Low glxgears framerate with GeForce 4 MX card

GreenPenInc · 06-09-2004, 06:02 PM

I was reading on some forums about 3d acceleration and saw the program glxgears mentioned, with a "low" framerate of about 2000 fps. Other people reported 3000 or 4000 as normal. Mine is only 300 fps. I realize that my card is only an MX model, but what gives? Shouldn't it be faster than that? Obviously I have the nvidia driver installed (instead of nv) since glxgears works in the first place, so I'm not sure what's holding my system back. (I had previously noticed that in UT2K4 only the indoor maps were reasonably playable, but I didn't think much of it)

DrOzz · 06-09-2004, 07:05 PM

don't worry d00d, your not alone

i still can't figure out whats going on with my card
also ... but i am at least putting out 850 fps, but still, thats pathetic also ... i am not sure
of your exact model, but mines a gf4 mx440, and i'll tell ya now, your not going to put
out 2000 fps ... i good framerate for mine card, and i assume yours in the same, is about
1200 - 1800 .. in the range ...
so with that rant aside, what type of options did you add to your XF86Config file ? Did
you only put in Driver "nvidia" or did you add additional options such as NvAGP, etc .
do you have your agp slot set to 2x, 4x, or 8x if that is a supported feature of both your
board and your video card ? and did you set any additional options in your BIOS,
such as assign irq to vga, etc ? or did you even go that far ?

so if you can answer some of these questions, and/or give any other information with
things you have tried, or maybe something you wanna try or don't know how to go
about it, then just post back so me and others can have a better understanding, of
whats been done and not done ...

GreenPenInc · 06-09-2004, 07:27 PM

Here's the relevant portion of my XF86Config-4:

Code:

Section "Device"
    Identifier  "nVidia Corporation NV17 [GeForce4 MX 440]"
    Driver      "nvidia"
    #VideoRam   65536
EndSection

I don't know anything about how to accelerate 3D performance on Linux. What's this NvAGP stuff? Is it better or worse than agpgart? Since modules don't work on my 2.6.6, I think I compiled agpgart right into the kernel, but I don't know how to tell.

Swerver · 06-09-2004, 08:49 PM

Sounds to me like your 3D accel isnt working at all.
stock standard glxgears for me sits on 300 FPS, thats how I tell if is working or not after playing around.

Using the Nvidia Drivers should be a piece of cake.

Have you updated XFree or your Kernel sonce you 1st put on the Nvidia drivers?

If so the installation of the Nvidia Driver needs to be processed again.

Im running an onboard GF2 MX 400 on my work computer and I get around 800 or so, so im guessing you should be getting more than 300..

On my Home com with a 9800 Pro I get about 4800.

Whats your computer specs?

One other question
Have you downloaded and installed the latest from the nvidia site or are you just goin on the default Driver installed in your Distro?

GreenPenInc · 06-09-2004, 09:14 PM

After going to 2.6.6 from 2.4.21, I forgot to update grub to default to the new one. I walked away from boot and, not realizing what I was doing, I reconfigured my 2.4.21 setup when I got back and it asked me. Long story short, it overwrote my config and had me using "nv" instead of "nvidia". Should I still reinstall the nvidia driver?

EDIT: I'm using the d/led version.

Swerver · 06-09-2004, 10:19 PM

I would suggest reinstalling the driver, it doesnt take much time and will get your config back on track if infact it has been changed.
any updates of Xfree and the Kernel needs a driver reinstallation

Make sure you have Version: 1.0-5336 of the nvidia driver as it supports 2.6 kernel

Just run through the readme and update as needed, I installed on SuSE which has a seperate install which issue a couple more commands...

try update it first maybe?

nvidia-installer --update
this will connect to the ftp site and see if a new version is available and install it (not a bad option)

if it still doesnt work

nvidia-installer --uninstall

then reinstall from scratch with the latest run package

hope ya get it werking...

ghostwalker · 06-10-2004, 10:42 AM

Another guy at another forum had the same problem. It all turned out to be his power supply. You may want to post you complete system specs. Do you have a power supply greater than 350 and it is not real old or real generic?

walt

GreenPenInc · 06-11-2004, 06:12 AM

This is "cat /proc/something" but I can't remember what I did to get this output. (I stuck it in a file a few weeks ago :P)

Code:

00:00.0 Host bridge: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] SiS645 Host & Memory & AGP Controller (rev 01)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] SiS 530 Virtual PCI-to-PCI bridge (AGP)
00:02.0 ISA bridge: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] 85C503/5513
00:02.2 USB Controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] SiS7001 USB Controller (rev 07)
00:02.3 USB Controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] SiS7001 USB Controller (rev 07)
00:02.5 IDE interface: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] 5513 [IDE] (rev d0)
00:02.7 Multimedia audio controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] SiS7012 PCI Audio Accelerator (rev a0)  00:03.0 Ethernet controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] SiS900 10/100 Ethernet (rev 90)
00:09.0 Multimedia audio controller: Creative Labs SB Live! EMU10k1 (rev 0a) 
00:09.1 Input device controller: Creative Labs SB Live! MIDI/Game Port (rev 0a)
00:0b.0 Ethernet controller: National Semiconductor Corporation DP83815 (MacPhyter) Ethernet Controller
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation NV17 [GeForce4 MX 440] (rev a3)

I recompiled my kernel, making agpgart a module instead of a compiled part of the kernel, and I added Option "NvAGP" "1" into my XFree86Config-4. Here are a few more relevant pieces of info.

Code:

gpi@greenpeninc:$ cat agp/card 
Fast Writes:     Supported
SBA:             Not Supported
AGP Rates:       4x 2x 1x 
Registers:       0x1f000017:0x1f000104
gpi@greenpeninc:$ cat agp/host-bridge 
Host Bridge:     Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] SiS645 Host & Memory & AGP Controller
Fast Writes:     Not Supported
SBA:             Supported
AGP Rates:       4x 2x 1x 
Registers:       0x1f000207:0x00000104
gpi@greenpeninc:$ cat agp/status 
Status:          Enabled
Driver:          NVIDIA
AGP Rate:        4x
Fast Writes:     Disabled
SBA:             Disabled

After the kernel recompilation and reinstallation of the latest nvidia driver, my framerate is still ~300. I've got no idea what's going on. Power supply sounds like an interesting idea though, I might check that out. But if anyone has any other ideas in the meantime, I'd appreciate your help

Joey.Dale · 06-11-2004, 10:21 AM

What are your framrate w/o the nvidia driver?

-Joey

GreenPenInc · 06-11-2004, 04:45 PM

Without the driver, it doesn't work. Unless I have the nVidia driver installed, I don't get glxgears (or opengl or anything).