Hi folks.

I'm running a soyo box with a
AMD 3000+
512 MB RAM
nvidia TNT2 32 MB RAM
nvidia driver 6111

and I'm stumped, I went from 35 to 500 fps in glxgears after I compiled and installed the 6111 driver then the other day it dropped to 8 fps! I have no idea what I did. the xf86cong-4 looks the same, I rebooted, I'm idealess. HELP!
Alvin

What does glxinfo say? I don't know why you're running such an old video card on such new hardware...

Well I couldn't get the VIA onboard video drivers working so a friend gave me this card. Here's my glx info
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
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_SGIX_fbconfig, GLX_SGIX_pbuffer,
GLX_SGI_swap_control, GLX_NV_float_buffer
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_get_proc_address
OpenGL vendor string: NVIDIA Corporation
OpenGL renderer string: RIVA TNT2/AGP/SSE/3DNOW!
OpenGL version string: 1.5.1 NVIDIA 61.11
OpenGL extensions:
GL_ARB_imaging, GL_ARB_multitexture, GL_ARB_point_parameters,
GL_ARB_texture_env_add, GL_ARB_texture_mirrored_repeat,
GL_ARB_transpose_matrix, GL_ARB_vertex_buffer_object, GL_ARB_window_pos,
GL_EXT_texture_env_add, GL_EXT_abgr, GL_EXT_bgra,
GL_EXT_compiled_vertex_array, GL_EXT_draw_range_elements,
GL_EXT_fog_coord, GL_EXT_multi_draw_arrays, GL_EXT_packed_pixels,
GL_EXT_pixel_buffer_object, GL_EXT_point_parameters,
GL_EXT_rescale_normal, GL_EXT_secondary_color,
GL_EXT_separate_specular_color, GL_EXT_stencil_wrap,
GL_EXT_texture_edge_clamp, GL_EXT_texture_env_combine,
GL_EXT_texture_lod_bias, GL_EXT_texture_object, GL_EXT_vertex_array,
GL_IBM_rasterpos_clip, GL_IBM_texture_mirrored_repeat,
GL_KTX_buffer_region, GL_NV_blend_square, GL_NV_fog_distance,
GL_NV_packed_depth_stencil, GL_NV_texgen_reflection,
GL_NV_texture_env_combine4, GL_SGIS_multitexture, 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
----------------------------------------------------------------------
0x21 16 tc 0 16 0 r y . 5 6 5 0 0 16 0 16 16 16 16 0 0 None
0x22 16 dc 0 16 0 r y . 5 6 5 0 0 16 0 16 16 16 16 0 0 None
0x23 16 tc 0 16 0 r . . 5 6 5 0 0 16 0 16 16 16 16 0 0 None
0x24 16 tc 0 16 0 r y . 5 6 5 0 0 0 0 16 16 16 16 0 0 None
0x25 16 tc 0 16 0 r . . 5 6 5 0 0 0 0 16 16 16 16 0 0 None
0x26 16 dc 0 16 0 r . . 5 6 5 0 0 16 0 16 16 16 16 0 0 None
0x27 16 dc 0 16 0 r y . 5 6 5 0 0 0 0 16 16 16 16 0 0 None
0x28 16 dc 0 16 0 r . . 5 6 5 0 0 0 0 16 16 16 16 0 0 None

Thanks for the reply
Alvin

Yeah! Cheap S3 VIA cards though have DRI experimental drivers, they remain that: Experimental.

Anyway, it all looks good from your output of glxinfo (direct rendering is enabled) and the important lines read NVIDIA, so you do have 3D enabled... Besides glxgears, what other applications have you tried to run?

Well other then the gl fireworks screensaver I haven't. I just didn't understand the steep drop in the fps. I am trying to get a few old winders games to run through wine like civnet, but that's another story.
Thanks.
Alvin

Have you tried any others? How well did it/they run?

Give me some examples and I'll run them and see what happens. By the way here's a snip from my dmesg sould I worry about it?

nvidia: no version for "struct_module" found: kernel tainted.
nvidia: module license 'NVIDIA' taints kernel.
NVRM: loading NVIDIA Linux x86 NVIDIA Kernel Module 1.0-6111 Tue Jul 27 07:55:38 PDT 2004
agpgart: Found an AGP 3.5 compliant device at 0000:00:00.0.
agpgart: Device is in legacy mode, falling back to 2.x
agpgart: Putting AGP V2 device at 0000:00:00.0 into 4x mode
agpgart: Putting AGP V2 device at 0000:01:00.0 into 4x mode
agpgart: Found an AGP 3.5 compliant device at 0000:00:00.0.
agpgart: Device is in legacy mode, falling back to 2.x
agpgart: Putting AGP V2 device at 0000:00:00.0 into 4x mode
agpgart: Putting AGP V2 device at 0000:01:00.0 into 4x mode
atkbd.c: Unknown key released (translated set 2, code 0x7a on isa0060/serio0).
atkbd.c: This is an XFree86 bug. It shouldn't access hardware directly.
atkbd.c: Unknown key released (translated set 2, code 0x7a on isa0060/serio0).
atkbd.c: This is an XFree86 bug. It shouldn't access hardware directly.

Thanks again.
Alvin

Would look like X struggles to get the card running at AGP 4X. My suggestion is that you take a look at the nVIDIA guide (AKA README) and set the AGP driver to NVGART rather than AGPGART.

What I meant before is if you had tried running any other OpenGL application. Examples are many, like TuxRacer, Chromium, Foo Billard, GL-117, Freedroid RPG, Celestia (not a game as such), GL-Tron, any other GL-screensaver, demos of comercial games like Quake3, Unreal Tournament (I don't know if you could still get that one, though), UT2K3, UT2K4 (though these two last with that card may very well refuse to run altogether).

I have a Geforce4 MX440 AGPx4 64mb graphics card in a P3 800mhz comp. I've been getting like 20 fps in counter-strike and I'm sure I can do better. I should also say I'm running Debian on kernel 2.6.8.1.

glxinfo says direct rendering is enabled and glxgears gives me around 1800 fps.

/proc/driver/nvidia/agp/more * gives
::::::::::::::
card
::::::::::::::
Fast Writes: Supported
SBA: Not Supported
AGP Rates: 4x 2x 1x
Registers: 0x1f000017:0x1f000104
::::::::::::::
host-bridge
::::::::::::::
Host Bridge: Intel Corp. 82815 815 Chipset Host Bridge and Memory Controller
Hub
Fast Writes: Not Supported
SBA: Supported
AGP Rates: 4x 2x 1x
Registers: 0x1f000207:0x00000104
::::::::::::::
status
::::::::::::::
Status: Enabled
Driver: NVIDIA
AGP Rate: 4x
Fast Writes: Disabled
SBA: Disabled

Additionally, a lesser important question. I'm running in KDE (I know, it takes some fps) and have my display set to 1024x768 @ 85mhz which is fine for my Dell E770s monitor. When I play Steam it takes over and sets my resolution to 800x600. What fps will it be set to? Will it be stuck at 85 or will it know to go to the optimal which is 100mhz?

Thanks for any help!

Just one question (though based on your specs, I think I already know the answer, just gotta make sure), your graphics card isn't embeded in the motherboard, right?

And about the performance, well if you run from within KDE there's not much you can do to help increase your performance. From what I gather you also use WIne quite extensively, do you use the Desktop option (default) or did you force it to run @ full screen? You may want to fiddle around in ~/.wine/config (or ~/.transgaming/config if you use cedega) to finetune your wine configuration.

If you are referring to my post, I just used the cedega option relating to Desktop that allows the games to go full screen. My card has a proper agp slot, its not integrated.

Yeah! That's what I thought (about the graphics card). So you commented out the desktop option in Cedega's config? (which will force to run fullscreen). The slowness in CS could also be attributable to Cedega itself (I mean, it is not a full native appolication and you need on-the-fly API translation (WINAPI, not graphics API)).

Thetargos
I just had something strange happen. I was watching tv [BTW xawtv wouldn't show video so I loaded tvtime] and was popping between Thunderbird Firefox a terminal and the tv and suddently everything froze but the mouse pointer so I had to hit reset. Something crazy is going on.

Sad to tell you this: Known bug in the nVIDIA drivers. When [apparently] there's too much stress of 2D capabilities, it would do that.

Crap, ok thanks. I'll look into the NVGART thing tomarow there's got to be an answer on why the thing got so slow over night.
Alvin