I have just installed slackware and have a Nvidia Geforce 5200 FX 256 MB. Haven't done any configuration of X but still my screen looks ok. It looks even better than when i installed Fedora and my card was detected automatically. So i am wondering whether i really need to install Nvidia drivers?? I have read that many people have had problems with it so am not sure wheather i should do it? If i dont install it is that going to effect the performance of my computer. Thanks

nvidia drivers might really cause some headaches, specially with newest cards, but once you get them running, they tend to offer better performance than XFree86 'nv' driver -- I have a GeForce4 Ti4200 and couldn't be happier.

I suggest you switch to runlevel 3 or 2 (non-graphical) and play with it. Don't forget to RTFM (it comes with a reasonably detailed README) and check nvidia forums at www.nvnvews.net

HTH

thanks. What driver version would you suggest? Do i download Version: 1.0-5336 or another driver version? Have heard that some new drivers are more difficult to install than the others, so i would really appriciate some suggestions. At the moment am using kernel 2.4.22
thanks

I would suggest going for the latest driver (5336). Indeed, it caused some fuss when it came out, but I guess it is pretty much 'known' by now -- all relevant issues should be mapped.

I also suiggest you browse through nvidia Linux forums looking for any experiences (good or bad) with your specific card to try to anticipate any major problems.

I'm currently reading on how to update drivers for nvidia since I heard they really suport linux with own drivers. I have a gforce ti4200 and would like to install the latest drivers. But I only recently installed linux on my pc. Is there any way to check if there is already a driver installed during the installation? My linux version is more recent than the card I have. When I see the following lspci -v I think there is a driver but not sure.

VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation NV25 [Geforce4 Ti 4200] (rev a) (prog-if 00 [VGA])
...
(sorry but it seems that I can"t paste anything in mozilla, it doesn't work)

- But when I check in my configuration, my card isn't listed...

regards.
Lieven

lspci probes harwdare directly and shows their "signatures" as reported by them. It doesn't show you which drivers are being used to interact with them.

If you're running X11 (the graphical environment), then you're definitely using a driver compatible with your card. However, since you never installed nvidia driver yourself, and it isn't usually bundled with the distros, odds are you're using XFree86's "nv" driver.

Even though "nv" driver is nvidia-compatible, nvidia's own driver performs better and should be used instead [1]. You could easily confirm which one you're using either by looking for this on /etc/X11/XF86Config, on the "Device" section:

Section "Device"
...
Driver "nv"
...
EndSection

If you don't find it, look for this instead:

Driver "nvidia"

Another way of checking which version you're using is by checking /var/log/XFree86.0.log for these lines:

(II) LoadModule: "nvidia"
(II) Loading /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/drivers/nvidia_drv.o
(II) Module nvidia: vendor="NVIDIA Corporation"
compiled for 4.0.2, module version = 1.0.5336
Module class: XFree86 Video Driver

The above snippet was taken from my logs, and you can see I am using "nvidia" driver. If you're using "nv" driver, output should be slightly different.

[1] actually, it is not that simple. nvidia driver is closed-source, and if you don't care about performance and/or are willing to support open-source 100%, you should stick with "nv" driver, which is open-source.

The nv driver works well but has no hardware acceleration, which means 3d rendering is done in software by Mesa, and Mesa3d=sloooow.
If you intend to play 3d games you'll need to install the nvidia driver, ditto if you want to watch DVDs or use some of the advanced features of the card such as tv out or twinview.
If all your doing is 2d office work, surfing the net and email then the nv driver is fine.