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Old 3rd July 2015
rarebird rarebird is offline
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Default nv(4) driver issues, any hope for me?

I have been using OpenBSD on my VPS and on a ThinkPad T43 laptop for about a month.
I have only had success since I switched from FreeBSD. It is a superb system in every way I can imagine, esp. the simplicity of operation due to in depth documentation.

Since I am so impressed with it I decided to install it on my desktop workstation where I used to run FreeBSD. As always, installation was hassle free but my dreams were crushed when I started up the X and noticed that the display was not auto-configured perfectly as was the case with my T43.

My graphics card is ASUS GTX 560. I have an 24 inch LCD monitor and X display covers only about 80% of its full size.
Code:
$ xrandr --query
xrandr: Failed to get size of gamma for output default
Screen 0: minimum 640 x 480, current 1280 x 1024, maximum 1280 x 1024
default connected 1280x1024+0+0 0mm x 0mm
   1280x1024      0.00* 
   1024x768       0.00  
   800x600        0.00  
   640x480        0.00
I could use it like this since I have no need for a very large screen but there are also some issues with displaying windows and text, e.g. the cursor in this form is offset by 3 characters to the left; and graphics in general seems rough, in lack of a better term, it seems somewhat packed.

I thought about trying to create xorg.conf and fiddle with it but I didn't find a way to generate it out of the current settings and have no time on my hands to do it all manually. I remember through the fog that there was some kind of utility in FreeBSD which did just that, but I can't find it now.

I am aware that nVidia is nasty and driver support for it in OpenBSD is lacking accordingly. FreeBSD has nvidia(4) driver which worked great for me but this is not available on OpenBSD.

Is there any hope for this card to be used or I should sell it and buy an ATI one? I am not giving up on using OpenBSD as my main desktop workstation!

Last edited by rarebird; 3rd July 2015 at 08:26 PM. Reason: Typing, formatting, and grammar errors.
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Old 3rd July 2015
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blackhole blackhole is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by rarebird View Post
Is there any hope for this card to be used or I should sell it and buy an ATI one, because I am not giving up on using OpenBSD as my main desktop workstation!
If you want to run OpenBSD on that system, then you are looking at selling off that graphics card and buying compatible hardware. AMD GPUs have far better support, but you should research thoroughly before buying any particular graphics card make/model.
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Old 3rd July 2015
thirdm thirdm is offline
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Yes,
your easiest path would be to replace the card.

But perhaps you could paste your Xorg.0.log and dmesg. I have one laptop
with an HP Elitebook 8440p with an Nvidia card in the geforce series
(GT218, NVA8 chipset). Interestingly enough I found that X didn't go as
far as it could in applying the 2D nv driver without a little nudge. You
can find two recent threads on misc from people with similar
experiences. By using the following xorg.conf nv worked adequately for
my purposes. (Now I just need to look into a solution for the sound
card, which I hope to have time to look at this weekend.)

Code:
Section "Device"
   Identifier "NVIDIA_NVS_3100M"
   Driver     "nv"
   Option     "AccelMethod" "EXA"
   Option     "MigrationHeuristic" "greedy"
EndSection
Now, even with this it's slower in x11perf by half than X11 under
slackware using the nouveau driver, which you may know is the remaining
major drm driver from Linux not to be incorporated into OpenBSD.
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Old 3rd July 2015
ocicat ocicat is offline
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Welcome!

To date, nVidia has been more interested in protecting their intellectual property by concealing details of their hardware rather than opening up specifications to third-party concerns. The OpenBSD project refuses to incorporate any third-party binaries into their kernel which they cannot audit and improve. Since both sides have conflicting goals, we will likely continue to see marginal support in OpenBSD. If you can find another video card which is supported, your user experience will likely be far more more enjoyable.

The general rule is to avoid nVidia whenever possible.
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Old 3rd July 2015
rarebird rarebird is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by thirdm View Post
Yes,
By using the following xorg.conf nv worked adequately for
my purposes..
Code:
Section "Device"
   Identifier "NVIDIA_NVS_3100M"
   Driver     "nv"
   Option     "AccelMethod" "EXA"
   Option     "MigrationHeuristic" "greedy"
EndSection
Is this the whole xorg.conf you have or just the part of it pertaining to the card? If latter, then how do I generate xorg.conf out of my current settings if that is even possible?

Here is a part of dmesg:
Code:
pci0 at mainbus0 bus 0
0:0:0: mem address conflict 0xe0000000/0x20000000
pchb0 at pci0 dev 0 function 0 vendor "ATI", unknown product 0x5956 rev 0x00
ppb0 at pci0 dev 2 function 0 "ATI RD790 PCIE" rev 0x00
pci1 at ppb0 bus 1
vga1 at pci1 dev 0 function 0 vendor "NVIDIA", unknown product 0x1201 rev 0xa1
wsdisplay0 at vga1 mux 1: console (80x25, vt100 emulation)
wsdisplay0: screen 1-5 added (80x25, vt100 emulation)
azalia0 at pci1 dev 0 function 1 vendor "NVIDIA", unknown product 0x0e0c rev 0xa1: msi
azalia0: no supported codecs
And Xorg.0.log: http://pastebin.com/g4k1csXh

After looking through Xorg.0.log it seems to me that my card was not recognized properly and vesa(4) driver is used instead of nv(4) so this may be the cause of my issues but I am far from being an expert so I will appreciate if someone could scroll through it.
Line 190 of Xorg.0.log:
Code:
[ * *37.902] (WW) NV: Ignoring unsupported device 0x10de1201 at 01@00:00:0
I am in the process of getting a supported card but in the meantime I would like to try what I can.
Thank you all for helping me out!

Last edited by rarebird; 3rd July 2015 at 09:32 PM.
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Old 3rd July 2015
rarebird rarebird is offline
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I found out how to generate xorg.conf but the method is not working for me...

Running X -configure as root should do it but I get Segmentation fault when I try it.
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Old 3rd July 2015
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blackhole blackhole is offline
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The xorg.conf you have generated may be found at /root/xorg.conf.new

Copy this to the correct place, modify accordingly, etc.
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Old 3rd July 2015
rarebird rarebird is offline
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You are right, the file was there.

After playing around with the options I confirmed that nv(4) driver is indeed not working for my card. There is not a lot of options for configuring vesa(4) so I think I am stuck with what I have until I get a new graphics card from a respectable manufacturer.

Thank you all for suggestions and support!
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Old 3rd July 2015
shep shep is offline
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A less complex option is to use an 30-device.conf file in /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d. This takes the autoconfiguration file and allows you to just modify the video driver and its options.
Code:
Section "Device"
   Identifier "Asus_GTX_560"
   Driver     "nv"
   Option     "AccelMethod" "EXA"
   Option     "MigrationHeuristic" "greedy"
EndSection
Then review nv(4) and play with the different options. At a minimum you need Identifer and Driver entries
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Old 3rd July 2015
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blackhole blackhole is offline
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And to add to that, a file with those contents simply saved as /etc/X11/xorg.conf should also still work.

"X -configure" tends to generate full config with a lot of stanzas which are usually no longer necessary.

When starting X check the log file and see if those options are still supported. You will see lines of the form "is not used" appearing in the log if not. Options for xorg drivers get deprecated all the time.
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Old 3rd July 2015
rarebird rarebird is offline
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Whenever I try to use nv(4) in the Driver option the X is unable to start. I tried many of the available options but none of them change the fact that my device is unsupported by the nv(4) driver.

vesa(4) recognizes it:
Code:
[ 18547.814] (II) VESA(0): VESA BIOS detected
[ 18547.814] (II) VESA(0): VESA VBE Version 3.0
[ 18547.814] (II) VESA(0): VESA VBE Total Mem: 14336 kB
[ 18547.814] (II) VESA(0): VESA VBE OEM: NVIDIA
[ 18547.814] (II) VESA(0): VESA VBE OEM Software Rev: 112.36
[ 18547.814] (II) VESA(0): VESA VBE OEM Vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
[ 18547.814] (II) VESA(0): VESA VBE OEM Product: GF104B Board - 10410050
[ 18547.814] (II) VESA(0): VESA VBE OEM Product Rev: Chip Rev   
[ 18547.814] (II) VESA(0): virtual address = 0x1663b1c47000,
        physical address = 0xdd000000, size = 14680064
GF104B chip is not listed in nv(4) man page nor in the Xorg.0.log when the nv module is being loaded.

Basically, I can forget about nv(4) for the time being.

vesa(4) driver works okay but does not support setting the mode larger than 1280x1024 and I am left with only around 80% of the screen used.
I guess I can live with that until I get a supported card.

Last edited by rarebird; 3rd July 2015 at 09:35 PM. Reason: Grammar
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Old 7th July 2015
Martillo Martillo is offline
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If you asked me, I would tell you to install a cheap AMD 5470. I did it.
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Old 7th July 2015
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LeFrettchen LeFrettchen is offline
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Welcome.

Quote:
Originally Posted by rarebird View Post
Basically, I can forget about nv(4) for the time being.
Yep, ocicat just told you...

Quote:
Originally Posted by ocicat View Post
The general rule is to avoid nVidia whenever possible.
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