Nvidia Card Upgrade

Message

Crashed_Again · Post by **Crashed_Again** » Tue Mar 09, 2004 10:24 am

Hey folks. I just ordered the Nvidia GeForce FX5950 Ultra and I'm really excited. I have a rather silly question though. I currently have an old Nvidia card running and I used the nvidia-kernel build for the drivers. My question is, is it necessary to re-emerge these drivers once I install the new card? Will the build process be different because its a different card?

I know its a silly question but I was just wondering. Thanks.

nephros · Post by **nephros** » Tue Mar 09, 2004 11:03 am

You shouldn't need to recompile.

The nvidia driver is binary-only, and detects the card when X starts, recompilation would not be able to change anything.

Check your [url=file:///etc/X11/]/etc/X11/XF86Config[/url] though for things that might have changed (for example for options specifying the amount memory).
Also, read the file:///usr/share/doc/nvidia_glx/README.gz in case your new card has more features you want to enable (e.g. more FSAA modes, TwinView and the like)

Crashed_Again · Post by **Crashed_Again** » Tue Mar 09, 2004 11:09 am

Okay cool. Right now I have this in XF86Config:

Code: Select all

Section "Device"
        Identifier  "Videocard0"
        Driver      "nvidia"
        VendorName  "Videocard vendor"
        BoardName   "NVIDIA GeForce 2 MX (generic)"
        VideoRam    32768
EndSection

The FX5950 has 256mb of ram so I would change VideoRam 32768 to VideoRam 256000 right? What about the BoardName section? What should I change that to?

nephros · Post by **nephros** » Tue Mar 09, 2004 11:31 am

You can set VendorName and BoardName to anything you like. In fact, I don't know where they are used at all. I think they are just there make it easier for the user to identify devices in case there are several.

The Identifier is important for the Screen section, so leave it as it is.

I would just comment out the VideoRam line, the driver should be able to probe that just fine. (Check the /var/log/XFree.0.log in case of problems.) The value would be 262144 (256*1024) though if you want to set it.

Good luck, and if don't work consider just sending the card to me

my GF2 is getting old...

Crashed_Again · Post by **Crashed_Again** » Tue Mar 09, 2004 11:46 am

Thanks. If the card doesn't work then I'll mail it to:

The Guy Who Helped Me Where There Are Not Kangaroos