OpenBSD 5.4 Nvidia Driver Issue and KDE Desktop disappearing text.

[LeFrettchen]

Originally Posted by Martillo

do you know something more powerful and equally fully supported by OpenBSD?

With a PCI slot, no.
This is the best PCI video card that I know for PCI slot.

And I wonder if a more powerful video card will be really useful.
If your CPU is an old P4, I think that your CPU might limit a more powerful video card.

[Martillo]

Originally Posted by LeFrettchen

If your CPU is an old P4, I think that your CPU might limit a more powerful video card.

Well, it is an "old" i7 920 on a X58 (LGBA 1366)

That is why I want a good graphics card, the system can push it.

[LeFrettchen]

Oops, sorry, I thought it was an older CPU...

[shep]

And I wonder if a more powerful video card will be really useful.

Agreed. High resolution video is not an OpenBSD strength and not a high priority for development. I have run a lightweight desktop (OpenBSD.Tint2,Wbar) in a Via C7 cpu (single core i686 1.6mHz) with an on-board OpenChrome video chip - youtube videos play back fine in Mplayer.

But if you need to optimize OpenBSD 3D performance, I would look for the highest supported ATI card with the fastest/largest RAM in the fastest card slot you have available.

[Martillo]

I think I should explain: I need a powerful video card not for OpenBSD, but for Windows (gaming, video, etc...). For OpenBSD the HD5450 would be enough (as was GTX 260 before 5.4). The desktop motherboard does not have integrated (Intel) graphics, that is why I need a video card that serves me well in all environments.

What I like of OpenBSD is the neatness and the cryptography. For sheer performance I have other solutions, but not for security. I think I will give a try to the Radeon.

[Martillo]

Well, in the end I had to give up an on baremetal installation and run OpenBSD on VirtualBox under Windows 8 Pro. I had wished to do it under FreeBSD, but 10.0 is still beta and VirtualBox has problems with it.

Just one advise: OpenBSD nor NetBSD does not run well on a multiprocessor VirtualBox machine. One CPU is fine, though.

[Martillo]

Nope, I changed my mind again. I took off one disk from the ZFS mirror and have installed OpenBSD 5.4 again. I think I can bear the Xorg slowness.

Vaya telenovela, seguro que estáis entretenidos con mis idas y venidas

edit: I am into Erlang, so I do not need fancy video or desktop performance... yet.

[Martillo]

I have not seen http://marc.info/?l=openbsd-tech&m=138471297221150&w=2 til today.

Someone tested it? I cannot now.

Thanks to Matthieu.

[Martillo]

Well, tested. It feels lighter inside xterm, and moving windows as well, however in fvwm it is difficult to say more.

[Martillo]

Tested in xfce (4.10) and very usable. Big windows like f.e. firefox are still sloppy when moving them, but less than before patching. Scrolling inside is fluid, but it was not a problem before. Scrolling and catting files in xfce4-terminal 0.6.2 is fluid.

I am not suscribed to lists, so I hope Matthieu reads this and someone else tests his patch and write to the list.

Thanks again, Matthieu.

[ocicat]

Originally Posted by Martillo

I am not suscribed to lists, so I hope Matthieu reads this and someone else tests his patch and write to the list.

This site is independent of the project, & very few developers ever read these posts. Ever. Expecting project personnel to see this discussion is not a realistic assumption.

[Martillo]

Originally Posted by ocicat

This site is independent of the project, & very few developers ever read these posts. Ever. Expecting project personnel to see this discussion is not a realistic assumption.

Thanks for the clarification. I hope Google+ has more devs audience. Someday I will enlist in the lists.

[shep]

The developers are also approachable via email which you can pull from the lists. I have corresponded with Matthieu Herrb (xf86-video-sis), Antoine Jacoutot (wbar) and Edd Barrett (tint2 update). I was and still am a neophyte with the issues. I had an sis video card and was willing to test patches when it was broken by the recent mesa-libs upgrade. Matthieu pointed me to the documentation and was kind enough not to berate me when I sent him a raw core dump that had not been run through the debugger.

As long as the focus is on improving OpenBSD they will generally respond.

[jggimi]

Originally Posted by Martillo

Someday I will enlist in the lists.

Per FAQ 2.2:

An unofficial mailing list that may be of interest to new users of OpenBSD and Unix is the OpenBSD Newbies list.

[Martillo]

Well, I have published a response through the google groups interface to the mailing.openbsd.tech list. However I do not see it in the marc.info interface yet, is it normal?

[Martillo]

Well, I gave up and went back to FreeBSD. However after a year and half, one of the disks in the ZFS mirror failed, and when replacing it I realized the pairing was not right (2009 vs. 2015 disks, 512 vs. 4k...), so the pool was likely to be rebuilt... so I thought "why not?" and got an additional disk, an AMD card, and finally built a sofraid raid1. The AMD card plays nicely too, being passively cooled (those Nvidia GTX 260 are powerful but too hot and noisy).

The disk with FreeBSD is carefully stored "just in case of accidents"

P.S.: ATI Radeon HD 5450