3d won't work on my nVidia graphics card (Suse 9.2)

beezum88 · 05-20-2007, 04:11 PM

I'm running Suse 9.2 and everything seems to work well, except for one major nagging problem: the driver for my nVidia RIVA TNT2 Model 64 graphics card won't install. I've tried several times using the YaST online update, but it doesn't look like it installs the driver, it just seems to download the EULA. Every time after YaST tells me it's installed, even if I restart the computer, when I try to activate the 3D acceleration, it won't let me do it because the driver isn't installed.

To clarify: everything but the 3D acceleration works fine.

Any help would be great. It'd be nice to get some 3D games on this machine.

bigrigdriver · 05-20-2007, 04:33 PM

If Yast isn't getting the job done, try doing it manually. Download the driver from the nvidia website, and follow these instructions:

Quote:

People who aren't afraid of recompiling the nvidia kernel module or
even reinstalling the nvidia driver each time the kernel has been
updated and want or need to use the latest and greatest nvidia driver
can use the following steps 1-3. The others should use the
instructions above using YOU and skip the steps below.

1) Kernel sources must be installed and configured. Usually this means
installing the 'kernel-source', 'make' and 'gcc' packages with YaST2.
Update it - if not already done - via YaST2 Online Update (YOU).

2) Use the nvidia installer for 1.0-9755.

a) kernel-default:
sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86-1.0-9755-pkg1.run -q

b) kernel-smp/kernel-bigsmp:
sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86-1.0-9755-pkg1.run -q -n

3) Configure X.Org with

sax2 -m 0=nvidia (0 is a digit, not a letter!)

NOTE: There is no need to try to enable 3D support. It's already
enabled, when the nvidia driver is running.

beezum88 · 05-20-2007, 10:14 PM

I downloaded the file and have tried to install it (I ran the first command you gave me), but it gives me an error that I'm running an X server and that I need to log out. What's an X server and how do I log out of it?

Update: Scratch the above. I googled it. Now the problem is that it can't find the kernel sources. They don't seem to be at the default location even though I installed them with YaST.

Update 2: Alright, figured it out and it all works. After I installed the kernel sources from the install CD, I had to go back to the online update, and updated the kernel source. After that, it worked just fine. For anybody reading this who's in the same position I was in, to shut down the X server, hit CTRL-ALT-F1. This will take you to a terminal screen. After that, log in as root, then type "init 3" (without the quotes). That will shut down the X server. Now run your commands. In order to bring the X server back up again when you're done, type "init 5".