Screensavers are Slow and Choppy?
 

Hi,

I'm running Mandrake 9.1 and the better screensavers seem to be really slow and choppy. There is this particular one, (Euphoria,) which I really want, but the graphics aren't acceptable.

Why is this completely unreasonable, you ask? I have a Nvidia Geforce4 (MX) with 2.4Ghz Processor and 256DDR RAM runnning on my computer. Linux seems to have detected the Nvidia card as geforce 4 generic, and I believe it has the right drivers installed, so what's the problem?

I heard that sometimes, when linux loads too many programs on startup, it can slow things down (Everything else runs very crisply, BTW.) How would I decrease the number of programs that are loaded on startup?

-Thanks in Advance

You will need to head over to NVIDIA's site and get updated drivers for your video card:
http://www.nvidia.com/content/drivers/drivers.asp

Install the drivers and remember to edit the X86config-4 file (change nv to nvidia).

When the drivers are properly loaded you should have 3D acceleration.

Thanks -- It seemed to work at first, but then told me that I need to shut down X before I can install (it appeared that it was running.) How do I fix this (I was logged in as root, BTW)?

To shut down X hit Ctrl-Alt-F2. Login as root and then change the run level by typing: init 3

Login again as root. CD to the directory where the drivers are at. You might want to write down the path to the drivers before you start this.

When you are in the correct directory type: sh NVID and hit the tab key (the file name will autocomplete).

When it is finished type init 5 to return to X.

Once they are loaded, you will need to change nv to nvidia in the X86Config-4 file. The path to the file is /etc/X11/X86Config-4. I don't remember exactly where the nv is located, but keep scrolling down until you see it.

When everything is finished, reboot the machine. If everything is correct you should see an NVIDIA logo flash on the screen just before the login screen.

Sweet.

The linux community has been very helpful. Much appreciated.

Glad I could help. I struggled with installing video drivers for some time until someone finally made it clear to me how to shut down X.