 16  0 0 None
0x23 24 tc  0 32  0 r  y  .  8  8  8  8  4 24  8 16 16 16 16  0 0 None
0x24 24 tc  0 32  0 r  .  .  8  8  8  0  4 24  8 16 16 16 16  0 0 None
0x25 24 tc  0 32  0 r  .  .  8  8  8  8  4 24  8 16 16 16 16  0 0 None
0x26 24 tc  0 32  0 r  y  .  8  8  8  0  4 24  0 16 16 16 16  0 0 None
0x27 24 tc  0 32  0 r  y  .  8  8  8  8  4 24  0 16 16 16 16  0 0 None
0x28 24 tc  0 32  0 r  .  .  8  8  8  0  4 24  0 16 16 16 16  0 0 None
0x29 24 tc  0 32  0 r  .  .  8  8  8  8  4 24  0 16 16 16 16  0 0 None
0x2a 24 tc  0 32  0 r  y  .  8  8  8  0  4 16  0 16 16 16 16  0 0 None
0x2b 24 tc  0 32  0 r  y  .  8  8  8  8  4 16  0 16 16 16 16  0 0 None
0x2c 24 tc  0 32  0 r  .  .  8  8  8  0  4 16  0 16 16 16 16  0 0 None
0x2d 24 tc  0 32  0 r  .  .  8  8  8  8  4 16  0 16 16 16 16  0 0 None
0x2e 24 tc  0 32  0 r  y  .  8  8  8  0  4  0  0 16 16 16 16  0 0 None
0x2f 24 tc  0 32  0 r  y  .  8  8  8  8  4  0  0 16 16 16 16  0 0 None
0x30 24 tc  0 32  0 r  .  .  8  8  8  0  4  0  0 16 16 16 16  0 0 None
0x31 24 tc  0 32  0 r  .  .  8  8  8  8  4  0  0 16 16 16 16  0 0 None
0x32 24 tc  0 32  0 r  y  .  8  8  8  0  4 24  0 16 16 16 16  2 1 Ncon
0x33 24 tc  0 32  0 r  y  .  8  8  8  8  4 24  0 16 16 16 16  2 1 Ncon
0x34 24 tc  0 32  0 r  y  .  8  8  8  0  4 24  0 16 16 16 16  4 1 Ncon
0x35 24 tc  0 32  0 r  y  .  8  8  8  8  4 24  0 16 16 16 16  4 1 Ncon
0x36 24 tc  0 32  0 r  .  .  8  8  8  0  4 24  0 16 16 16 16  2 1 Ncon
0x37 24 tc  0 32  0 r  .  .  8  8  8  8  4 24  0 16 16 16 16  2 1 Ncon
0x38 24 tc  0 32  0 r  .  .  8  8  8  0  4 24  0 16 16 16 16  4 1 Ncon
0x39 24 tc  0 32  0 r  .  .  8  8  8  8  4 24  0 16 16 16 16  4 1 Ncon
0x3a 24 tc  0 32  0 r  y  .  8  8  8  0  4 24  8 16 16 16 16  2 1 Ncon
0x3b 24 tc  0 32  0 r  y  .  8  8  8  8  4 24  8 16 16 16 16  2 1 Ncon
0x3c 24 tc  0 32  0 r  y  .  8  8  8  0  4 24  8 16 16 16 16  4 1 Ncon
0x3d 24 tc  0 32  0 r  y  .  8  8  8  8  4 24  8 16 16 16 16  4 1 Ncon
0x3e 24 tc  0 32  0 r  .  .  8  8  8  0  4 24  8 16 16 16 16  2 1 Ncon
0x3f 24 tc  0 32  0 r  .  .  8  8  8  8  4 24  8 16 16 16 16  2 1 Ncon
0x40 24 tc  0 32  0 r  .  .  8  8  8  0  4 24  8 16 16 16 16  4 1 Ncon
0x41 24 tc  0 32  0 r  .  .  8  8  8  8  4 24  8 16 16 16 16  4 1 Ncon
0x42 24 tc  0 32  0 r  y  .  8  8  8  0  4 16  0 16 16 16 16  2 1 Ncon
0x43 24 tc  0 32  0 r  y  .  8  8  8  8  4 16  0 16 16 16 16  2 1 Ncon
0x44 24 tc  0 32  0 r  y  .  8  8  8  0  4 16  0 16 16 16 16  4 1 Ncon
0x45 24 tc  0 32  0 r  y  .  8  8  8  8  4 16  0 16 16 16 16  4 1 Ncon
0x46 24 tc  0 32  0 r  .  .  8  8  8  0  4 16  0 16 16 16 16  2 1 Ncon
0x47 24 tc  0 32  0 r  .  .  8  8  8  8  4 16  0 16 16 16 16  2 1 Ncon
0x48 24 tc  0 32  0 r  .  .  8  8  8  0  4 16  0 16 16 16 16  4 1 Ncon
0x49 24 tc  0 32  0 r  .  .  8  8  8  8  4 16  0 16 16 16 16  4 1 Ncon
0x4a 24 dc  0 32  0 r  y  .  8  8  8  8  4 24  8 16 16 16 16  0 0 None
0x4b 24 dc  0 32  0 r  .  .  8  8  8  0  4 24  8 16 16 16 16  0 0 None
0x4c 24 dc  0 32  0 r  .  .  8  8  8  8  4 24  8 16 16 16 16  0 0 None
0x4d 24 dc  0 32  0 r  y  .  8  8  8  0  4 24  0 16 16 16 16  0 0 None
0x4e 24 dc  0 32  0 r  y  .  8  8  8  8  4 24  0 16 16 16 16  0 0 None
0x4f 24 dc  0 32  0 r  .  .  8  8  8  0  4 24  0 16 16 16 16  0 0 None
0x50 24 dc  0 32  0 r  .  .  8  8  8  8  4 24  0 16 16 16 16  0 0 None
0x51 24 dc  0 32  0 r  y  .  8  8  8  0  4 16  0 16 16 16 16  0 0 None
0x52 24 dc  0 32  0 r  y  .  8  8  8  8  4 16  0 16 16 16 16  0 0 None
0x53 24 dc  0 32  0 r  .  .  8  8  8  0  4 16  0 16 16 16 16  0 0 None
0x54 24 dc  0 32  0 r  .  .  8  8  8  8  4 16  0 16 16 16 16  0 0 None
0x55 24 dc  0 32  0 r  y  .  8  8  8  0  4  0  0 16 16 16 16  0 0 None
0x56 24 dc  0 32  0 r  y  .  8  8  8  8  4  0  0 16 16 16 16  0 0 None
0x57 24 dc  0 32  0 r  .  .  8  8  8  0  4  0  0 16 16 16 16  0 0 None
0x58 24 dc  0 32  0 r  .  .  8  8  8  8  4  0  0 16 16 16 16  0 0 None
0x59 24 dc  0 32  0 r  y  .  8  8  8  0  4 24  0 16 16 16 16  2 1 Ncon
0x5a 24 dc  0 32  0 r  y  .  8  8  8  8  4 24  0 16 16 16 16  2 1 Ncon
0x5b 24 dc  0 32  0 r  y  .  8  8  8  0  4 24  0 16 16 16 16  4 1 Ncon
0x5c 24 dc  0 32  0 r  y  .  8  8  8  8  4 24  0 16 16 16 16  4 1 Ncon
0x5d 24 dc  0 32  0 r  .  .  8  8  8  0  4 24  0 16 16 16 16  2 1 Ncon
0x5e 24 dc  0 32  0 r  .  .  8  8  8  8  4 24  0 16 16 16 16  2 1 Ncon
0x5f 24 dc  0 32  0 r  .  .  8  8  8  0  4 24  0 16 16 16 16  4 1 Ncon
0x60 24 dc  0 32  0 r  .  .  8  8  8  8  4 24  0 16 16 16 16  4 1 Ncon
0x61 24 dc  0 32  0 r  y  .  8  8  8  0  4 24  8 16 16 16 16  2 1 Ncon
0x62 24 dc  0 32  0 r  y  .  8  8  8  8  4 24  8 16 16 16 16  2 1 Ncon
0x63 24 dc  0 32  0 r  y  .  8  8  8  0  4 24  8 16 16 16 16  4 1 Ncon
0x64 24 dc  0 32  0 r  y  .  8  8  8  8  4 24  8 16 16 16 16  4 1 Ncon
0x65 24 dc  0 32  0 r  .  .  8  8  8  0  4 24  8 16 16 16 16  2 1 Ncon
0x66 24 dc  0 32  0 r  .  .  8  8  8  8  4 24  8 16 16 16 16  2 1 Ncon
0x67 24 dc  0 32  0 r  .  .  8  8  8  0  4 24  8 16 16 16 16  4 1 Ncon
0x68 24 dc  0 32  0 r  .  .  8  8  8  8  4 24  8 16 16 16 16  4 1 Ncon
0x69 24 dc  0 32  0 r  y  .  8  8  8  0  4 16  0 16 16 16 16  2 1 Ncon
0x6a 24 dc  0 32  0 r  y  .  8  8  8  8  4 16  0 16 16 16 16  2 1 Ncon
0x6b 24 dc  0 32  0 r  y  .  8  8  8  0  4 16  0 16 16 16 16  4 1 Ncon
0x6c 24 dc  0 32  0 r  y  .  8  8  8  8  4 16  0 16 16 16 16  4 1 Ncon
0x6d 24 dc  0 32  0 r  .  .  8  8  8  0  4 16  0 16 16 16 16  2 1 Ncon
0x6e 24 dc  0 32  0 r  .  .  8  8  8  8  4 16  0 16 16 16 16  2 1 Ncon
0x6f 24 dc  0 32  0 r  .  .  8  8  8  0  4 16  0 16 16 16 16  4 1 Ncon
0x70 24 dc  0 32  0 r  .  .  8  8  8  8  4 16  0 16 16 16 16  4 1 Ncon

/proc info

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[0][~]$ cat /proc/driver/nvidia/agp/status
Status:          Enabled
Driver:          AGPGART
AGP Rate:        8x
Fast Writes:     Enabled
SBA:             Enabled

xorg.conf
http://bingweb.binghamton.edu/~nzohar1/xorg.conf

Xorg.0.log
http://bingweb.binghamton.edu/~nzohar1/Xorg.0.log

frostschutz · Post by **frostschutz** » Sat Dec 31, 2005 9:55 pm

In your kernel, do you have AGP and DRM support enabled? If so, disable it, the NVIDIA driver prefers to do that itself (it's also faster that way). Also, in case you don't need 24bit depth, switch to 16 for higher frame rates. Also, make sure you run glxgears only when there are no background processes running (sometimes my machine has cronjobs that cause framerates to drop from 5500fps down to 300-700fps...); glxgears depends heavily on CPU rather than on GPU, so it's not exactly very suitable for benchmarking rendering only.

whatah · Post by **whatah** » Sat Dec 31, 2005 10:56 pm

In my kernel, I have agpgart as a module. I am not sure how the agp thing with nvidia works, but I think I still have to load agpgart but instead of loading amd64_agp, I load nvidia-agp with it. I did this and enabled it in my xorg.conf as well as dropped the default depth to 16. I now get around 1950 FPS in glxgears. With the other agp driver, I was receiving between 1800 - 1900 FPS. I don't have drm, enabled, it's also a module, but it doesn't seem to be loading at all. Should drm be loaded with the nvidia card ever?

As for benchmarking, I tried running enemy-territory at 1024x768 in timedemo and it only rendered at 24 fps, I think that's kind of low.

Thanks,
whatah

Code: Select all

[0][~]$ cat /proc/driver/nvidia/agp/status
Status:          Enabled
Driver:          NVIDIA
AGP Rate:        8x
Fast Writes:     Enabled
SBA:             Enabled

frostschutz · Post by **frostschutz** » Sat Dec 31, 2005 11:45 pm

I don't know about amd64, but on my Athlon-XP, I just disabled the AGP/DRM stuff in the kernel, and got a speed gain from it. Other than that, I have no idea how to improve this frame rate of yours. It's possible you're suffering from another problem that I don't know about.

whig · Post by **whig** » Sun Jan 01, 2006 3:19 am

(Pardon silly question) if your video card takes a power cable is it plugged in firmly?

whatah · Post by **whatah** » Sun Jan 01, 2006 5:47 am

I can't think of any other problem, but I am going to be trying to obtain another video card for comparison, thanks for the help.

As for the card itself, I don't think there is a power cable attached to it.

SuperDindon · Post by **SuperDindon** » Sun Jan 01, 2006 10:07 am

Yep DRM should be disabled

But i think it's preferable to use in-kernel agpgart driver ( strange that ATI and nVidia still include their own AGPGart code, their Windows drivers don't do that )

Quote us the output of :

lspci|grep -i agp

to determine which driver to use

Also nvidia-agp is the kernel driver for nForce chipsets, don't get confused

gaminggeek · Post by **gaminggeek** » Sun Jan 01, 2006 11:07 am

That sounds about right, the 5XXX series at the low end was average at best and a 5500 isnt the best 5XXX card out there.

My 5600 gets

caleb@Tycho ~ $ glxgears
4575 frames in 5.0 seconds = 915.000 FPS
4720 frames in 5.0 seconds = 944.000 FPS

Although I have two screens set up at a highish res

if your games are running at anything above about 4-10 fps your drivers should be working fine but if you REALY need more frames I recomend getting a 6*** based card.

whatah · Post by **whatah** » Sun Jan 01, 2006 2:19 pm

Ah, I see.

I was confused about how good my video card was. I think I will look for a better one. Thanks.

t0mcat · Post by **t0mcat** » Sat Jan 14, 2006 3:05 pm

tbh agpgart nvidia driver sucks, use the nvidia internal agp one. my geforce6800 does 300fps with agpgart and 11000 with nvidia.

to check wich driver is currently used just do

Code: Select all

cat /proc/driver/nvidia/agp/status

to use nvidia internal one just remove "NVIDIA nForce/nForce2 chipset support" from "Device Drivers -> Character devices --> /dev/agpgart" in your kernel configuration.

DON'T remove "/dev/agpgart" support or "nvidia" module won't load.

finally, just check your xorg.conf, the gpu device section should contain this line:

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Option "NvAGP" "1"

cheers

drakonite · Post by **drakonite** » Sun Feb 19, 2006 3:33 pm

whatah wrote:Ah, I see.

I was confused about how good my video card was. I think I will look for a better one. Thanks.

No, I don't think you were.
I've been having similiar problems as you... Everything seems to be setup correctly for hardware acceleration, but EVERY opengl app I've tried runs as though it's entirely software opengl. CPU usage is 100%, even if it's barely doing any graphics, as long as opengl is enabled.
It is NOT a deficiency with the graphics card. I hadn't used opengl since before the switch to xorg, but back then I used to get good performance and it'd barely touch the CPU.

I've tried numerous of the nvidia drivers in portage, and I've also tried the newest straight from nvidia, no help. At this point, based on various things, I'm guessing there is an issue with xorg, but I don't know for sure.

It would be nice if someone knew what is going on and how to fix it, but I hope people will at least stop shrugging this off as a minor thing caused by not following the nvidia guide, too crappy of gfx card, or any of the other excuses.. There IS a problem.

whatah · Post by **whatah** » Sun Feb 19, 2006 4:59 pm

I had originally assumed this and when I tested my computer without DRI, the FPS dropped drastically. With my ATI cards, the CPU was not going up to 100%, so I believe you may be right in what you are saying. If you find out more about this, please let me know.

gaminggeek · Post by **gaminggeek** » Sun Feb 19, 2006 6:47 pm

No, I'm sorry I have the same problem there are other things to calculate when a game or opengl app os working my advise to you is stop fussing and your card isnt broken thats just how it is. Although if you do find a fix I would be interested but I don't think you will.

frostschutz · Post by **frostschutz** » Sun Feb 19, 2006 7:17 pm

Well, before anyone can find a fix, you'd have to investigate the problem. You could do this by running an as simple as possible OpenGL application that produces the problem (take one from the OpenGL programming tutorial that does nothing but draw a white rectangle on a black screen or something, dunno if this will cause high CPU load though). And then check and see where the CPU is being (ab)used. Debug tools like strace, gdb, ... may help here, as well as adding debug messages to the opengl program directly.

drakonite · Post by **drakonite** » Sun Feb 19, 2006 8:07 pm

gaminggeek wrote:my advise to you is stop fussing and your card isnt broken thats just how it is. Although if you do find a fix I would be interested but I don't think you will.

I didn't say my card was broken, precisely the opposite. The problem is NOT with the card, it is a software/driver problem. I'm tempted to put the blame on xorg causing (in some way) for opengl to be handled in software, even though everything says hardware support is available, but I don't have enough to base that on to consider it any more than a guess, especially considering the number of things that were changed in how gentoo does things around the time it would have stopped working for me.

drakonite · Post by **drakonite** » Sun Feb 19, 2006 8:19 pm

Okay, I've fixed the issue... sorta.

After installing the drivers directly from nvidia, and then switching to the xorg-x11 opengl interface (which I'm thinking is actually using nvidia glx, as the 'standard' glx location is where the official nvidia installer would install to, not the dir that gentoo throws it into...), 3d games such as neverball run great, with virtually zero cpu usage. things such as turning on vsync in nvidia-settings actually has an effect on glxgears now as well.

So, I think my guess as to what the problem is has switched very squarely to how gentoo installs and handles the nvidia glx drivers, likely from the eselect change... but, it works for me now, so I don't care to go into it that much deeper anytime soon.

drakonite · Post by **drakonite** » Mon Feb 20, 2006 1:33 pm

For the record.... something still wasn't quite right... 3d stuff worked great, but when I tried to use mythtv (which uses open-vsync to time the video apparently) it maxed out my cpu and still couldn't quite play... I decided mythtv is a lot more important to me than 3d games are, so I've gone through all the trouble of reverting back, so 3d is again not working.

africa · Post by **africa** » Mon Feb 20, 2006 4:02 pm

drakonite wrote:Okay, I've fixed the issue... sorta.

After installing the drivers directly from nvidia, and then switching to the xorg-x11 opengl interface (which I'm thinking is actually using nvidia glx, as the 'standard' glx location is where the official nvidia installer would install to, not the dir that gentoo throws it into...), 3d games such as neverball run great, with virtually zero cpu usage. things such as turning on vsync in nvidia-settings actually has an effect on glxgears now as well.

So, I think my guess as to what the problem is has switched very squarely to how gentoo installs and handles the nvidia glx drivers, likely from the eselect change... but, it works for me now, so I don't care to go into it that much deeper anytime soon.

10x for the tipp. i had same problem. i hope it works.

sim0nx · Post by **sim0nx** » Tue Feb 21, 2006 7:52 pm

pfffffff
I got exactly the same problem. I've been searching all over the net for a solution, but without luck so far.
I tried tons of different configurations, went from modular x to mono. x ... from 6.8.x to 6.9 and back etc...different driver versions
Nothing helped.

glxinfo + X.log all show that everything "should" be working fine. But it's not.
using nvidia glx libs, I get about 4000fps in glxgears.
using mesa, I get +/- the same.

Code: Select all

ldd `which glxgears`
        libGL.so.1 => /usr/lib64/opengl/nvidia/lib/libGL.so.1 (0x00002aaaaabc3000)
        libXext.so.6 => /usr/lib/libXext.so.6 (0x00002aaaaad71000)
        libX11.so.6 => /usr/lib/libX11.so.6 (0x00002aaaaae86000)
        libpthread.so.0 => /lib/libpthread.so.0 (0x00002aaaab072000)
        libm.so.6 => /lib/libm.so.6 (0x00002aaaab187000)
        libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0x00002aaaab2e0000)
        libGLcore.so.1 => /usr/lib64/opengl/nvidia/lib/libGLcore.so.1 (0x00002aaaab508000)
        libnvidia-tls.so.1 => /usr/lib64/opengl/nvidia/lib/libnvidia-tls.so.1 (0x00002aaaabd16000)
        libdl.so.2 => /lib/libdl.so.2 (0x00002aaaabe18000)
        /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00002aaaaaaab000)

So there clearly is something very wrong.
But I have no idea what it might be

.

My hardware:
amd64 3500+
1gb ram
PCI-E nvidia (leadtek) 6600 256mb ram

I _know_ (when I was still gaming) that I had more fps... I remeber something around 10000 fps.
Now somewhen since I moved to modular x, things became slow, and opengl started to act strange.

I downgraded X to 6.8.2 now, and nvidia drivers to 1.0.7676 (was using the latest drivers in portage before).

If somebody finds a solution for this, PLZ post it here
I'm getting kinda desperate

frostschutz · Post by **frostschutz** » Tue Feb 21, 2006 8:13 pm

sim0nx wrote:I _know_ (when I was still gaming) that I had more fps... I remeber something around 10000 fps.

You didn't switch color depth from 16bit to 24bit, by any chance? Last time I was startled by a sudden loss of framerate, such a change of my X.Org configuration turned out to be the cause. Sorry for asking stupid questions, I'm just considering all the possibilities.

sim0nx · Post by **sim0nx** » Tue Feb 21, 2006 8:39 pm

frostschutz wrote:You didn't switch color depth from 16bit to 24bit, by any chance? Last time I was startled by a sudden loss of framerate, such a change of my X.Org configuration turned out to be the cause. Sorry for asking stupid questions, I'm just considering all the possibilities.

Not a stupid question

No, I didn't change a thing.
Just removed the RGBpath and changed modulepath (->modular x).
Of course I changed them back when I downgraded.

I always use a color depth of 24...
Glx is on, Render is on, Composite is on (allthough I don't use it), AllowGLXwithComposite is on.
I got a dualhead (twinview + xinerama) setup.

I also just did a test with running the nvidia installer. No luck, still 4000fps.

mtoups · Post by **mtoups** » Fri Feb 24, 2006 1:55 am

drakonite wrote:For the record.... something still wasn't quite right... 3d stuff worked great, but when I tried to use mythtv (which uses open-vsync to time the video apparently) it maxed out my cpu and still couldn't quite play... I decided mythtv is a lot more important to me than 3d games are, so I've gone through all the trouble of reverting back, so 3d is again not working.

I found the other day in MythTV that if the "Use Open GL Vertical Sync" checkbox is set that my CPU utilization goes from 50% to over 100% and the video is unusable.

I also noticed that the MythTV site release notes for 0.19 says to not upgrade beyond 7676 for nvidia drivers due to performance issues and lockups.

frostschutz · Post by **frostschutz** » Fri Feb 24, 2006 8:47 am

mtoups wrote:I also noticed that the MythTV site release notes for 0.19 says to not upgrade beyond 7676 for nvidia drivers due to performance issues and lockups.

Hmmm, 7676 drivers don't work for me. I'm using the 8174 ones (had to change config for them, though, otherwise they'd give me only 60hz). Didn't come around to test newer drivers yet.

sim0nx · Post by **sim0nx** » Sat Feb 25, 2006 12:01 pm

I didn't change that vsync option.
I've tried several driver versions...no change to glxgears.

I was also posting on the nvnews forum, and somebody tried to convince me glxgears is not a benchmarking tool (I knkew that) and that it might give you strange values.
I couldn't believe it because I know what I got before.

Anyway, I just tried halflife2 yesterday, with _everything_ set to maximum (incl. FSAA + anisotropic) at a res. of 1280x1024, and the game was smooth as always.
So I guess my graphics card is working fine even though glxgears suggests something different (glxgears: 4000fps max; cpu=100%).

If somebody could explain me why glxgears gives me 4000fps no matter how I configure my system, where before I got >10000fps .. ?

mtoups · Post by **mtoups** » Sun Feb 26, 2006 9:12 pm

In spite of the note regarding verions in my earlier post, I am using the 1.0.8178 driver, but I must disable the opengl vsync option. My guess is that if you need that option, you will need to go to an earlier kernel. My use flags are:

Code: Select all

emerge -pv mythtv

These are the packages that I would merge, in order:

Calculating dependencies ...done!
[ebuild   R   ] media-tv/mythtv-0.19-r1  USE="alsa dvb dvd mmx nvidia oggvorbis opengl oss -arts -dbox2 -debug -frontendonly -ieee1394 -jack -joystick -lcd -lirc -unichrome" 0 kB

Slow Rendering and Performance w/ NVidia Card

Slow Rendering and Performance w/ NVidia Card

drm and agp

Misinformed

MythTV notes regarding nvidia driver

Re: MythTV notes regarding nvidia driver