Problems installing NVIDIA driver

[capt-zero]

oshunluvr,

Just tried out that post of Steve's and it seems to work well. I'll give it a few days to make sure it's compatable with everything, but so far my system is running better than it ever has since I picked it up a couple of weeks ago. Thanks for the referal to Steve's post. I'm going to mark this thread as solved for now.

Thanx,
capt-zero

[oshunluvr]

Cool! Just in case - here's my edits to my xorg.conf.

Section "Device" Identifier "Device0"
Driver "nvidia"
VendorName "NVIDIA Corporation"
BoardName "GeForce 8800 GT"
BusId "PCI:1:0:0"
Option "Coolbits" "1"
Option "TripleBuffer" "True"
# + Enables triple buffering. "Decreases the time an application stalls while waiting for vblank events, but increases latency slightly" (NVIDIA Readme)
Option "UseCompositeWrapper" "True"
# + Enables the X server's composite wrapper instead of the builtin one.
Option "BackingStore" "True"
# + Cache overlayed areas in case they get redisplayed later
Option "OnDemandVBlankInterrupts" "True"
# + only fire VBlank interrupts in modes where they are needed
EndSection

These gave me about a 10-20% increase in performance according to gtkperf (don't use glxgears to test performance, that's not what it is for). However, my cards are somewhat newer and of a higher level than yours, still the edits might help.

You should also review your /var/log/Xorg.0.log to see what is happening with your card. It might reveal some failed options.

[capt-zero]

oshunluvr,

Checked out the xorg.0.log. Didn't notice anything glaring, but then much of it was 'geek' to me. It did seem to recognise my inbuilt video card though and addressed it properly and I am now using a NVIDIA 304.22 driver. Thanks once again for your help. I had pretty much tried everything I could think of.

thanx,
capt-zero

[capt-zero]

oshunluvr,

Just out of curosity where is the 'xorg.conf' file?

capt-zero

[capt-zero]

oshunluvr,

Actually I've just found the xorg.conf file, however there are not any of the sections you show in your example. Am I supposed to just add "option "coolbits" "1" ect.? Also, do they all go in the 'device' section?

thanx,
capt-zero

[oshunluvr]

Yes, those where all from my device section. Coolbits allows more settings in nvidia-settings like overclocking if your card supports it and such. You should really do some net searching on your card model to see what others have tried. The formatting of my xorg.conf was "fixed" by the quote option of the forum software, but usually as long as you have stuff in the right location, the spacing and such is only cosmetic.

I suggest trying a couple options and seeing what happens. Like I said before, gtkperf will give you a real number to compare to see if you've improved or worsened things. Always make a backup of a working xorg.conf in case you break the GUI. I usually just copy the working version as xorg.conf.1 and leave it in the /etc/X11 folder. Then if you get dumped to the console on your next restart, just rename xorg.conf to xorg.conf.bad1 and copy xorg.conf.1 to xorg.conf and you're able to jum back into the GUI.