NVIDIA FX 5200 -- 3D wont work

hoopyfrood · 12-25-2003, 07:11 PM

Hi all,

I've just installed a GeForce FX5200 video card in my Linux box, and am using the the new NVIDIA 5328 Linux drivers (which I installed this morning). I've edited my XF86Config-4 file through vim, changed my driver to "nvidia" and made sure there were no 'Load "dri"' and 'Load "GLcore"' comments and saved the changes successfully. Booting into X, I now see the NVIDIA logo before the KDM starts, and my desktop now uses the card and the new drivers. Everything seems to have worked, except for one major fault: my 3D acceleration doesn't work.

glx-gears runs ultra slow, and all my 3D games like Armagetron, Chromuim, tuxracer, etc., run as slow as they do without hardware acceleration. When I run Chromium, it's as slow as about 2-3 FPS, however the output in the console states:

Code:

randomizing.
SDL initialized.
video mode set (bpp=32 RGB=888 depth=24)
-OpenGL-----------------------------------------------------
Vendor     : NVIDIA Corporation
Renderer   : GeForce FX 5200 Ultra/AGP/SSE/3DNOW!/forceSW
Version    : 1.4.1 NVIDIA 53.28

Obviously, the drivers installed ok and are being detected without issue. I've noticed that I can use a better video renderer in Mplayer when I play video files (previously I was stuck using a pokey little window with poor picture quality.) In other words, everything works fine with this card except the thing I need to work: 3d acceleration.

Please, if anyone can help I'd be grateful -- I really want to try WineX, and have bought myself the GeForce card specifically to do this. Without 3D it's just a useless drain on my powersupply.

I'm running:
AMD 2000+ CPU
ECS L7VMM2 Socket A Mainboard
256mb RAM/20gb HDD
Albatron NVIDIA FX GeForce 5200
Mandrake 9.2 [2.4.22-10mdk kernel]

here's the relevent sections of my XF86Config-4 is:

Code:

Section "Module"
    Load "dbe" # Double-Buffering Extension
    Load "v4l" # Video for Linux
    Load "extmod"
    Load "type1"
    Load "freetype"
    Load "glx" # 3D layer
EndSection

...and...

Code:

Section "Device"
    Identifier "device1"
    BoardName "NVIDIA GeForce FX (generic)"
    Driver "nvidia"
    Option "DPMS"
EndSection

wapcaplet · 12-25-2003, 07:23 PM

If possible, try getting ahold of an older version of the nvidia driver. Their latest releases tend to be sort of buggy. The 4496 release works fairly well, if I remember correctly.

hoopyfrood · 12-25-2003, 07:31 PM

Thanks for the suggestion

I'm downloading the 4496 drivers now -- at about 900bps average from the Nvidia site. It's been going for about 2 hours and has another hour left. I'll post again once I've tried them.

Cheers,
Tim

hoopyfrood · 12-25-2003, 10:41 PM

I'll be damned. The older NVIDIA drivers work like a charm. 3d Acceleration went off without a hitch (almost -- my old friend, the console.perms file, reared it's ugly head again. minor issue though, considering.)

I honestly didn't think trying older drivers would have done the trick. Had I know, I'd have tried long before I tore my hair out mucking about with everything else!

Tim