OpenGL screen saver problems
 

I have Mandrake 9.1, and a NVidia GeForce4 ti4200 based video card. After installing linux, I noticed that the screen savers that came with it that use OpenGL (the ones with (GL) next to their title) were running very slow. This was with the default drivers that came with linux. It was obvious that they didn't support acceleration.

So I downloaded the latest linux drivers from NVidia's site, and installed them. The screen savers worked perfectly after that.

Then, the other day, I noticed that all the (GL) screen savers stopped working completely. When they are used, they merely display a black screen. In the KDE Control Center, I can't access the "Setup" for any of them, and the preview is all black.

It seems to me that its a problem with OpenGL in general. I haven't tried any GL-based programs yet, to see if they are affected, because I'm not sure which one's are GL-based.

Any suggestions? It did work at one point...

If you can open and play Tux Racer or Chromium, you are not having problems with the OGL subsystem, sometimes the screensavers when you are viewing them, and previewing them, suddenly stop responding, why this happnes I dunno. Try restarting your session, if it still happens (with GL savers) but you are able to play games, your OGL problem would probably rely on the MESA compatibilty, sadly as far as I know nVidia is not compatible with MESA (does not use MESA glx)

Neither tuxracer nor chromium works. I know that Tuxracer did work a few days ago, because me and my friend were playing it.

So it must be my GL setup... but how can I fix it?

Uninstall the current drivers, then reinstall your drivers (via source prefferably or via their new .bin.sh)

I'm sorry this thread was posted twice. I have no idea how that happened.

NP