NVIDIA Accelerated Linux Graphics Driver README and Installation Guide
NVIDIA Corporation
Last Updated: Sun Nov 8 22:08:38 PST 2015
Most Recent Driver Version: 304.131
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______________________________________________________________________________
TABLE OF CONTENTS
______________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 1. Introduction
Chapter 2. Minimum Software Requirements
Chapter 3. Selecting and Downloading the NVIDIA Packages for Your System
Chapter 4. Installing the NVIDIA Driver
Chapter 5. Listing of Installed Components
Chapter 6. Configuring X for the NVIDIA Driver
Chapter 7. Frequently Asked Questions
Chapter 8. Common Problems
Chapter 9. Known Issues
Chapter 10. Allocating DMA Buffers on 64-bit Platforms
Chapter 11. Specifying OpenGL Environment Variable Settings
Chapter 12. Configuring AGP
Chapter 13. Configuring Multiple Display Devices on One X Screen
Chapter 14. Configuring GLX in Xinerama
Chapter 15. Configuring Multiple X Screens on One Card
Chapter 16. Configuring TV-Out
Chapter 17. Support for the X Resize and Rotate Extension
Chapter 18. Configuring a Notebook
Chapter 19. Using the NVIDIA Driver with Optimus Laptops
Chapter 20. Programming Modes
Chapter 21. Configuring Flipping and UBB
Chapter 22. Using the Proc Filesystem Interface
Chapter 23. Configuring Power Management Support
Chapter 24. Using the X Composite Extension
Chapter 25. Using the nvidia-settings Utility
Chapter 26. Using the nvidia-smi Utility
Chapter 27. The NVIDIA Management Library
Chapter 28. Using the nvidia-debugdump Utility
Chapter 29. Configuring SLI and Multi-GPU FrameRendering
Chapter 30. Configuring Frame Lock and Genlock
Chapter 31. Configuring SDI Video Output
Chapter 32. Configuring Depth 30 Displays
Chapter 33. Addressing Capabilities
Chapter 34. NVIDIA Contact Info and Additional Resources
Chapter 35. Acknowledgements
Appendix A. Supported NVIDIA GPU Products
Appendix B. X Config Options
Appendix C. Display Device Names
Appendix D. GLX Support
Appendix E. Dots Per Inch
Appendix F. i2c Bus Support
Appendix G. XvMC Support
Appendix H. VDPAU Support
Appendix I. Audio Support
Appendix J. Tips for New Linux Users
______________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 1. Introduction
______________________________________________________________________________
1A. ABOUT THE NVIDIA ACCELERATED LINUX GRAPHICS DRIVER
The NVIDIA Accelerated Linux Graphics Driver brings accelerated 2D
functionality and high-performance OpenGL support to Linux x86 with the
use of NVIDIA graphics processing units (GPUs).
These drivers provide optimized hardware acceleration for OpenGL and X
applications and support nearly all recent NVIDIA GPU products (see Appendix A
for a complete list of supported GPUs). TwinView, TV-Out and flat panel
displays are also supported.
1B. ABOUT THIS DOCUMENT
This document provides instructions for the installation and use of the NVIDIA
Accelerated Linux Graphics Driver. Chapter 3, Chapter 4 and Chapter 6 walk the
user through the process of downloading, installing and configuring the
driver. Chapter 7 addresses frequently asked questions about the installation
process, and Chapter 8 provides solutions to common problems. The remaining
chapters include details on different features of the NVIDIA Linux Driver.
Frequently asked questions about specific tasks are included in the relevant
chapters. These pages are posted on NVIDIA's web site (http://www.nvidia.com),
and are installed in '/usr/share/doc/NVIDIA_GLX-1.0/'.
1C. ABOUT THE AUDIENCE
It is assumed that the user and reader of this document has at least a basic
understanding of Linux techniques and terminology. However, new Linux users
can refer to Appendix J for details on parts of the installation process.
1D. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
In case additional information is required, Chapter 34 provides contact
information for NVIDIA Linux driver resources, as well as a brief listing of
external resources.
______________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 2. Minimum Software Requirements
______________________________________________________________________________
Software Element Supported versions Check With...
--------------------- --------------------- ---------------------
Linux kernel 2.4.22 and newer `cat /proc/version`
XFree86* 4.0.1 and newer `XFree86 -version`
X.Org* 1.0, 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, `Xorg -version`
1.4, 1.5, 1.6, 1.7,
1.8, 1.9, 1.10, 1.11,
1.12, 1.13, 1.14,
1.15, 1.16, 1.17,
1.18
Kernel modutils 2.1.121 and newer `insmod --version`
glibc 2.0 `ls /lib/libc.so.*` >
6
* It is only required that you have one of XFree86 or X.Org, not both.
Please see "Q. How do I interpret X server version numbers?" in Chapter 7 for
a note about X server version numbers.
If you need to build the NVIDIA kernel module:
Software Element Min Requirement Check With...
--------------------- --------------------- ---------------------
binutils 2.9.5 `size --version`
GNU make 3.77 `make --version`
gcc 2.91.66 `gcc --version`
All official stable kernel releases from 2.4.22 and up are supported;
"prerelease" versions such as "2.6.23-rc1" are not supported, nor are
development series kernels such as 2.3.x or 2.5.x. The Linux kernel can be
downloaded from http://www.kernel.org or one of its mirrors.
binutils and gcc can be retrieved from http://www.gnu.org or one of its
mirrors.
If you are using XFree86, but do not have a file '/var/log/XFree86.0.log',
then you probably have a 3.x version of XFree86 and must upgrade.
Sometimes very recent X server versions are not supported immediately
following release, but we aim to support all new versions as soon as possible.
Support is not added for new X server versions until after the video driver
ABI is frozen, which usually happens at the release candidate stage.
Prerelease versions that are not release candidates, such as "1.10.99.1", are
not supported.
If you are setting up the X Window System for the first time, it is often
easier to begin with one of the open source drivers that ships with XFree86
and X.Org (either "nv", "vga" or "vesa"). Once your system is operating
properly with the open source driver, you may then switch to the NVIDIA
driver.
Note that newer NVIDIA GPUs may not work with older versions of the "nv"
driver shipped with X.Org and XFree86. For example, the "nv" driver that
shipped with X.Org's X11R7.2 release did not recognize the GeForce 8 family
and the Quadro 4600/5600 GPUs. This was fixed in the X11R7.3 release. X.Org
releases (and individual packages) can be retrieved from http://www.x.org/.
These software packages may also be available through your Linux distributor.
______________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 3. Selecting and Downloading the NVIDIA Packages for Your System
______________________________________________________________________________
NVIDIA drivers can be downloaded from the NVIDIA website
(http://www.nvidia.com).
The NVIDIA graphics driver uses a Unified Driver Architecture: the single
graphics driver supports all modern NVIDIA GPUs. "Legacy" GPU support has been
moved from the unified driver to special legacy GPU driver releases. See
Appendix A for a list of legacy GPUs.
The NVIDIA graphics driver is bundled in a self-extracting package named
'NVIDIA-Linux-x86-304.131.run'. On Linux-x86_64, that file contains
both the 64-bit driver binaries as well as 32-bit compatibility driver
binaries; the 'NVIDIA-Linux-x86-304.131-no-compat32.run' file only
contains the 64-bit driver binaries.
______________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 4. Installing the NVIDIA Driver
______________________________________________________________________________
This chapter provides instructions for installing the NVIDIA driver. Note that
after installation, but prior to using the driver, you must complete the steps
described in Chapter 6. Additional details that may be helpful for the new
Linux user are provided in Appendix J.
4A. BEFORE YOU BEGIN
Before you begin the installation, exit the X server and terminate all OpenGL
applications (note that it is possible that some OpenGL applications persist
even after the X server has stopped). You should also set the default run
level on your system such that it will boot to a VGA console, and not directly
to X. Doing so will make it easier to recover if there is a problem during the
installation process. See Appendix J for details.
If you're installing on a system that is set up to use the Nouveau driver,
then you should first disable it before attempting to install the NVIDIA
driver. See Interaction with the Nouveau Driver for details.
4B. STARTING THE INSTALLER
After you have downloaded the file 'NVIDIA-Linux-x86-304.131.run',
change to the directory containing the downloaded file, and as the 'root' user
run the executable:
# cd yourdirectory
# sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86-304.131.run
The '.run' file is a self-extracting archive. When executed, it extracts the
contents of the archive and runs the contained 'nvidia-installer' utility,
which provides an interactive interface to walk you through the installation.
'nvidia-installer' will also install itself to '/usr/bin/nvidia-installer',
which may be used at some later time to uninstall drivers, auto-download
updated drivers, etc. The use of this utility is detailed later in this
chapter.
You may also supply command line options to the '.run' file. Some of the more
common options are listed below.
Common '.run' Options
--info
Print embedded info about the '.run' file and exit.
--check
Check integrity of the archive and exit.
--extract-only
Extract the contents of './NVIDIA-Linux-x86-304.131.run', but do
not run 'nvidia-installer'.
--help
Print usage information for the common commandline options and exit.
--advanced-options
Print usage information for common command line options as well as the
advanced options, and then exit.
4C. INSTALLING THE KERNEL INTERFACE
The NVIDIA kernel module has a kernel interface layer that must be compiled
specifically for each kernel. NVIDIA distributes the source code to this
kernel interface layer.
When the installer is run, it will check your system for the required kernel
sources and compile the kernel interface. You must have the source code for
your kernel installed for compilation to work. On most systems, this means
that you will need to locate and install the correct kernel-source,
kernel-headers, or kernel-devel package; on some distributions, no additional
packages are required.
After the correct kernel interface has been compiled, the kernel interface
will be linked with the closed-source portion of the NVIDIA kernel module.
This requires that you have a linker installed on your system. The linker,
usually '/usr/bin/ld', is part of the binutils package. You must have a linker
installed prior to installing the NVIDIA driver.
The installer will check for the presence of DKMS on your system. If DKMS is
found, you will be given the option of registering the kernel module with
DKMS, and using the DKMS infrastructure to build and install the kernel
module. On most systems with DKMS, DKMS will take care of automatically
rebuilding registered kernel modules when installing a different Linux kernel.
Not all kernel configurations are supported by DKMS: for example, DKMS does
not support kernels built with separate KBUILD source and output directories.
If 'nvidia-installer' is unable to install the kernel module through DKMS, the
installation will be aborted and no kernel module will be installed. If this
happens, installation should be attempted again, without the DKMS option.
Note that versions of 'nvidia-installer' shipped with drivers before release
304 do not interact with DKMS. If you choose to register the NVIDIA kernel
module with DKMS, please ensure that the module is removed from the DKMS
database before using a non-DKMS aware version of 'nvidia-installer' to
install an older driver; otherwise, module source files may be deleted without
first unregistering the module, potentially leaving the DKMS database in an
inconsistent state. Running 'nvidia-uninstall' before installing a driver
using an older installer will invoke the correct `dkms remove` command to
clean up the installation.
4D. FEATURES OF THE INSTALLER
Without options, the '.run' file executes the installer after unpacking it.
The installer can be run as a separate step in the process, or can be run at a
later time to get updates, etc. Some of the more important commandline options
of 'nvidia-installer' are:
'nvidia-installer' options
--uninstall
During installation, the installer will make backups of any conflicting
files and record the installation of new files. The uninstall option
undoes an install, restoring the system to its pre-install state.
--latest
Connect to NVIDIA's FTP site, and report the latest driver version and the
url to the latest driver file.
--update
Connect to NVIDIA's FTP site, download the most recent driver file, and
install it.
--ui=none
The installer uses an ncurses-based user interface if it is able to locate
the correct ncurses library. Otherwise, it will fall back to a simple
commandline user interface. This option disables the use of the ncurses
library.
______________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 5. Listing of Installed Components
______________________________________________________________________________
The NVIDIA Accelerated Linux Graphics Driver consists of the following
components (filenames in parentheses are the full names of the components
after installation; "x.y.z" denotes the current version. In these cases
appropriate symlinks are created during installation):
o An X driver (/usr/X11R6/lib/modules/drivers/nvidia_drv.so); this driver
is needed by the X server to use your NVIDIA hardware.
o A GLX extension module for X
(/usr/X11R6/lib/modules/extensions/libglx.so.x.y.z); this module is used
by the X server to provide server-side GLX support.
o An X module for wrapped software rendering
(/usr/X11R6/lib/modules/libnvidia-wfb.so.x.y.z and optionally,
/usr/X11R6/lib/modules/libwfb.so); this module is used by the X driver to
perform software rendering on GeForce 8 series GPUs. If libwfb.so already
exists, nvidia-installer will not overwrite it. Otherwise, it will create
a symbolic link from libwfb.so to libnvidia-wfb.so.x.y.z.
o An OpenGL library (/usr/lib/libGL.so.x.y.z); this library provides the
API entry points for all OpenGL and GLX function calls. It is linked to
at run-time by OpenGL applications.
o An OpenGL core library (/usr/lib/libnvidia-glcore.so.x.y.z); this library
is implicitly used by libGL and by libglx. It contains the core
accelerated 3D functionality. You should not explicitly load it in your X
config file -- that is taken care of by libglx.
o Two XvMC (X-Video Motion Compensation) libraries: a static library and a
shared library (/usr/X11R6/lib/libXvMCNVIDIA.a,
/usr/X11R6/lib/libXvMCNVIDIA.so.x.y.z); see Appendix G for details.
o A VDPAU (Video Decode and Presentation API for Unix-like systems) library
for the NVIDIA vendor implementation,
(/usr/X11R6/lib/libvdpau_nvidia.so.x.y.z); see Appendix H for details.
o Two CUDA libraries (/usr/lib/libcuda.so.x.y.z, /usr/lib/libcuda.la);
these libraries provide runtime support for CUDA (high-performance
computing on the GPU) applications.
o Two OpenCL libraries (/usr/lib/libOpenCL.so.1.0.0,
/usr/lib/libnvidia-opencl.so.x.y.z); the former is a vendor-independent
Installable Client Driver (ICD) loader, and the latter is the NVIDIA
Vendor ICD. A config file /usr/lib/vendors/nvidia.icd is also installed,
to advertise the NVIDIA Vendor ICD to the ICD Loader.
o A kernel module (/lib/modules/`uname -r`/video/nvidia.o or
/lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/drivers/video/nvidia.o); this kernel
module provides low-level access to your NVIDIA hardware for all of the
above components. It is generally loaded into the kernel when the X
server is started, and is used by the X driver and OpenGL. nvidia.o
consists of two pieces: the binary-only core, and a kernel interface that
must be compiled specifically for your kernel version. Note that the
Linux kernel does not have a consistent binary interface like the X
server, so it is important that this kernel interface be matched with the
version of the kernel that you are using. This can either be accomplished
by compiling yourself, or using precompiled binaries provided for the
kernels shipped with some of the more common Linux distributions.
o The nvidia-tls libraries (/usr/lib/libnvidia-tls.so.x.y.z and
/usr/lib/tls/libnvidia-tls.so.x.y.z); these files provide thread local
storage support for the NVIDIA OpenGL libraries (libGL, libnvidia-glcore,
and libglx). Each nvidia-tls library provides support for a particular
thread local storage model (such as ELF TLS), and the one appropriate for
your system will be loaded at run time.
o The nvidia-ml library (/usr/lib/libnvidia-ml.so.x.y.z); The NVIDIA
Management Library provides a monitoring and management API. See Chapter
27 for more information.
o The application nvidia-installer (/usr/bin/nvidia-installer) is NVIDIA's
tool for installing and updating NVIDIA drivers. See Chapter 4 for a more
thorough description.
o The application nvidia-xconfig (/usr/bin/nvidia-xconfig) is NVIDIA's tool
for manipulating X server configuration files. See Chapter 6 for more
information.
o The application nvidia-settings (/usr/bin/nvidia-settings) is NVIDIA's
tool for dynamic configuration while the X server is running. See Chapter
25 for more information.
o The application nvidia-smi (/usr/bin/nvidia-smi) is the NVIDIA System
Management Interface for management and monitoring functionality. See
Chapter 26 for more information.
o The application nvidia-debugdump (/usr/bin/nvidia-debugdump) is NVIDIA's
tool for collecting internal GPU state. It is normally invoked by the
nvidia-bug-report.sh (/usr/bin/nvidia-bug-report.sh) script. See Chapter
28 for more information.
o An X driver configuration file
(/usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/nvidia-drm-outputclass.conf); If the X server
is sufficiently new, this file will be installed to configure the X
server to load the nvidia_drv.so driver automatically if it is started
after the NVIDIA kernel module is loaded. This feature is supported in
X.Org xserver 1.16 and higher when running on Linux 3.9 or higher with
CONFIG_DRM enabled.
Problems will arise if applications use the wrong version of a library. This
can be the case if there are either old libGL libraries or stale symlinks left
lying around. If you think there may be something awry in your installation,
check that the following files are in place (these are all the files of the
NVIDIA Accelerated Linux Graphics Driver, as well as their symlinks):
/usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers/nvidia_drv.so
/usr/lib/xorg/modules/libwfb.so (if your X server is new enough), or
/usr/lib/xorg/modules/libnvidia-wfb.so and
/usr/lib/xorg/modules/libwfb.so -> libnvidia-wfb.so
/usr/lib/xorg/modules/extensions/libglx.so.x.y.z
/usr/lib/xorg/modules/extensions/libglx.so -> libglx.so.x.y.z
(the above may also be in /usr/lib/modules or /usr/X11R6/lib/modules)
/usr/lib/libGL.so.x.y.z
/usr/lib/libGL.so.x -> libGL.so.x.y.z
/usr/lib/libGL.so -> libGL.so.x
/usr/lib/libnvidia-glcore.so.x.y.z
/usr/lib/libcuda.so.x.y.z
/usr/lib/libcuda.so -> libcuda.so.x.y.z
/lib/modules/`uname -r`/video/nvidia.{o,ko}, or
/lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/drivers/video/nvidia.{o,ko}
If there are other libraries whose "soname" conflicts with that of the NVIDIA
libraries, ldconfig may create the wrong symlinks. It is recommended that you
manually remove or rename conflicting libraries (be sure to rename clashing
libraries to something that ldconfig will not look at -- we have found that
prepending "XXX" to a library name generally does the trick), rerun
'ldconfig', and check that the correct symlinks were made. An example of a
library that often creates conflicts is "/usr/X11R6/lib/libGL.so*".
If the libraries appear to be correct, then verify that the application is
using the correct libraries. For example, to check that the application
/usr/X11R6/bin/glxgears is using the NVIDIA libraries, run:
% ldd /usr/X11R6/bin/glxgears
linux-gate.so.1 => (0xffffe000)
libGL.so.1 => /usr/lib/libGL.so.1 (0xb7ed1000)
libXext.so.6 => /usr/X11R6/lib/libXext.so.6 (0xb7ec0000)
libX11.so.6 => /usr/X11R6/lib/libX11.so.6 (0xb7de0000)
libpthread.so.0 => /lib/tls/libpthread.so.0 (0x00946000)
libm.so.6 => /lib/tls/libm.so.6 (0x0075d000)
libc.so.6 => /lib/tls/libc.so.6 (0x00631000)
libnvidia-tls.so.304.131 => /usr/lib/tls/libnvidia-tls.so.__DRV_VER__
(0xb7ddd000)
libnvidia-glcore.so.304.131 => /usr/lib/libnvidia-glcore.so.__DRV_VER__
(0xb5d1f000)
libdl.so.2 => /lib/libdl.so.2 (0x00782000)
/lib/ld-linux.so.2 (0x00614000)
Check the files being used for libGL -- if it is something other than the
NVIDIA library, then you will need to either remove the library that is
getting in the way or adjust your ld search path using the 'LD_LIBRARY_PATH'
environment variable. You may want to consult the man pages for 'ldconfig' and
'ldd'.
______________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 6. Configuring X for the NVIDIA Driver
______________________________________________________________________________
The X configuration file provides a means to configure the X server. This
section describes the settings necessary to enable the NVIDIA driver. A
comprehensive list of parameters is provided in Appendix B.
The NVIDIA Driver includes a utility called nvidia-xconfig, which is designed
to make editing the X configuration file easy. You can also edit it by hand.
6A. USING NVIDIA-XCONFIG TO CONFIGURE THE X SERVER
nvidia-xconfig will find the X configuration file and modify it to use the
NVIDIA X driver. In most cases, you can simply answer "Yes" when the installer
asks if it should run it. If you need to reconfigure your X server later, you
can run nvidia-xconfig again from a terminal. nvidia-xconfig will make a
backup copy of your configuration file before modifying it.
Note that the X server must be restarted for any changes to its configuration
file to take effect.
More information about nvidia-xconfig can be found in the nvidia-xconfig
manual page by running.
% man nvidia-xconfig
6B. MANUALLY EDITING THE CONFIGURATION FILE
In April 2004 the X.Org Foundation released an X server based on the XFree86
server. While your release may use the X.Org X server, rather than XFree86,
the differences between the two should have no impact on NVIDIA Linux users
with two exceptions:
o The X.Org configuration file is '/etc/X11/xorg.conf' while the XFree86
configuration file is '/etc/X11/XF86Config'. The files use the same
syntax. This document refers to both files as "the X config file".
o The X.Org log file is '/var/log/Xorg.#.log' while the XFree86 log file is
'/var/log/XFree86.#.log' (where '#' is the server number -- usually 0).
The format of the log files is nearly identical. This document refers to
both files as "the X log file".
In order for any changes to be read into the X server, you must edit the file
used by the server. While it is not unreasonable to simply edit both files, it
is easy to determine the correct file by searching for the line
(==) Using config file:
in the X log file. This line indicates the name of the X config file in use.
If you do not have a working X config file, there are a few different ways to
obtain one. A sample config file is included both with the XFree86
distribution and with the NVIDIA driver package (at
'/usr/share/doc/NVIDIA_GLX-1.0/'). The 'nvidia-xconfig' utility, provided with
the NVIDIA driver package, can generate a new X configuration file. Additional
information on the X config syntax can be found in the XF86Config manual page
(`man XF86Config` or `man xorg.conf`).
If you have a working X config file for a different driver (such as the "nv"
or "vesa" driver), then simply edit the file as follows.
Remove the line:
Driver "nv"
(or Driver "vesa")
(or Driver "fbdev")
and replace it with the line:
Driver "nvidia"
Remove the following lines:
Load "dri"
Load "GLCore"
In the "Module" section of the file, add the line (if it does not already
exist):
Load "glx"
If the X config file does not have a "Module" section, you can safely skip the
last step if the X server installed on your system is an X.Org X server or an
XFree86 X release version 4.4.0 or greater. If you are using an older XFree86
X server, add the following to your X config file:
Section "Module"
Load "extmod"
Load "dbe"
Load "type1"
Load "freetype"
Load "glx"
EndSection
There are numerous options that may be added to the X config file to tune the
NVIDIA X driver. See Appendix B for a complete list of these options.
Once you have completed these edits to the X config file, you may restart X
and begin using the accelerated OpenGL libraries. After restarting X, any
OpenGL application should automatically use the new NVIDIA libraries. (NOTE:
If you encounter any problems, see Chapter 8 for common problem diagnoses.)
6C. RESTORING THE X CONFIGURATION AFTER UNINSTALLING THE DRIVER
If X is explicitly configured to use the NVIDIA driver, then the X config file
should be edited to use a different X driver after uninstalling the NVIDIA
driver. Otherwise, X may fail to start, since the driver it was configured to
use will no longer be present on the system after uninstallation.
If you edited the file manually, revert any edits you made. If you used the
'nvidia-xconfig' utility, either by answering "Yes" when prompted to configure
the X server by the installer, or by running it manually later on, then you
may restore the backed-up X config file, if it exists and reflects the X
config state that existed before the NVIDIA driver was installed.
If you do not recall any manual changes that you made to the file, or do not
have a backed-up X config file that uses a non-NVIDIA X driver, you may want
to try simply renaming the X configuration file, to see if your X server loads
a sensible default.
______________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 7. Frequently Asked Questions
______________________________________________________________________________
This section provides answers to frequently asked questions associated with
the NVIDIA Linux x86 Driver and its installation. Common problem
diagnoses can be found in Chapter 8 and tips for new users can be found in
Appendix J. Also, detailed information for specific setups is provided in the
Appendices.
NVIDIA-INSTALLER
Q. How do I extract the contents of the '.run' without actually installing the
driver?
A. Run the installer as follows:
# sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86-304.131.run --extract-only
This will create the directory NVIDIA-Linux-x86-304.131,
containing the uncompressed contents of the '.run' file.
Q. How can I see the source code to the kernel interface layer?
A. The source files to the kernel interface layer are in the kernel directory
of the extracted .run file. To get to these sources, run:
# sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86-304.131.run --extract-only
# cd NVIDIA-Linux-x86-304.131/kernel/
Q. How and when are the the NVIDIA device files created?
A. Depending on the target system's configuration, the NVIDIA device files
used to be created in one of three different ways:
o at installation time, using mknod
o at module load time, via devfs (Linux device file system)
o at module load time, via hotplug/udev
With current NVIDIA driver releases, device files are created or modified
by the X driver when the X server is started.
By default, the NVIDIA driver will attempt to create device files with the
following attributes:
UID: 0 - 'root'
GID: 0 - 'root'
Mode: 0666 - 'rw-rw-rw-'
Existing device files are changed if their attributes don't match these
defaults. If you want the NVIDIA driver to create the device files with
different attributes, you can specify them with the "NVreg_DeviceFileUID"
(user), "NVreg_DeviceFileGID" (group) and "NVreg_DeviceFileMode" NVIDIA
Linux kernel module parameters.
For example, the NVIDIA driver can be instructed to create device files
with UID=0 (root), GID=44 (video) and Mode=0660 by passing the following
module parameters to the NVIDIA Linux kernel module:
NVreg_DeviceFileUID=0
NVreg_DeviceFileGID=44
NVreg_DeviceFileMode=0660
The "NVreg_ModifyDeviceFiles" NVIDIA kernel module parameter will disable
dynamic device file management, if set to 0.
Q. Why does NVIDIA not provide RPMs?
A. Not every Linux distribution uses RPM, and NVIDIA provides a single
solution that works across all Linux distributions. NVIDIA encourages Linux
distributions to repackage and redistribute the NVIDIA Linux driver in
their native package management formats. These repackaged NVIDIA drivers
are likely to inter-operate best with the Linux distribution's package
management technology. For this reason, NVIDIA encourages users to use
their distribution's repackaged NVIDIA driver, where available.
Q. Can the nvidia-installer use a proxy server?
A. Yes, because the FTP support in nvidia-installer is based on snarf, it will
honor the 'FTP_PROXY', 'SNARF_PROXY', and 'PROXY' environment variables.
Q. What is the significance of the '-no-compat32' suffix on Linux-x86_64
'.run' files?
A. To distinguish between Linux-x86_64 driver package files that do or do not
also contain 32-bit compatibility libraries, "-no-compat32" is be appended
to the latter. 'NVIDIA-Linux-x86-304.131.run' contains both 64-bit
and 32-bit driver binaries; but
'NVIDIA-Linux-x86-304.131-no-compat32.run' omits the 32-bit
compatibility libraries.
Q. Can I add my own precompiled kernel interfaces to a '.run' file?
A. Yes, the --add-this-kernel '.run' file option will unpack the '.run' file,
build a precompiled kernel interface for the currently running kernel, and
repackage the '.run' file, appending '-custom' to the filename. This may be
useful, for example. if you administer multiple Linux computers, each
running the same kernel.
Q. Where can I find the source code for the 'nvidia-installer' utility?
A. The 'nvidia-installer' utility is released under the GPL. The source code
for the version of nvidia-installer built with driver 304.131 is in
'nvidia-installer-304.131.tar.bz2' available here:
ftp://download.nvidia.com/XFree86/nvidia-installer/
NVIDIA DRIVER
Q. Where should I start when diagnosing display problems?
A. One of the most useful tools for diagnosing problems is the X log file in
'/var/log'. Lines that begin with "(II)" are information, "(WW)" are
warnings, and "(EE)" are errors. You should make sure that the correct
config file (i.e. the config file you are editing) is being used; look for
the line that begins with:
(==) Using config file:
Also make sure that the NVIDIA driver is being used, rather than the "nv"
or "vesa" driver. Search for
(II) LoadModule: "nvidia"
Lines from the driver should begin with:
(II) NVIDIA(0)
Q. How can I increase the amount of data printed in the X log file?
A. By default, the NVIDIA X driver prints relatively few messages to stderr
and the X log file. If you need to troubleshoot, then it may be helpful to
enable more verbose output by using the X command line options -verbose and
-logverbose, which can be used to set the verbosity level for the 'stderr'
and log file messages, respectively. The NVIDIA X driver will output more
messages when the verbosity level is at or above 5 (X defaults to verbosity
level 1 for 'stderr' and level 3 for the log file). So, to enable verbose
messaging from the NVIDIA X driver to both the log file and 'stderr', you
could start X with the verbosity level set to 5, by doing the following
% startx -- -verbose 5 -logverbose 5
Q. What is NVIDIA's policy towards development series Linux kernels?
A. NVIDIA does not officially support development series kernels. However, all
the kernel module source code that interfaces with the Linux kernel is
available in the 'kernel/' directory of the '.run' file. NVIDIA encourages
members of the Linux community to develop patches to these source files to
support development series kernels. A web search will most likely yield
several community supported patches.
Q. Where can I find the tarballs?
A. Plain tarballs are not available. The '.run' file is a tarball with a shell
script prepended. You can execute the '.run' file with the --extract-only
option to unpack the tarball.
Q. How do I tell if I have my kernel sources installed?
A. If you are running on a distro that uses RPM (Red Hat, Mandriva, SuSE,
etc), then you can use 'rpm' to tell you. At a shell prompt, type:
% rpm -qa | grep kernel
and look at the output. You should see a package that corresponds to your
kernel (often named something like kernel-2.6.15-7) and a kernel source
package with the same version (often named something like
kernel-devel-2.6.15-7 or kernel-source-2.4.22-7). If none of the lines seem
to correspond to a source package, then you will probably need to install
it. If the versions listed mismatch (e.g., kernel-2.6.15-7 vs.
kernel-devel-2.6.15-10), then you will need to update the kernel-devel
package to match the installed kernel. If you have multiple kernels
installed, you need to install the kernel-devel package that corresponds to
your RUNNING kernel (or make sure your installed source package matches the
running kernel). You can do this by looking at the output of 'uname -r' and
matching versions.
Q. What is SELinux and how does it interact with the NVIDIA driver ?
A. Security-Enhanced Linux (SELinux) is a set of modifications applied to the
Linux kernel and utilities that implement a security policy architecture.
When in use it requires that the security type on all shared libraries be
set to 'shlib_t'. The installer detects when to set the security type, and
sets it on all shared libraries it installs. The option --force-selinux
passed to the '.run' file overrides the detection of when to set the
security type.
Q. Why does X use so much memory?
A. When measuring any application's memory usage, you must be careful to
distinguish between physical system RAM used and virtual mappings of shared
resources. For example, most shared libraries exist only once in physical
memory but are mapped into multiple processes. This memory should only be
counted once when computing total memory usage. In the same way, the video
memory on a graphics card or register memory on any device can be mapped
into multiple processes. These mappings do not consume normal system RAM.
This has been a frequently discussed topic on XFree86 mailing lists; see,
for example:
http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=xfree-xpert&m=96835767116567&w=2
The 'pmap' utility described in the above thread is available in the
"procps" package shipped with most recent Linux distributions, and is a
useful tool in distinguishing between types of memory mappings. For
example, while 'top' may indicate that X is using several hundred MB of
memory, the last line of output from the output of pmap (note that pmap may
need to be run as root):
# pmap -d `pidof X` | tail -n 1
mapped: 161404K writeable/private: 7260K shared: 118056K
reveals that X is really only using roughly 7MB of system RAM (the
"writeable/private" value).
Note, also, that X must allocate resources on behalf of X clients (the
window manager, your web browser, etc); the X server's memory usage will
increase as more clients request resources such as pixmaps, and decrease as
you close X applications.
The "IndirectMemoryAccess" X configuration option may cause additional
virtual address space to be reserved.
Q. Why do applications that use DGA graphics fail?
A. The NVIDIA driver does not support the graphics component of the
XFree86-DGA (Direct Graphics Access) extension. Applications can use the
XDGASelectInput() function to acquire relative pointer motion, but
graphics-related functions such as XDGASetMode() and XDGAOpenFramebuffer()
will fail.
The graphics component of XFree86-DGA is not supported because it requires
a CPU mapping of framebuffer memory. As graphics cards ship with increasing
quantities of video memory, the NVIDIA X driver has had to switch to a more
dynamic memory mapping scheme that is incompatible with DGA. Furthermore,
DGA does not cooperate with other graphics rendering libraries such as Xlib
and OpenGL because it accesses GPU resources directly.
NVIDIA recommends that applications use OpenGL or Xlib, rather than DGA,
for graphics rendering. Using rendering libraries other than DGA will yield
better performance and improve interoperability with other X applications.
Q. My kernel log contains messages that are prefixed with "Xid"; what do these
messages mean?
A. "Xid" messages indicate that a general GPU error occurred, most often due
to the driver misprogramming the GPU or to corruption of the commands sent
to the GPU. These messages provide diagnostic information that can be used
by NVIDIA to aid in debugging reported problems.
Q. I use the Coolbits overclocking interface to adjust my graphics card's
clock frequencies, but the defaults are reset whenever X is restarted. How
do I make my changes persistent?
A. Clock frequency settings are not saved/restored automatically by default to
avoid potential stability and other problems that may be encountered if the
chosen frequency settings differ from the defaults qualified by the
manufacturer. You can use the command line below in '~/.xinitrc' to
automatically apply custom clock frequency settings when the X server is
started:
# nvidia-settings -a GPUOverclockingState=1 -a
GPU2DClockFreqs=<GPU>,<MEM> -a GPU3DClockFreqs=<GPU>,<MEM>
Here '<GPU>' and '<MEM>' are the desired GPU and video memory frequencies
(in MHz), respectively.
Q. Why is the refresh rate not reported correctly by utilities that use the
XRandR X extension (e.g., the GNOME "Screen Resolution Preferences" panel,
`xrandr -q`, etc)?
A. The XRandR X extension is not presently aware of multiple display devices
on a single X screen; it only sees the MetaMode bounding box, which may
contain one or more actual modes. This means that if multiple MetaModes
have the same bounding box, XRandR will not be able to distinguish between
them.
In order to support DynamicTwinView, the NVIDIA X driver must make each
MetaMode appear to be unique to XRandR. Presently, the NVIDIA X driver
accomplishes this by using the refresh rate as a unique identifier.
You can use `nvidia-settings -q RefreshRate` to query the actual refresh
rate on each display device.
This behavior can be disabled by setting the X configuration option
"DynamicTwinView" to FALSE.
For details, see Chapter 13.
Q. Why does starting certain applications result in Xlib error messages
indicating extensions like "XFree86-VidModeExtension" or "SHAPE" are
missing?
A. If your X config file has a "Module" section that does not list the
"extmod" module, some X server extensions may be missing, resulting in
error messages of the form:
Xlib: extension "SHAPE" missing on display ":0.0"
Xlib: extension "XFree86-VidModeExtension" missing on display ":0.0"
Xlib: extension "XFree86-DGA" missing on display ":0.0"
You can solve this problem by adding the line below to your X config file's
"Module" section:
Load "extmod"
Q. Where can I find older driver versions?
A. Please visit ftp://download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86/
Q. What is the format of a PCI Bus ID?
A. Different tools have different formats for the PCI Bus ID of a PCI device.
The X server's "BusID" X configuration file option interprets the BusID
string in the format "bus@domain:device:function" (the "@domain" portion is
only needed if the PCI domain is non-zero), in decimal. More specifically,
"%d@%d:%d:%d", bus, domain, device, function
in printf(3) syntax. NVIDIA X driver logging, nvidia-xconfig, and
nvidia-settings match the X configuration file BusID convention.
The lspci(8) utility, in contrast, reports the PCI BusID of a PCI device in
the format "domain:bus:device.function", printing the values in
hexadecimal. More specifically,
"%04x:%02x:%02x.%x", domain, bus, device, function
in printf(3) syntax. The "Bus Location" reported in the
/proc/driver/nvidia/gpus/0..N/information files matches the lspci format.
Q. How do I interpret X server version numbers?
A. X server version numbers can be difficult to interpret because some X.Org X
servers report the versions of different things.
In 2003, X.Org created a fork of the XFree86 project's code base, which
used a monolithic build system to build the X server, libraries, and
applications together in one source code repository. It resumed the release
version numbering where it left off in 2001, continuing with 6.7, 6.8,
etc., for the releases of this large bundle of code. These version numbers
are sometimes written X11R6.7, X11R6.8, etc. to include the version of the
X protocol.
In 2005, an effort was made to split the monolithic code base into separate
modules with their own version numbers to make them easier to maintain and
so that they could be released independently. X.Org still occasionally
releases these modules together, with a single version number. These
releases are simply referred to as "X.Org releases", or sometimes
"katamari" releases. For example, X.Org 7.6 was released on December 20,
2010 and contains version 1.9.3 of the xorg-server package, which contains
the core X server itself.
The release management changes from XFree86, to X.Org monolithic releases,
to X.Org modular releases impacted the behavior of the X server's
"-version" command line option. For example, XFree86 X servers always
report the version of the XFree86 monolithic package:
XFree86 Version 4.3.0 (Red Hat Linux release: 4.3.0-2)
Release Date: 27 February 2003
X Protocol Version 11, Revision 0, Release 6.6
X servers in X.Org monolithic and early "katamari" releases did something
similar:
X Window System Version 7.1.1
Release Date: 12 May 2006
X Protocol Version 11, Revision 0, Release 7.1.1
However, X.Org later modified the X server to start printing its individual
module version number instead:
X.Org X Server 1.9.3
Release Date: 2010-12-13
X Protocol Version 11, Revision 0
Please keep this in mind when comparing X server versions: what looks like
"version 7.x" is OLDER than version 1.x.
______________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 8. Common Problems
______________________________________________________________________________
This section provides solutions to common problems associated with the NVIDIA
Linux x86 Driver.
Q. My X server fails to start, and my X log file contains the error:
(EE) NVIDIA(0): The NVIDIA kernel module does not appear to
(EE) NVIDIA(0): be receiving interrupts generated by the NVIDIA
graphics
(EE) NVIDIA(0): device PCI:x:x:x. Please see the COMMON PROBLEMS
(EE) NVIDIA(0): section in the README for additional information.
A. This can be caused by a variety of problems, such as PCI IRQ routing
errors, I/O APIC problems or conflicts with other devices sharing the IRQ
(or their drivers).
If possible, configure your system such that your graphics card does not
share its IRQ with other devices (try moving the graphics card to another
slot if applicable, unload/disable the driver(s) for the device(s) sharing
the card's IRQ, or remove/disable the device(s)).
Depending on the nature of the problem, one of (or a combination of) these
kernel parameters might also help:
Parameter Behavior
-------------- ---------------------------------------------------
pci=noacpi don't use ACPI for PCI IRQ routing
pci=biosirq use PCI BIOS calls to retrieve the IRQ routing
table
noapic don't use I/O APICs present in the system
acpi=off disable ACPI
Q. My X server fails to start, and my X log file contains the error:
(EE) NVIDIA(0): The interrupt for NVIDIA graphics device PCI:x:x:x
(EE) NVIDIA(0): appears to be edge-triggered. Please see the COMMON
(EE) NVIDIA(0): PROBLEMS section in the README for additional
information.
A. An edge-triggered interrupt means that the kernel has programmed the
interrupt as edge-triggered rather than level-triggered in the Advanced
Programmable Interrupt Controller (APIC). Edge-triggered interrupts are not
intended to be used for sharing an interrupt line between multiple devices;
level-triggered interrupts are the intended trigger for such usage. When
using edge-triggered interrupts, it is common for device drivers using that
interrupt line to stop receiving interrupts. This would appear to the end
user as those devices no longer working, and potentially as a full system
hang. These problems tend to be more common when multiple devices are
sharing that interrupt line.
This occurs when ACPI is not used to program interrupt routing in the APIC.
This often occurs on Linux 2.4 kernels, which do not fully support ACPI. It
may also occur with Linux 2.6 or more recent kernels when ACPI is disabled,
or fails to initialize. In these cases, the Linux kernel falls back to
tables provided by the system BIOS. In some cases the system BIOS assumes
ACPI will be used for routing interrupts and configures these tables to
incorrectly label all interrupts as edge-triggered. The current interrupt
configuration can be found in /proc/interrupts.
Available workarounds include: updating to a newer system BIOS, trying a
Linux 2.6 or later kernel with ACPI enabled, or passing the 'noapic' option
to the kernel to force interrupt routing through the traditional
Programmable Interrupt Controller (PIC). Newer Linux kernels also provide
an interrupt polling mechanism to attempt to work around this problem. This
mechanism can be enabled by passing the 'irqpoll' option to the kernel.
Currently, the NVIDIA driver will attempt to detect edge triggered
interrupts and X will purposely fail to start (to avoid stability issues).
This behavior can be overridden by setting the "NVreg_RMEdgeIntrCheck"
NVIDIA Linux kernel module parameter. This parameter defaults to "1", which
enables the edge triggered interrupt detection. Set this parameter to "0"
to disable this detection.
Q. X starts for me, but OpenGL applications terminate immediately.
A. If X starts but you have trouble with OpenGL, you most likely have a
problem with other libraries in the way, or there are stale symlinks. See
Chapter 5 for details. Sometimes, all it takes is to rerun 'ldconfig'.
You should also check that the correct extensions are present;
% xdpyinfo
should show the "GLX" and "NV-GLX" extensions present. If these two
extensions are not present, then there is most likely a problem loading the
glx module, or it is unable to implicitly load GLcore. Check your X config
file and make sure that you are loading glx (see Chapter 6). If your X
config file is correct, then check the X log file for warnings/errors
pertaining to GLX. Also check that all of the necessary symlinks are in
place (refer to Chapter 5).
Q. When Xinerama is enabled, my stereo glasses are shuttering only when the
stereo application is displayed on one specific X screen. When the
application is displayed on the other X screens, the stereo glasses stop
shuttering.
A. This problem occurs with DDC and "blue line" stereo glasses, that get the
stereo signal from one video port of the graphics card. When a X screen
does not display any stereo drawable the stereo signal is disabled on the
associated video port.
Forcing stereo flipping allows the stereo glasses to shutter continuously.
This can be done by enabling the OpenGL control "Force Stereo Flipping" in
nvidia-settings, or by setting the X configuration option
"ForceStereoFlipping" to "1".
Q. Stereo is not in sync across multiple displays.
A. There are two cases where this may occur. If the displays are attached to
the same GPU, and one of them is out of sync with the stereo glasses, you
will need to reconfigure your monitors to drive identical mode timings; see
Chapter 20 for details.
If the displays are attached to different GPUs, the only way to synchronize
stereo across the displays is with a Quadro Sync device, which is only
supported by certain Quadro cards. See Chapter 30 for details. This applies
to seperate GPUs on seperate cards as well as seperate GPUs on the same
card, such as Quadro FX 4500 X2. Note that the Quadro FX 4500 X2 only
provides a single DIN connector for stereo, tied to the bottommost GPU. In
order to synchronize onboard stereo on the other GPU you must use a Quadro
Sync device.
Q. I just upgraded my kernel, and now the NVIDIA kernel module will not load.
A. The kernel interface layer of the NVIDIA kernel module must be compiled
specifically for the configuration and version of your kernel. If you
upgrade your kernel, then the simplest solution is to reinstall the driver.
ADVANCED: You can install the NVIDIA kernel module for a non running kernel
(for example: in the situation where you just built and installed a new
kernel, but have not rebooted yet) with a command line such as this:
# sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86-304.131.run --kernel-name='KERNEL_NAME'
Where 'KERNEL_NAME' is what 'uname -r' would report if the target kernel
were running.
Q. My X server fails to start, and my X log file contains the error:
(EE) NVIDIA(0): Failed to load the NVIDIA kernel module!
A. The X driver will abort with this error message if the NVIDIA kernel module
fails to load. If you receive this error, you should check the output of
`dmesg` for kernel error messages and/or attempt to load the kernel module
explicitly with `modprobe nvidia`. If unresolved symbols are reported, then
the kernel module was most likely built against a Linux kernel source tree
(or kernel headers) for a kernel revision or configuration that doesn't
match the running kernel.
You can specify the location of the kernel source tree (or headers) when
you install the NVIDIA driver using the --kernel-source-path command line
option (see `sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86-304.131.run --advanced-options`
for details).
Old versions of the module-init-tools include `modprobe` binaries that
report an error when instructed to load a module that's already loaded into
the kernel. Please upgrade your module-init-tools if you receive an error
message to this effect.
The X server reads '/proc/sys/kernel/modprobe' to determine the path to the
`modprobe` utility and falls back to '/sbin/modprobe' if the file doesn't
exist. Please make sure that this path is valid and refers to a `modprobe`
binary compatible with the Linux kernel running on your system.
Q. Installing the NVIDIA kernel module gives an error message like:
#error Modules should never use kernel-headers system headers
#error but headers from an appropriate kernel-source
A. You need to install the source for the Linux kernel. In most situations you
can fix this problem by installing the kernel-source or kernel-devel
package for your distribution
Q. OpenGL applications crash and print out the following warning:
WARNING: Your system is running with a buggy dynamic loader.
This may cause crashes in certain applications. If you
experience crashes you can try setting the environment
variable __GL_SINGLE_THREADED to 1. For more information,
consult the FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS section in
the file /usr/share/doc/NVIDIA_GLX-1.0/README.txt.
A. The dynamic loader on your system has a bug which will cause applications
linked with pthreads, and that dlopen() libGL multiple times, to crash.
This bug is present in older versions of the dynamic loader. Distributions
that shipped with this loader include but are not limited to Red Hat Linux
6.2 and Mandrake Linux 7.1. Version 2.2 and later of the dynamic loader are
known to work properly. If the crashing application is single threaded then
setting the environment variable '__GL_SINGLE_THREADED' to "1" will prevent
the crash. In the bash shell you would enter:
% export __GL_SINGLE_THREADED=1
and in csh and derivatives use:
% setenv __GL_SINGLE_THREADED 1
Previous releases of the NVIDIA Accelerated Linux Graphics Driver attempted
to work around this problem. Unfortunately, the workaround caused problems
with other applications and was removed after version 1.0-1541.
Q. Quake3 crashes when changing video modes.
A. You are probably experiencing a problem described above. Please check the
text output for the "WARNING" message described in the previous hint.
Setting '__GL_SINGLE_THREADED' to "1" as will fix the problem.
Q. I cannot build the NVIDIA kernel module, or, I can build the NVIDIA kernel
module, but modprobe/insmod fails to load the module into my kernel.
A. These problems are generally caused by the build using the wrong kernel
header files (i.e. header files for a different kernel version than the one
you are running). The convention used to be that kernel header files should
be stored in '/usr/include/linux/', but that is deprecated in favor of
'/lib/modules/RELEASE/build/include' (where RELEASE is the result of 'uname
-r'. The 'nvidia-installer' should be able to determine the location on
your system; however, if you encounter a problem you can force the build to
use certain header files by using the --kernel-include-dir option. For this
to work you will of course need the appropriate kernel header files
installed on your system. Consult the documentation that came with your
distribution; some distributions do not install the kernel header files by
default, or they install headers that do not coincide properly with the
kernel you are running.
Q. There are problems running Heretic II.
A. Heretic II installs, by default, a symlink called 'libGL.so' in the
application directory. You can remove or rename this symlink, since the
system will then find the default 'libGL.so' (which our drivers install in
'/usr/lib'). From within Heretic II you can then set your render mode to
OpenGL in the video menu. There is also a patch available to Heretic II
from Loki Software, Inc.
Q. My system hangs when switching to a virtual terminal if I have rivafb
enabled.
A. Using both rivafb and the NVIDIA kernel module at the same time is
currently broken. In general, using two independent software drivers to
drive the same piece of hardware is a bad idea.
Q. Compiling the NVIDIA kernel module gives this error:
You appear to be compiling the NVIDIA kernel module with
a compiler different from the one that was used to compile
the running kernel. This may be perfectly fine, but there
are cases where this can lead to unexpected behavior and
system crashes.
If you know what you are doing and want to override this
check, you can do so by setting IGNORE_CC_MISMATCH.
In any other case, set the CC environment variable to the
name of the compiler that was used to compile the kernel.
A. You should compile the NVIDIA kernel module with the same compiler version
that was used to compile your kernel. Some Linux kernel data structures are
dependent on the version of gcc used to compile it; for example, in
'include/linux/spinlock.h':
...
* Most gcc versions have a nasty bug with empty initializers.
*/
#if (__GNUC__ > 2)
typedef struct { } rwlock_t;
#define RW_LOCK_UNLOCKED (rwlock_t) { }
#else
typedef struct { int gcc_is_buggy; } rwlock_t;
#define RW_LOCK_UNLOCKED (rwlock_t) { 0 }
#endif
If the kernel is compiled with gcc 2.x, but gcc 3.x is used when the kernel
interface is compiled (or vice versa), the size of rwlock_t will vary, and
things like ioremap will fail. To check what version of gcc was used to
compile your kernel, you can examine the output of:
% cat /proc/version
To check what version of gcc is currently in your '$PATH', you can examine
the output of:
% gcc -v
Q. X fails with error
Failed to allocate LUT context DMA
A. This is one of the possible consequences of compiling the NVIDIA kernel
interface with a different gcc version than used to compile the Linux
kernel (see above).
Q. I recently updated various libraries on my system using my Linux
distributor's update utility, and the NVIDIA graphics driver no longer
works.
A. Conflicting libraries may have been installed by your distribution's update
utility; see Chapter 5 for details on how to diagnose this.
Q. I have rebuilt the NVIDIA kernel module, but when I try to insert it, I get
a message telling me I have unresolved symbols.
A. Unresolved symbols are most often caused by a mismatch between your kernel
sources and your running kernel. They must match for the NVIDIA kernel
module to build correctly. Make sure your kernel sources are installed and
configured to match your running kernel.
Q. OpenGL applications leak significant amounts of memory on my system!
A. If your kernel is making use of the -rmap VM, the system may be leaking
memory due to a memory management optimization introduced in -rmap14a. The
-rmap VM has been adopted by several popular distributions, the memory leak
is known to be present in some of the distribution kernels; it has been
fixed in -rmap15e.
If you suspect that your system is affected, try upgrading your kernel or
contact your distribution's vendor for assistance.
Q. Some OpenGL applications (like Quake3 Arena) crash when I start them on Red
Hat Linux 9.0.
A. Some versions of the glibc package shipped by Red Hat that support TLS do
not properly handle using dlopen() to access shared libraries which use
some TLS models. This problem is exhibited, for example, when Quake3 Area
dlopen() 's NVIDIA's libGL library. Please obtain at least glibc-2.3.2-11.9
which is available as an update from Red Hat.
Q. I have installed the driver, but my Enable 3D Acceleration check box is
still grayed out.
A. Most distribution-provided configuration applets are not aware of the
NVIDIA accelerated driver, and consequently will not update themselves when
you install the driver. Your driver, if it has been installed properly,
should function fine.
Q. When changing settings in games like Quake 3 Arena, or Wolfenstein Enemy
Territory, the game crashes and I see this error:
...loading libGL.so.1: QGL_Init: dlopen libGL.so.1 failed:
/usr/lib/tls/libGL.so.1: shared object cannot be dlopen()ed:
static TLS memory too small
A. These games close and reopen the NVIDIA OpenGL driver (via dlopen() /
dlclose()) when settings are changed. On some versions of glibc (such as
the one shipped with Red Hat Linux 9), there is a bug that leaks static TLS
entries. This glibc bug causes subsequent re-loadings of the OpenGL driver
to fail. This is fixed in more recent versions of glibc; see Red Hat bug
#89692: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=89692
Q. When I try to install the driver, the installer claims that X is running,
even though I have exited X.
A. The installer detects the presence of an X server by checking for the X
server's lock files: '/tmp/.Xn-lock', where 'n' is the number of the X
Display (the installer checks for X Displays 0-7). If you have exited X,
but one of these files has been left behind, then you will need to manually
delete the lock file. DO NOT remove this file if X is still running!
Q. Why does the VBIOS fail to load on my Optimus system?
A. On some notebooks with Optimus graphics, the NVIDIA driver may not be able
to retrieve the Video BIOS due to interactions between the System BIOS and
the Linux kernel's ACPI subsystem. On affected notebooks, applications that
require the GPU will fail, and messages like the following may appear in
the system log:
NVRM: failed to copy vbios to system memory.
NVRM: RmInitAdapter failed! (0x30:0xffffffff:858)
NVRM: rm_init_adapter(0) failed
Such problems are typically beyond the control of the NVIDIA driver, which
relies on proper cooperation of ACPI and the System BIOS to retrieve
important information about the GPU, including the Video BIOS.
Q. My system runs, but seems unstable.
A. If you're using an AGP card, your stability problems may be AGP-related.
See Chapter 12 for details.
Q. OpenGL applications are running slowly
A. The application is probably using a different library that still remains on
your system, rather than the NVIDIA supplied OpenGL library. See Chapter 5
for details.
Q. There are problems running Quake2.
A. Quake2 requires some minor setup to get it going. First, in the Quake2
directory, the install creates a symlink called 'libGL.so' that points at
'libMesaGL.so'. This symlink should be removed or renamed. Second, in order
to run Quake2 in OpenGL mode, you must type
% quake2 +set vid_ref glx +set gl_driver libGL.so
Quake2 does not seem to support any kind of full-screen mode, but you can
run your X server at the same resolution as Quake2 to emulate full-screen
mode.
Q. X takes a long time to start (possibly several minutes).
A. Most of the X startup delay problems we have found are caused by incorrect
data in video BIOSes about what display devices are possibly connected or
what i2c port should be used for detection. You can work around these
problems with the X config option IgnoreDisplayDevices (see the description
in Appendix B).
Q. Fonts are incorrectly sized after installing the NVIDIA driver.
A. Incorrectly sized fonts are generally caused by incorrect DPI (Dots Per
Inch) information. You can check what X thinks the physical size of your
monitor is, by running:
% xdpyinfo | grep dimensions
This will report the size in pixels, and in millimeters.
If these numbers are wrong, you can correct them by modifying the X
server's DPI setting. See Appendix E for details.
Q. General problems with ALi chipsets
A. There are some known timing and signal integrity issues on ALi chipsets.
The following tips may help stabilize problematic ALI systems:
o Disable TURBO AGP MODE in the BIOS.
o When using a P5A upgrade to BIOS Revision 1002 BETA 2.
o When using 1007, 1007A or 1009 adjust the IO Recovery Time to 4
cycles.
o AGP is disabled by default on some ALi chipsets (ALi1541, ALi1647) to
work around severe system stability problems with these chipsets. See
the comments for EnableALiAGP in 'nv-reg.h' to force AGP on anyway.
Q. Using GNOME configuration utilities, I am unable to get a resolution above
800x600.
A. The installation of GNOME provided in operating systems such as Red Hat
Enterprise Linux 4 contain several competing interfaces for specifying
resolution:
'System Settings' -> 'Display'
which will update the X configuration file, and
'Applications' -> 'Preferences' -> 'Screen Resolution'
which will update the per-user screen resolution using the XRandR
extension. Your desktop resolution will be limited to the smaller of the
two settings. Be sure to check the setting of each.
Q. OpenGL applications don't work, and my X log file contains the error:
(EE) NVIDIA(0): Unable to map device node /dev/zero with read and write
(EE) NVIDIA(0): privileges. The GLX extension will be disabled on this
(EE) NVIDIA(0): X screen. Please see the COMMON PROBLEMS section in
the
(EE) NVIDIA(0): README for more information.
A. The NVIDIA OpenGL driver must be able to map anonymous memory with read and
write execute privileges in order to function correctly. The driver needs
this ability to allocate aligned memory, which is used for certain
optimizations. Currently, GLX cannot run without these optimizations.
Q. X doesn't start, and my log file contains a message like the following:
(EE) NVIDIA(0): Failed to allocate primary buffer: failed to set CPU access
(EE) NVIDIA(0): for surface. Please see Chapter 8: Common Problems in
(EE) NVIDIA(0): the README for troubleshooting suggestions.
A. The NVIDIA X driver needs to be able to access the buffers it allocates
from the CPU, but wasn't able to set up this access. This commonly fails if
you're using a large virtual desktop size. Although your GPU may have
enough onboard video memory for the buffer, the amount of usable memory may
be limited if the "IndirectMemoryAccess" option is disabled, or if not
enough address space was reserved for indirect memory access (this commonly
occurs on 32-bit systems). If you're seeing this problem and are using a
32-bit operating system, it may be resolved by switching to a 64-bit
operating system.
Q. My log file contains a message like the following:
(WW) NVIDIA(GPU-0): Unable to enter interactive mode, because
non-interactive
(WW) NVIDIA(GPU-0): mode has been previously requested. The most common
(WW) NVIDIA(GPU-0): cause is that a GPU compute application is currently
(WW) NVIDIA(GPU-0): running. Please see the README for details.
A. This indicates that the X driver was not able to put the GPU in interactive
mode, because another program has requested non-interactive mode. The GPU
watchdog will not run, and long-running GPU compute programs may cause the
X server and OpenGL programs to hang. If you intend to run long-running GPU
compute programs, set the "Interactive" option to "off" to disable
interactive mode.
INTERACTION WITH THE NOUVEAU DRIVER
Q. What is Nouveau, and why do I need to disable it?
A. Nouveau is a display driver for NVIDIA GPUs, developed as an open-source
project through reverse-engineering of the NVIDIA driver. It ships with
many current Linux distributions as the default display driver for NVIDIA
hardware. It is not developed or supported by NVIDIA, and is not related to
the NVIDIA driver, other than the fact that both Nouveau and the NVIDIA
driver are capable of driving NVIDIA GPUs. Only one driver can control a
GPU at a time, so if a GPU is being driven by the Nouveau driver, Nouveau
must be disabled before installing the NVIDIA driver.
Nouveau performs modesets in the kernel. This can make disabling Nouveau
difficult, as the kernel modeset is used to display a framebuffer console,
which means that Nouveau will be in use even if X is not running. As long
as Nouveau is in use, its kernel module cannot be unloaded, which will
prevent the NVIDIA kernel module from loading. It is therefore important to
make sure that Nouveau's kernel modesetting is disabled before installing
the NVIDIA driver.
Q. How do I prevent Nouveau from loading and performing a kernel modeset?
A. A simple way to prevent Nouveau from loading and performing a kernel
modeset is to add configuration directives for the module loader to a file
in one of the system's module loader configuration directories: for
example, '/etc/modprobe.d/' or '/usr/local/modprobe.d'. These configuration
directives can technically be added to any file in these directories, but
many of the existing files in these directories are provided and maintained
by your distributor, which may from time to time provide updated
configuration files which could conflict with your changes. Therefore, it
is recommended to create a new file, for example,
'/etc/modprobe.d/disable-nouveau.conf', rather than editing one of the
existing files, such as the popular '/etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf'. Note
that some module loaders will only look for configuration directives in
files whose names end with '.conf', so if you are creating a new file, make
sure its name ends with '.conf'.
Whether you choose to create a new file or edit an existing one, the
following two lines will need to be added:
blacklist nouveau
options nouveau modeset=0
The first line will prevent Nouveau's kernel module from loading
automatically at boot. It will not prevent manual loading of the module,
and it will not prevent the X server from loading the kernel module; see
"How do I prevent the X server from loading Nouveau?" below. The second
line will prevent Nouveau from doing a kernel modeset. Without the kernel
modeset, it is possible to unload Nouveau's kernel module, in the event
that it is accidentally or intentionally loaded.
You will need to reboot your system after adding these configuration
directives in order for them to take effect.
If nvidia-installer detects Nouveau is in use by the system, it will offer
to create such a modprobe configuration file to disable Nouveau.
Q. What if my initial ramdisk image contains Nouveau?
A. Some distributions include Nouveau in an initial ramdisk image (henceforth
referred to as "initrd" in this document, and sometimes also known as
"initramfs"), so that Nouveau's kernel modeset can take place as early as
possible in the boot process. This poses an additional challenge to those
who wish to prevent the modeset from occurring, as the modeset will occur
while the system is executing within the initrd, before any directives in
the module loader configuration files are processed.
If you have an initrd which loads the Nouveau driver, you will additionally
need to ensure that Nouveau is disabled in the initrd. In most cases,
rebuilding the initrd will pick up the module loader configuration files,
including any which may disable Nouveau. Please consult your distribution's
documentation on how to rebuild the initrd, as different distributions have
different tools for building and modifying the initrd. Some popular distro
initrd tools include: 'dracut', 'mkinitrd', and 'update-initramfs'.
Some initrds understand the rdblacklist parameter. On these initrds, as an
alternative to rebuilding the initrd, you can add the option
rdblacklist=nouveau to your kernel's boot parameters. On initrds that do
not support rdblacklist, it is possible to prevent Nouveau from performing
a kernel modeset by adding the option nouveau.modeset=0 to your kernel's
boot parameters. Note that nouveau.modeset=0 will prevent a kernel modeset,
but it may not prevent Nouveau from being loaded, so rebuilding the initrd
or using rdblacklist may be more effective than using nouveau.modeset=0.
Any changes to the default kernel boot parameters should be made in your
bootloader's configuration file(s), so that the options get passed to your
kernel every time the system is booted. Please consult your distribution's
documentation on how to configure your bootloader, as different
distributions use different bootloaders and configuration files.
Q. How do I prevent the X server from loading Nouveau?
A. Blacklisting Nouveau will only prevent it from being loaded automatically
at boot. If an X server is started as part of the normal boot process, and
that X server uses the Nouveau X driver, then the Nouveau kernel module
will still be loaded. Should this happen, you will be able to unload
Nouveau with `modprobe -r nouveau` after stopping the X server, as long as
you have taken care to prevent it from doing a kernel modeset; however, it
is probably better to just make sure that X does not load Nouveau in the
first place.
If your system is not configured to start an X server at boot, then you can
simply run the NVIDIA driver installer after rebooting. Otherwise, the
easiest thing to do is to edit your X server's configuration file so that
your X server uses a non-modesetting driver that is compatible with your
card, such as the 'vesa' driver. You can then stop X and and install the
driver as usual. Please consult your X server's documentation to determine
where your X server configuration file is located.
______________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 9. Known Issues
______________________________________________________________________________
The following problems still exist in this release and are in the process of
being resolved.
Known Issues
OpenGL and dlopen()
There are some issues with older versions of the glibc dynamic loader
(e.g., the version that shipped with Red Hat Linux 7.2) and applications
such as Quake3 and Radiant, that use dlopen(). See Chapter 7 for more
details.
Interaction with pthreads
Single-threaded applications that use dlopen() to load NVIDIA's libGL
library, and then use dlopen() to load any other library that is linked
against libpthread will crash in libGL. This does not happen in NVIDIA's
new ELF TLS OpenGL libraries (see Chapter 5 for a description of the ELF
TLS OpenGL libraries). Possible workarounds for this problem are:
1. Load the library that is linked with libpthread before loading libGL.
2. Link the application with libpthread.
The X86-64 platform (AMD64/EM64T) and early Linux 2.6 kernels
Many 2.4 and 2.6 x86_64 kernels have an accounting problem in their
implementation of the change_page_attr kernel interface. Early 2.6 kernels
include a check that triggers a BUG() when this situation is encountered
(triggering a BUG() results in the current application being killed by the
kernel; this application would be your OpenGL application or potentially
the X server). The accounting issue has been resolved in the 2.6.11
kernel.
We have added checks to recognize that the NVIDIA kernel module is being
compiled for the x86-64 platform on a kernel between Linux 2.6.0 and Linux
2.6.11. In this case, we will disable usage of the change_page_attr kernel
interface. This will avoid the accounting issue but leaves the system in
danger of cache aliasing (see entry below on Cache Aliasing for more
information about cache aliasing). Note that this change_page_attr
accounting issue and BUG() can be triggered by other kernel subsystems
that rely on this interface.
If you are using a Linux 2.6 x86_64 kernel, it is recommended that you
upgrade to Linux 2.6.11 or to a later kernel.
Also take note of common dma issues on 64-bit platforms in Chapter 10.
Cache Aliasing
Cache aliasing occurs when multiple mappings to a physical page of memory
have conflicting caching states, such as cached and uncached. Due to these
conflicting states, data in that physical page may become corrupted when
the processor's cache is flushed. If that page is being used for DMA by a
driver such as NVIDIA's graphics driver, this can lead to hardware
stability problems and system lockups.
NVIDIA has encountered bugs with some Linux kernel versions that lead to
cache aliasing. Although some systems will run perfectly fine when cache
aliasing occurs, other systems will experience severe stability problems,
including random lockups. Users experiencing stability problems due to
cache aliasing will benefit from updating to a kernel that does not cause
cache aliasing to occur.
NVIDIA has added driver logic to detect cache aliasing and to print a
warning with a message similar to the following:
NVRM: bad caching on address 0x1cdf000: actual 0x46 != expected 0x73
If you see this message in your log files and are experiencing stability
problems, you should update your kernel to the latest version.
If the message persists after updating your kernel, send a bug report to
NVIDIA.
64-Bit BARs (Base Address Registers)
Starting with native PCI Express GPUs, NVIDIA's GPUs will advertise a
64-bit BAR capability (a Base Address Register stores the location of a
PCI I/O region, such as registers or a frame buffer). This means that the
GPU's PCI I/O regions (registers and frame buffer) can be placed above the
32-bit address space (the first 4 gigabytes of memory).
The decision of where the BAR is placed is made by the system BIOS at boot
time. If the BIOS supports 64-bit BARs, then the NVIDIA PCI I/O regions
may be placed above the 32-bit address space. If the BIOS does not support
this feature, then our PCI I/O regions will be placed within the 32-bit
address space as they have always been.
Unfortunately, some Linux kernels (such as 2.6.11.x) do not understand or
support 64-bit BARs. If the BIOS does place any NVIDIA PCI I/O regions
above the 32-bit address space, such kernels will reject the BAR and the
NVIDIA driver will not work.
The only known workaround is to upgrade to a newer kernel.
Kernel virtual address space exhaustion on the X86 platform
On X86 systems and AMD64/EM64T systems using X86 kernels, only 4GB of
virtual address space are available, which the Linux kernel typically
partitions such that user processes are allocated 3GB, the kernel itself
1GB. Part of the kernel's share is used to create a direct mapping of
system memory (RAM). Depending on how much system memory is installed, the
kernel virtual address space remaining for other uses varies in size and
may be as small as 128MB, if 1GB of system memory (or more) are installed.
The kernel typically reserves a minimum of 128MB by default.
The kernel virtual address space still available after the creation of the
direct system memory mapping is used by both the kernel and by drivers to
map I/O resources, and for some memory allocations. Depending on the
number of consumers and their respective requirements, the Linux kernel's
virtual address space may be exhausted. Typically when this happens, the
kernel prints an error message that looks like
allocation failed: out of vmalloc space - use vmalloc=<size> to increase
size.
or
vmap allocation for size 16781312 failed: use vmalloc=<size> to increase
size.
The NVIDIA kernel module requires portions of the kernel's virtual address
space for each GPU and for certain memory allocations. If no more than
128MB are available to the kernel and device drivers at boot time, the
NVIDIA kernel module may be unable to initialize all GPUs, or fail memory
allocations. This is not usually a problem with only 1 or 2 GPUs, however
depending on the number of other drivers and their usage patterns, it can
be; it is likely to be a problem with 3 or more GPUs.
Possible solutions for this problem include:
o If your system is equipped with an X86-64 (AMD64/EM64T) processor, it
is recommended that you switch to a 64-bit Linux kernel/distribution.
Due to the significantly larger address space provided by the X86-64
processors' addressing capabilities, X86-64 kernels will not run out
of kernel virtual address space in the foreseeable future.
o If a 64-bit kernel cannot be used, the 'vmalloc' kernel parameter can
be used on recent kernels to increase the size of the kernel virtual
address space reserved by the Linux kernel (the default is usually
128MB). Incrementally raising this to find the best balance between
the size of the kernel virtual address space made available and the
size of the direct system memory mapping is recommended. You can
achieve this by passing 'vmalloc=192M', 'vmalloc=256MB', ..., to the
kernel and checking if the above error message continues to be
printed.
Note that some versions of the GRUB boot loader have problems
calculating the memory layout and loading the initrd if the 'vmalloc'
kernel parameter is used. The 'uppermem' GRUB command can be used to
force GRUB to load the initrd into a lower region of system memory to
work around this problem. This will not adversely affect system
performance once the kernel has been loaded. The suggested syntax
(assuming GRUB version 1) is:
title Kernel Title
uppermem 524288
kernel (hdX,Y)/boot/vmlinuz...
Also note that the 'vmalloc' kernel parameter only exists on Linux
2.6.9 and later kernels. On older kernels, the amount of system
memory used by the kernel can be reduced with the 'mem' kernel
parameter, which also reduces the size of the direct mapping and thus
increases the size of the kernel virtual address space available. For
example, 'mem=512M' instructs the kernel to ignore all but the first
512MB of system memory. Although it is undesirable to reduce the
amount of usable system memory, this approach can be used to check if
initialization problems are caused by kernel virtual address space
exhaustion.
o In some cases, disabling frame buffer drivers such as vesafb can
help, as such drivers may attempt to map all or a large part of the
installed graphics cards' video memory into the kernel's virtual
address space, which rapidly consumes this resource. You can disable
the vesafb frame buffer driver by passing these parameters to the
kernel: 'video=vesa:off vga=normal'.
o Some Linux kernels can be configured with alternate address space
layouts (e.g. 2.8GB:1.2GB, 2GB:2GB, etc.). This option can be used to
avoid exhaustion of the kernel virtual address space without reducing
the size of the direct system memory mapping. Some Linux distributors
also provide kernels that use seperate 4GB address spaces for user
processes and the kernel. Such Linux kernels provide sufficient
kernel virtual address space on typical systems.
Valgrind
The NVIDIA OpenGL implementation makes use of self modifying code. To
force Valgrind to retranslate this code after a modification you must run
using the Valgrind command line option:
--smc-check=all
Without this option Valgrind may execute incorrect code causing incorrect
behavior and reports of the form:
==30313== Invalid write of size 4
MMConfig-based PCI Configuration Space Accesses
2.6 kernels have added support for Memory-Mapped PCI Configuration Space
accesses. Unfortunately, there are many problems with this mechanism, and
the latest kernel updates are more careful about enabling this support.
The NVIDIA driver may be unable to reliably read/write the PCI
Configuration Space of NVIDIA devices when the kernel is using the
MMCONFIG method to access PCI Configuration Space, specifically when using
multiple GPUs and multiple CPUs on 32-bit kernels.
This access method can be identified by the presence of the string "PCI:
Using MMCONFIG" in the 'dmesg' output on your system. This access method
can be disabled via the "pci=nommconf" kernel parameter.
HDMI screen blanks unless audio is played
The ALSA audio driver in some Linux kernels contains a bug affecting some
systems with integrated graphics that causes the display to go blank on
some HDMI TVs whenever audio is not being played. This bug occurs when the
ALSA audio driver configures the HDMI hardware to send an HDMI audio info
frame that contains an invalid checksum. Some TVs blank the video when
they receive such invalid audio packets.
To ensure proper display, please make sure your Linux kernel contains
commit 1f348522844bb1f6e7b10d50b9e8aa89a2511b09. This fix is in Linux
2.6.39-rc3 and later, and may be be back-ported to some older kernels.
Notebooks
If you are using a notebook see the "Known Notebook Issues" in Chapter 18.
Texture seams in Quake 3 engine
Many games based on the Quake 3 engine set their textures to use the
"GL_CLAMP" clamping mode when they should be using "GL_CLAMP_TO_EDGE".
This was an oversight made by the developers because some legacy NVIDIA
GPUs treat the two modes as equivalent. The result is seams at the edges
of textures in these games. To mitigate this, older versions of the NVIDIA
display driver remap "GL_CLAMP" to "GL_CLAMP_TO_EDGE" internally to
emulate the behavior of the older GPUs, but this workaround has been
disabled by default. To re-enable it, uncheck the "Use Conformant Texture
Clamping" checkbox in nvidia-settings before starting any affected
applications.
FSAA
When FSAA is enabled (the __GL_FSAA_MODE environment variable is set to a
value that enables FSAA and a multisample visual is chosen), the rendering
may be corrupted when resizing the window.
libGL DSO finalizer and pthreads
When a multithreaded OpenGL application exits, it is possible for libGL's
DSO finalizer (also known as the destructor, or "_fini") to be called
while other threads are executing OpenGL code. The finalizer needs to free
resources allocated by libGL. This can cause problems for threads that are
still using these resources. Setting the environment variable
"__GL_NO_DSO_FINALIZER" to "1" will work around this problem by forcing
libGL's finalizer to leave its resources in place. These resources will
still be reclaimed by the operating system when the process exits. Note
that the finalizer is also executed as part of dlclose(3), so if you have
an application that dlopens(3) and dlcloses(3) libGL repeatedly,
"__GL_NO_DSO_FINALIZER" will cause libGL to leak resources until the
process exits. Using this option can improve stability in some
multithreaded applications, including Java3D applications.
Thread cancellation
Canceling a thread (see pthread_cancel(3)) while it is executing in the
OpenGL driver causes undefined behavior. For applications that wish to use
thread cancellation, it is recommended that threads disable cancellation
using pthread_setcancelstate(3) while executing OpenGL or GLX commands.
This section describes problems that will not be fixed. Usually, the source of
the problem is beyond the control of NVIDIA. Following is the list of
problems:
Problems that Will Not Be Fixed
Gigabyte GA-6BX Motherboard
This motherboard uses a LinFinity regulator on the 3.3 V rail that is only
rated to 5 A -- less than the AGP specification, which requires 6 A. When
diagnostics or applications are running, the temperature of the regulator
rises, causing the voltage to the NVIDIA GPU to drop as low as 2.2 V.
Under these circumstances, the regulator cannot supply the current on the
3.3 V rail that the NVIDIA GPU requires.
This problem does not occur when the graphics card has a switching
regulator or when an external power supply is connected to the 3.3 V rail.
VIA KX133 and 694X Chip sets with AGP 2x
On Athlon motherboards with the VIA KX133 or 694X chip set, such as the
ASUS K7V motherboard, NVIDIA drivers default to AGP 2x mode to work around
insufficient drive strength on one of the signals.
Irongate Chip sets with AGP 1x
AGP 1x transfers are used on Athlon motherboards with the Irongate chipset
to work around a problem with signal integrity.
ALi chipsets, ALi1541 and ALi1647
On ALi1541 and ALi1647 chipsets, NVIDIA drivers disable AGP to work around
timing issues and signal integrity issues. See Chapter 8 for more
information on ALi chipsets.
NV-CONTROL versions 1.8 and 1.9
Version 1.8 of the NV-CONTROL X Extension introduced target types for
setting and querying attributes as well as receiving event notification on
targets. Targets are objects like X Screens, GPUs and Quadro Sync devices.
Previously, all attributes were described relative to an X Screen. These
new bits of information (target type and target id) were packed in a
non-compatible way in the protocol stream such that addressing X Screen 1
or higher would generate an X protocol error when mixing NV-CONTROL client
and server versions.
This packing problem has been fixed in the NV-CONTROL 1.10 protocol,
making it possible for the older (1.7 and prior) clients to communicate
with NV-CONTROL 1.10 servers. Furthermore, the NV-CONTROL 1.10 client
library has been updated to accommodate the target protocol packing bug
when communicating with a 1.8 or 1.9 NV-CONTROL server. This means that
the NV-CONTROL 1.10 client library should be able to communicate with any
version of the NV-CONTROL server.
NVIDIA recommends that NV-CONTROL client applications relink with version
1.10 or later of the NV-CONTROL client library (libXNVCtrl.a, in the
nvidia-settings-304.131.tar.bz2 tarball). The version of the client
library can be determined by checking the NV_CONTROL_MAJOR and
NV_CONTROL_MINOR definitions in the accompanying nv_control.h.
The only web released NVIDIA Linux driver that is affected by this problem
(i.e., the only driver to use either version 1.8 or 1.9 of the NV-CONTROL
X extension) is 1.0-8756.
CPU throttling reducing memory bandwidth on IGP systems
For some models of CPU, the CPU throttling technology may affect not only
CPU core frequency, but also memory frequency/bandwidth. On systems using
integrated graphics, any reduction in memory bandwidth will affect the GPU
as well as the CPU. This can negatively affect applications that use
significant memory bandwidth, such as video decoding using VDPAU, or
certain OpenGL operations. This may cause such applications to run with
lower performance than desired.
To work around this problem, NVIDIA recommends configuring your CPU
throttling implementation to avoid reducing memory bandwidth. This may be
as simple as setting a certain minimum frequency for the CPU.
Depending on your operating system and/or distribution, this may be as
simple as writing to a configuration file in the /sys or /proc
filesystems, or other system configuration file. Please read, or search
the Internet for, documentation regarding CPU throttling on your operating
system.
VDPAU initialization failures on supported GPUs
If VDPAU gives the VDP_STATUS_NO_IMPLEMENTATION error message on a GPU
which was labeled or specified as supporting PureVideo or PureVideo HD,
one possible reason is a hardware defect. After ruling out any other
software problems, NVIDIA recommends returning the GPU to the manufacturer
for a replacement.
Some applications, such as Quake 3, crash after querying the OpenGL extension
string
Some applications have bugs that are triggered when the extension string
is longer than a certain size. As more features are added to the driver,
the length of this string increases and can trigger these sorts of bugs.
You can limit the extensions listed in the OpenGL extension string to the
ones that appeared in a particular version of the driver by setting the
"__GL_ExtensionStringVersion" environment variable to a particular version
number. For example,
__GL_ExtensionStringVersion=17700 quake3
will run Quake 3 with the extension string that appeared in the 177.*
driver series. Limiting the size of the extension string can work around
this sort of application bug.
XVideo and the Composite X extension
XVideo will not work correctly when Composite is enabled unless using
X.Org 7.1 or later. See Chapter 24.
GLX visuals in Xinerama
X servers prior to version 1.5.0 have a limitation in the number of
visuals that can be available when Xinerama is enabled. Specifically,
visuals with ID values over 255 will cause the server to corrupt memory,
leading to incorrect behavior or crashes. In some configurations where
many GLX features are enabled at once, the number of GLX visuals will
exceed this limit. To avoid a crash, the NVIDIA X driver will discard
visuals above the limit. To see which visuals are being discarded, run the
X server with the -logverbose 6 option and then check the X server log
file.
Please see "Q. How do I interpret X server version numbers?" in Chapter 7
when determining whether your X server is new enough to contain this fix.
Some X servers have trouble with multiple GPUs
Some versions of the X.Org X server starting with 1.5.0 have a bug that
causes X to fail with an error similar to the following when there is more
than one GPU in the computer:
(!!) More than one possible primary device found
(II) Primary Device is:
(EE) No devices detected.
Fatal server error:
no screens found
This bug was fixed in the X.Org X Server 1.7 release.
You can work around this problem by specifying the bus ID of the device
you wish to use. For more details, please search the xorg.conf manual page
for "BusID". You can configure the X server with an X screen on each
NVIDIA GPU by running:
nvidia-xconfig --enable-all-gpus
Please see http://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=18321 for more
details on this X server problem. In addition, please see "Q. How do I
interpret X server version numbers?" in Chapter 7 when determining whether
your X server is new enough to contain this fix.
I/O APIC (SMP)
If you are experiencing stability problems with a Linux SMP computer and
seeing I/O APIC warning messages from the Linux kernel, system reliability
may be greatly improved by setting the "noapic" kernel parameter.
Local APIC (UP)
On some systems, setting the "Local APIC Support on Uniprocessors" kernel
configuration option can have adverse effects on system stability and
performance. If you are experiencing lockups with a Linux UP computer and
have this option set, try disabling local APIC support.
nForce2 Chipsets and AGPGART
Some of the earlier versions of agpgart to support the nForce2 chipset are
known to contain bugs that result in system hangs. The suggested
workaround is to use NVAGP or update to a newer kernel. Known problematic
versions include all known Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 kernels (through
Update 7).
If a broken agpgart is used on an nForce2 chipset, the NVIDIA driver will
attempt to work around these agpgart bugs as best it can, by recovering
from AGP errors and eventually disabling AGP.
To configure NVAGP, see Chapter 12.
______________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 10. Allocating DMA Buffers on 64-bit Platforms
______________________________________________________________________________
NVIDIA GPUs have limits on how much physical memory they can address. This
directly impacts DMA buffers, as a DMA buffer allocated in physical memory
that is unaddressable by the NVIDIA GPU cannot be used (or may be truncated,
resulting in bad memory accesses).
All pre-PCI Express GPUs and non-Native PCI Express GPUs (often known as
bridged GPUs) are limited to 32 bits of physical address space, which
corresponds to 4 GB of memory. On a system with greater than 4 GB of memory,
allocating usable DMA buffers can be a problem. Native PCI Express GPUs are
capable of addressing greater than 32 bits of physical address space and do
not experience the same problems.
Newer kernels provide a simple way to allocate memory that is guaranteed to
reside within the 32 bit physical address space. Linux 2.6.15 provides this
functionality with the __GFP_DMA32 interface. Kernels earlier than this
version provide a software I/O TLB on Intel's EM64T and IOMMU support on AMD's
AMD64 platform.
Unfortunately, some problems exist with both interfaces. Early implementations
of the Linux SWIOTLB set aside a very small amount of memory for its memory
pool (only 4 MB). Also, when this memory pool is exhausted, some SWIOTLB
implementations forcibly panic the kernel. This is also true for some
implementations of the IOMMU interface.
Kernel panics and related stability problems on Intel's EM64T platform can be
avoided by increasing the size of the SWIOTLB pool with the 'swiotlb' kernel
parameter. This kernel parameter expects the desired size as a number of 4 KB
pages. NVIDIA suggests raising the size of the SWIOTLB pool to 64 MB; this is
accomplished by passing 'swiotlb=16384' to the kernel. Please note that newer
Linux 2.6 kernels already default to a 64 MB SWIOTLB pool, see below for more
information.
Starting with Linux 2.6.9, the default size of the SWIOTLB is 64 MB and
overflow handling is improved. Both of these changes are expected to greatly
improve stability on Intel's EM64T platform. If you consider upgrading your
Linux kernel to benefit from these improvements, NVIDIA recommends that you
upgrade to Linux 2.6.11 or a more recent Linux kernel. See the previous
section for additional information.
On AMD's AMD64 platform, the size of the IOMMU can be configured in the system
BIOS or, if no IOMMU BIOS option is available, using the 'iommu=memaper'
kernel parameter. This kernel parameter expects an order and instructs the
Linux kernel to create an IOMMU of size 32 MB^order overlapping physical
memory. If the system's default IOMMU is smaller than 64 MB, the Linux kernel
automatically replaces it with a 64 MB IOMMU.
To reduce the risk of stability problems as a result of IOMMU or SWIOTLB
exhaustion on the X86-64 platform, the NVIDIA Linux driver internally limits
its use of these interfaces. By default, the driver will not use more than 60
MB of IOMMU/SWIOTLB space, leaving 4 MB for the rest of the system (assuming a
64 MB IOMMU/SWIOTLB).
This limit can be adjusted with the 'NVreg_RemapLimit' NVIDIA kernel module
option. Specifically, if the IOMMU/SWIOTLB is larger than 64 MB, the limit can
be adjusted to take advantage of the additional space. The 'NVreg_RemapLimit'
option expects the size argument in bytes.
NVIDIA recommends leaving 4 MB available for the rest of the system when
changing the limit. For example, if the internal limit is to be relaxed to
account for a 128 MB IOMMU/SWIOTLB, the recommended remap limit is 124 MB.
This remap limit can be specified by passing 'NVreg_RemapLimit=0x7c00000' to
the NVIDIA kernel module.
Also see the 'The X86-64 platform (AMD64/EM64T) and early Linux 2.6 kernels'
section in Chapter 9.
______________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 11. Specifying OpenGL Environment Variable Settings
______________________________________________________________________________
11A. FULL SCENE ANTIALIASING
Antialiasing is a technique used to smooth the edges of objects in a scene to
reduce the jagged "stairstep" effect that sometimes appears. By setting the
appropriate environment variable, you can enable full-scene antialiasing in
any OpenGL application on these GPUs.
Several antialiasing methods are available and you can select between them by
setting the __GL_FSAA_MODE environment variable appropriately. Note that
increasing the number of samples taken during FSAA rendering may decrease
performance.
To see the available values for __GL_FSAA_MODE along with their descriptions,
run:
nvidia-settings --query=fsaa --verbose
The __GL_FSAA_MODE environment variable uses the same integer values that are
used to configure FSAA through nvidia-settings and the NV-CONTROL X extension.
In other words, these two commands are equivalent:
export __GL_FSAA_MODE=5
nvidia-settings --assign FSAA=5
Note that there are three FSAA related configuration attributes (FSAA,
FSAAAppControlled and FSAAAppEnhanced) which together determine how a GL
application will behave. If FSAAAppControlled is 1, the FSAA specified through
nvidia-settings will be ignored, in favor of what the application requests
through FBConfig selection. If FSAAAppControlled is 0 but FSAAAppEnhanced is
1, then the FSAA value specified through nvidia-settings will only be applied
if the application selected a multisample FBConfig.
Therefore, to be completely correct, the nvidia-settings command line to
unconditionally assign FSAA should be:
nvidia-settings --assign FSAA=5 --assign FSAAAppControlled=0 --assign
FSAAAppEnhanced=0
The driver may not be able to support a particular FSAA mode for a given
application due to video or system memory limitations. In that case, the
driver will silently fall back to a less demanding FSAA mode.
11B. ANISOTROPIC TEXTURE FILTERING
Automatic anisotropic texture filtering can be enabled by setting the
environment variable __GL_LOG_MAX_ANISO. The possible values are:
__GL_LOG_MAX_ANISO Filtering Type
---------------------------------- ----------------------------------
0 No anisotropic filtering
1 2x anisotropic filtering
2 4x anisotropic filtering
3 8x anisotropic filtering
4 16x anisotropic filtering
4x and greater are only available on GeForce3 or newer GPUs; 16x is only
available on GeForce 6800 or newer GPUs.
11C. VBLANK SYNCING
The __GL_SYNC_TO_VBLANK (boolean) environment variable can be used to control
whether swaps are synchronized to a display device's vertical refresh.
o Setting __GL_SYNC_TO_VBLANK=0 allows glXSwapBuffers to swap without
waiting for vblank.
o Setting __GL_SYNC_TO_VBLANK=1 forces glXSwapBuffers to synchronize with
the vertical blanking period. This is the default behavior.
When sync to vblank is enabled with TwinView, OpenGL can only sync to one of
the display devices; this may cause tearing corruption on the display device
to which OpenGL is not syncing. You can use the environment variable
__GL_SYNC_DISPLAY_DEVICE to specify to which display device OpenGL should
sync. You should set this environment variable to the name of a display
device; for example "CRT-1". Look for the line "Connected display device(s):"
in your X log file for a list of the display devices present and their names.
You may also find it useful to review Chapter 13 "Configuring Twinview" and
the section on Ensuring Identical Mode Timings in Chapter 20.
11D. CONTROLLING THE SORTING OF OPENGL FBCONFIGS
The NVIDIA GLX implementation sorts FBConfigs returned by glXChooseFBConfig()
as described in the GLX specification. To disable this behavior set
__GL_SORT_FBCONFIGS to 0 (zero), then FBConfigs will be returned in the order
they were received from the X server. To examine the order in which FBConfigs
are returned by the X server run:
nvidia-settings --glxinfo
This option may be be useful to work around problems in which applications
pick an unexpected FBConfig.
11E. OPENGL YIELD BEHAVIOR
There are several cases where the NVIDIA OpenGL driver needs to wait for
external state to change before continuing. To avoid consuming too much CPU
time in these cases, the driver will sometimes yield so the kernel can
schedule other processes to run while the driver waits. For example, when
waiting for free space in a command buffer, if the free space has not become
available after a certain number of iterations, the driver will yield before
it continues to loop.
By default, the driver calls sched_yield() to do this. However, this can cause
the calling process to be scheduled out for a relatively long period of time
if there are other, same-priority processes competing for time on the CPU. One
example of this is when an OpenGL-based composite manager is moving and
repainting a window and the X server is trying to update the window as it
moves, which are both CPU-intensive operations.
You can use the __GL_YIELD environment variable to work around these
scheduling problems. This variable allows the user to specify what the driver
should do when it wants to yield. The possible values are:
__GL_YIELD Behavior
--------------- ------------------------------------------------------
<unset> By default, OpenGL will call sched_yield() to yield.
"NOTHING" OpenGL will never yield.
"USLEEP" OpenGL will call usleep(0) to yield.
11F. CONTROLLING WHICH OPENGL FBCONFIGS ARE AVAILABLE
The NVIDIA GLX implementation will hide FBConfigs that are associated with a
32-bit ARGB visual when the XLIB_SKIP_ARGB_VISUALS environment variable is
defined. This matches the behavior of libX11, which will hide those visuals
from XGetVisualInfo and XMatchVisualInfo. This environment variable is useful
when applications are confused by the presence of these FBConfigs.
11G. USING UNOFFICIAL GLX PROTOCOL
By default, the NVIDIA GLX implementation will not expose GLX protocol for GL
commands if the protocol is not considered complete. Protocol could be
considered incomplete for a number of reasons. The implementation could still
be under development and contain known bugs, or the protocol specification
itself could be under development or going through review. If users would like
to test the client-side portion of such protocol when using indirect
rendering, they can set the __GL_ALLOW_UNOFFICIAL_PROTOCOL environment
variable to a non-zero value before starting their GLX application. When an
NVIDIA GLX server is used, the related X Config option
"AllowUnofficialGLXProtocol" will need to be set as well to enable support in
the server.
11H. OVERRIDING DRIVER DETECTION OF SELINUX POLICY BOOLEANS
On Linux, the NVIDIA GLX implementation will attempt to detect whether SELinux
is enabled and modify its behavior to respect SELinux policy. By default, the
driver adheres to SELinux policy boolean settings at the beginning of a client
process's execution; due to shared library limitations, these settings remain
fixed throughout the lifetime of the driver instance. Additionally, the driver
will adhere to policy boolean settings regardless of whether SELinux is
running in permissive mode or enforcing mode. The __GL_SELINUX_BOOLEANS
environment variable allows the user to override driver detection of specified
SELinux booleans so the driver acts as if these booleans were set or unset.
This allows the user, for example, to run the driver under a more restrictive
policy than specified by SELinux, or to work around problems when running the
driver under SELinux while operating in permissive mode.
__GL_SELINUX_BOOLEANS should be set to a comma-separated list of key/value
pairs:
__GL_SELINUX_BOOLEANS="key1=val1,key2=val2,key3=val3,..."
Valid keys are any SELinux booleans specified by "getsebool -a", and valid
values are 1, true, yes, or on to enable the boolean, and 0, false, no, or off
to disable it. There should be no whitespace between any key, value, or
delimiter. Currently, the driver only uses the allow_execmem boolean to
determine whether it can apply optimizations that use executable memory.
11I. LIMITING HEAP ALLOCATIONS IN THE OPENGL DRIVER
The NVIDIA OpenGL implementation normally does not enforce limits on dynamic
system memory allocations (i.e., memory allocated by the driver from the C
library via the malloc(3) memory allocation package). The
__GL_HEAP_ALLOC_LIMIT environment variable enables the user to specify a
per-process heap allocation limit for as long as libGL is loaded in the
application.
__GL_HEAP_ALLOC_LIMIT is specified in the form BYTES SUFFIX, where BYTES is a
nonnegative integer and SUFFIX is an optional multiplicative suffix: kB =
1000, k = 1024, MB = 1000*1000, M = 1024*1024, GB = 1000*1000*1000, and G =
1024*1024*1024. SUFFIX is not case-sensitive. For example, to specify a heap
allocation limit of 20 megabytes:
__GL_HEAP_ALLOC_LIMIT="20 MB"
If SUFFIX is not specified, the limit is assumed to be given in bytes. The
minimum heap allocation limit is 12 MB. If a lower limit is specified, the
limit is clamped to the minimum.
The GNU C library provides several hooks that may be used by applications to
modify the behavior of malloc(3), realloc(3), and free(3). In addition, an
application or library may specify allocation symbols that the driver will use
in place of those exported by libc. Heap allocation tracking is incompatible
with these features, and the driver will disable the heap allocation limit if
it detects that they are in use.
WARNING: Enforcing a limit on heap allocations may cause unintended behavior
and lead to application crashes, data corruption, and system instability.
ENABLE AT YOUR OWN RISK.
11J. OPENGL SHADER DISK CACHE
The NVIDIA OpenGL driver utilizes a shader disk cache. This optimization
benefits some applications, by reusing shader binaries instead of compiling
them repeatedly. The related environment variables __GL_SHADER_DISK_CACHE and
__GL_SHADER_DISK_CACHE_PATH, as well as the GLShaderDiskCache X configuration
option, allow fine-grained configuration of the shader cache behavior. The
shader disk cache:
1. is always disabled for indirect rendering
2. is always disabled for setuid and setgid binaries
3. by default, is disabled for direct rendering when the OpenGL application
is run as the root user
4. by default, is enabled for direct rendering when the OpenGL application
is run as a non-root user
The GLShaderDiskCache X configuration option forcibly enables or disables the
shader disk cache, for direct rendering as a non-root user.
By default, caches are stored in $HOME/.nv/GLCache. Caches are persistent
across runs of an application. Cached shader binaries are specific to each
driver version; changing driver versions will cause binaries to be recompiled.
The following environment variables configure shader disk cache behavior, and
override the GLShaderDiskCache configuration option:
Environment Variable Description
---------------------------------- ----------------------------------
__GL_SHADER_DISK_CACHE (boolean) Enables or disables the shader
cache for direct rendering.
__GL_SHADER_DISK_CACHE_PATH Enables configuration of where
(string) shader caches are stored on disk.
______________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 12. Configuring AGP
______________________________________________________________________________
There are several choices for configuring the NVIDIA kernel module's use of
AGP on Linux. You can choose to either use the NVIDIA builtin AGP driver
(NvAGP), or the AGP driver that comes with the Linux kernel (AGPGART). This is
controlled through the "NvAGP" option in your X config file:
Option "NvAGP" "0" ... disables AGP support
Option "NvAGP" "1" ... use NvAGP, if possible
Option "NvAGP" "2" ... use AGPGART, if possible
Option "NvAGP" "3" ... try AGPGART; if that fails, try NvAGP
The default is 3 (the default was 1 until after 1.0-1251).
You should use the AGP driver that works best with your AGP chipset. If you
are experiencing problems with stability, you may want to start by disabling
AGP and seeing if that solves the problems. Then you can experiment with the
AGP driver configuration.
You can query the current AGP status at any time via the '/proc' filesystem
interface (see Chapter 22).
To use the Linux 2.4 AGPGART driver, you will need to compile it with your
kernel and either statically link it in, or build it as a module and load it.
To use the AGPGART driver provided by Linux 2.6 or more recent Linux kernels,
both the AGPGART frontend module, 'apggart.ko', and the backend module for
your AGP chipset ('nvidia-agp.ko', 'intel-agp.ko', 'via-agp.ko', ...) need to
be statically linked into the kernel, or built as modules and loaded.
NVIDIA builtin AGP support is unavailable if an AGPGART backend driver is
loaded into the kernel. On Linux 2.4, it is recommended that you compile
AGPGART as a module and make sure that it is not loaded when trying to use the
NVIDIA AGP driver. On Linux 2.6 or later Linux kernels, the 'agpgart.ko'
frontend module will always be loaded, as it is used by the NVIDIA kernel
module to determine if an AGPGART backend module is loaded. When the NVIDIA
AGP driver is to be used on a Linux 2.6 or newer system, it is recommended
that you make sure the AGPGART backend drivers are built as modules and that
they are not loaded.
Also note that changing AGP drivers generally requires a reboot before the
changes actually take effect.
If you are using a Linux 2.6 or newer Linux kernel that has the Linux AGPGART
driver statically linked in (some distribution kernels do), you can pass the
agp=off
parameter to the kernel (via LILO or GRUB, for example) to disable AGPGART
support. As of Linux 2.6.11, most AGPGART backend drivers should respect this
parameter.
The following AGP chipsets are supported by the NVIDIA AGP driver; for all
other chipsets it is recommended that you use the AGPGART module.
Supported AGP Chipsets
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Intel 440LX
Intel 440BX
Intel 440GX
Intel 815 ("Solano")
Intel 820 ("Camino")
Intel 830M
Intel 840 ("Carmel")
Intel 845 ("Brookdale")
Intel 845G
Intel 850 ("Tehama")
Intel 855 ("Odem")
Intel 860 ("Colusa")
Intel 865G ("Springdale")
Intel 875P ("Canterwood")
Intel E7205 ("Granite Bay")
Intel E7505 ("Placer")
AMD 751 ("Irongate")
AMD 761 ("IGD4")
AMD 762 ("IGD4 MP")
AMD 8151 ("Lokar")
VIA 8371
VIA 82C694X
VIA KT133
VIA KT266
VIA KT400
VIA P4M266
VIA P4M266A
VIA P4X400
VIA K8T800
VIA K8N800
VIA PT880
VIA KT880
RCC CNB20LE
RCC 6585HE
Micron SAMDDR ("Samurai")
Micron SCIDDR ("Scimitar")
NVIDIA nForce
NVIDIA nForce2
NVIDIA nForce3
ALi 1621
ALi 1631
ALi 1647
ALi 1651
ALi 1671
SiS 630
SiS 633
SiS 635
SiS 645
SiS 646
SiS 648
SiS 648FX
SiS 650
SiS 651
SiS 655
SiS 655FX
SiS 661
SiS 730
SiS 733
SiS 735
SiS 745
SiS 755
ATI RS200M
If you are experiencing AGP stability problems, you should be aware of the
following:
Additional AGP Information
AGP Rate
You may want to decrease the AGP rate setting if you are seeing lockups
with the value you are currently using. You can do so by extracting the
'.run' file:
# sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86-304.131.run --extract-only
# cd NVIDIA-Linux-x86-304.131/kernel/
Then edit nv-reg.h, and make the following changes:
- NV_DEFINE_REG_ENTRY(__NV_REQ_AGP_RATE, 15);
+ NV_DEFINE_REG_ENTRY(__NV_REQ_AGP_RATE, 4); /* force AGP Rate to 4x
*/
or
+ NV_DEFINE_REG_ENTRY(__NV_REQ_AGP_RATE, 2); /* force AGP Rate to 2x
*/
or
+ NV_DEFINE_REG_ENTRY(__NV_REQ_AGP_RATE, 1); /* force AGP Rate to 1x
*/
Then recompile and load the new kernel module. To do this, run
'nvidia-installer' with the -n command line option:
# cd ../../..; ./nvidia-installer -n
AGP drive strength BIOS setting (Via-based motherboards)
Many Via-based motherboards allow adjusting the AGP drive strength in the
system BIOS. The setting of this option largely affects system stability,
the range between 0xEA and 0xEE seems to work best for NVIDIA hardware.
Setting either nibble to 0xF generally results in severe stability
problems.
If you decide to experiment with this, you need to be aware of the fact
that you are doing so at your own risk and that you may render your system
unbootable with improper settings until you reset the setting to a working
value (w/ a PCI graphics card or by resetting the BIOS to its default
values).
System BIOS version
Make sure you have the latest system BIOS provided by the motherboard
manufacturer.
On ALi1541 and ALi1647 chipsets, NVIDIA drivers disable AGP to work around
timing and signal integrity problems. You can force AGP to be enabled on
these chipsets by setting NVreg_EnableALiAGP to 1. Note that this may
cause the system to become unstable.
Early system BIOS revisions for the ASUS A7V8X-X KT400 motherboard
misconfigure the chipset when an AGP 2.x graphics card is installed; if X
hangs on your ASUS KT400 system with either Linux AGPGART or NvAGP enabled
and the installed graphics card is not an AGP 8x device, make sure that
you have the latest system BIOS installed.
______________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 13. Configuring Multiple Display Devices on One X Screen
______________________________________________________________________________
Multiple display devices (digital flat panels, CRTs, and TVs) can display the
contents of a single X screen in any arbitrary configuration. Configuring
multiple display devices on a single X screen has several distinct advantages
over other techniques (such as Xinerama):
o A single X screen is used. The NVIDIA driver conceals all information
about multiple display devices from the X server; as far as X is
concerned, there is only one screen.
o Both display devices share one frame buffer. Thus, all the functionality
present on a single display (e.g., accelerated OpenGL) is available with
multiple display devices.
o No additional overhead is needed to emulate having a single desktop.
If you are interested in using each display device as a separate X screen, see
Chapter 15.
13A. RELEVANT X CONFIGURATION OPTIONS
When the NVIDIA X driver starts, by default it will enable as many display
devices as are connected and as the GPU supports driving simultaneously. Most
NVIDIA GPUs based on the Kepler architecture, or newer, support driving up to
four display devices simultaneously. Most NVIDIA GPUs older than Kepler
support driving up to two display devices simultaneously.
If multiple X screens are configured on the GPU, the NVIDIA X driver will
attempt to reserve display devices and GPU resources for those other X screens
(honoring the "UseDisplayDevice" and "MetaModes" X configuration options of
each X screen) and then allocate all remaining resources to the first X screen
configured on the GPU.
There are several X configuration options that influence how multiple display
devices are used by an X screen:
Option "MetaModes" "<list of MetaModes>"
Option "HorizSync" "<hsync range(s)>"
Option "VertRefresh" "<vrefresh range(s)>"
Option "MetaModeOrientation" "<relationship of head 1 to head 0>"
Option "ConnectedMonitor" "<list of connected display devices>"
See detailed descriptions of each option below.
13B. DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF OPTIONS
HorizSync
VertRefresh
With these options, you can specify a semicolon-separated list of
frequency ranges, each optionally prepended with a display device name. In
addition, if SLI Mosaic mode is enabled, a GPU specifier can be used. For
example:
Option "HorizSync" "CRT-0: 50-110; DFP-0: 40-70"
Option "VertRefresh" "CRT-0: 60-120; GPU-0.DFP-0: 60"
See Appendix C on Display Device Names for more information.
These options are normally not needed: by default, the NVIDIA X driver
retrieves the valid frequency ranges from the display device's EDID (see
Appendix B for a description of the "UseEdidFreqs" option). The
"HorizSync" and "VertRefresh" options override any frequency ranges
retrieved from the EDID.
MetaModes
MetaModes are "containers" that store information about what mode should
be used on each display device.
Multiple MetaModes list the combinations of modes and the sequence in
which they should be used. In MetaMode syntax, modes within a MetaMode are
comma separated, and multiple MetaModes are separated by semicolons. For
example:
"<mode name 0>, <mode name 1>; <mode name 2>, <mode name 3>"
Where <mode name 0> is the name of the mode to be used on display device 0
concurrently with <mode name 1> used on display device 1. A mode switch
will then cause <mode name 2> to be used on display device 0 and <mode
name 3> to be used on display device 1. Here is an example MetaMode:
Option "MetaModes" "1280x1024,1280x1024; 1024x768,1024x768"
If you want a display device to not be active for a certain MetaMode, you
can use the mode name "NULL", or simply omit the mode name entirely:
"1600x1200, NULL; NULL, 1024x768"
or
"1600x1200; , 1024x768"
Optionally, mode names can be followed by offset information to control
the positioning of the display devices within the virtual screen space;
e.g.,
"1600x1200 +0+0, 1024x768 +1600+0; ..."
Offset descriptions follow the conventions used in the X "-geometry"
command line option; i.e., both positive and negative offsets are valid,
though negative offsets are only allowed when a virtual screen size is
explicitly given in the X config file.
When no offsets are given for a MetaMode, the offsets will be computed
following the value of the MetaModeOrientation option (see below). Note
that if offsets are given for any one of the modes in a single MetaMode,
then offsets will be expected for all modes within that single MetaMode;
in such a case offsets will be assumed to be +0+0 when not given.
When not explicitly given, the virtual screen size will be computed as the
the bounding box of all MetaMode bounding boxes. MetaModes with a bounding
box larger than an explicitly given virtual screen size will be discarded.
A MetaMode string can be further modified with a "Panning Domain"
specification; e.g.,
"1024x768 @1600x1200, 800x600 @1600x1200"
A panning domain is the area in which a display device's viewport will be
panned to follow the mouse. Panning actually happens on two levels with
MetaModes: first, an individual display device's viewport will be panned
within its panning domain, as long as the viewport is contained by the
bounding box of the MetaMode. Once the mouse leaves the bounding box of
the MetaMode, the entire MetaMode (i.e., all display devices) will be
panned to follow the mouse within the virtual screen, unless the
"PanAllDisplays" X configuration option is disabled. Note that individual
display devices' panning domains default to being clamped to the position
of the display devices' viewports, thus the default behavior is just that
viewports remain "locked" together and only perform the second type of
panning.
The most beneficial use of panning domains is probably to eliminate dead
areas -- regions of the virtual screen that are inaccessible due to
display devices with different resolutions. For example:
"1600x1200, 1024x768"
produces an inaccessible region below the 1024x768 display. Specifying a
panning domain for the second display device:
"1600x1200, 1024x768 @1024x1200"
provides access to that dead area by allowing you to pan the 1024x768
viewport up and down in the 1024x1200 panning domain.
Offsets can be used in conjunction with panning domains to position the
panning domains in the virtual screen space (note that the offset
describes the panning domain, and only affects the viewport in that the
viewport must be contained within the panning domain). For example, the
following describes two modes, each with a panning domain width of 1900
pixels, and the second display is positioned below the first:
"1600x1200 @1900x1200 +0+0, 1024x768 @1900x768 +0+1200"
Because it is often unclear which mode within a MetaMode will be used on
each display device, mode descriptions within a MetaMode can be prepended
with a display device name. For example:
"CRT-0: 1600x1200, DFP-0: 1024x768"
If no MetaMode string is specified, then the X driver uses the modes
listed in the relevant "Display" subsection, attempting to place matching
modes on each display device.
Each mode of the MetaMode may also have extra attributes associated with
it, specified as a comma-separated list of token=value pairs inside curly
brackets. The value for each token can optionally be enclosed in
parentheses, to prevent commas within the value from being interpreted as
token=value pair separators. Currently, the only token that requires a
parentheses-enclosed value is "Transform".
The possible tokens within the curly bracket list are:
o "Stereo": possible values are "PassiveLeft" or "PassiveRight". When used
in conjunction with stereo mode "4", this allows each display to be
configured independently to show any stereo eye. For example:
"CRT-0: 1600x1200 +0+0 { Stereo = PassiveLeft }, CRT-1: 1600x1200
+1600+0 { Stereo=PassiveRight }"
If the X screen is not configured for stereo mode "4", these options are
ignored. See Appendix B for more details about stereo configurations.
o "Rotation": this rotates the content of an individual display device.
Possible values are "0" (with synonyms "no", "off" and "normal"), "90"
(with synonyms "left" and "CCW"), "180" (with synonyms "invert" and
"inverted") and "270" (with synonyms "right" and "CW"). For example:
"DFP-0: nvidia-auto-select { Rotation=left }, DFP-1:
nvidia-auto-select { Rotation=right }"
Independent rotation configurability of each display device is also
possible through RandR. See Chapter 17 for details.
o "Reflection": this reflects the content of an individual display device
about either the X axis, the Y axis, or both the X and Y axes. Possible
values are "X", "Y" and "XY". For example:
"DFP-0: nvidia-auto-select { Reflection=X }, DFP-1:
nvidia-auto-select"
Independent reflection configurability of each display device is also
possible through RandR. See Chapter 17 for details.
o "Transform": this is a 3x3 matrix of floating point values that defines a
transformation from the ViewPortOut for a display device to a region
within the X screen. This is equivalent to the transformation matrix
specified through the RandR 1.3 RRSetCrtcTransform request. As in RandR,
the transform is applied before any specified rotation and reflection
values to compute the complete transform.
The 3x3 matrix is represented in the MetaMode syntax as a comma-separated
list of nine floating point values, stored in row-major order. This is
the same as the value passed to the xrandr(1) '--transform' command line
option.
Note that the transform value must be enclosed in parentheses, so that
the commas separating the nine floating point values are interpreted
correctly.
For example:
"DFP-0: nvidia-auto-select { Transform=(43.864288330078125,
21.333328247070312, -16384, 0, 43.864288330078125, 0, 0,
0.0321197509765625, 19.190628051757812) }"
o "ViewPortOut": this specifies the region within the mode sent to the
display device that will display pixels from the X screen. The region of
the mode outside the ViewPortOut will contain black. The format is "WIDTH
x HEIGHT +X +Y".
This is useful, for example, for configuring overscan compensation. E.g.,
if the mode sent to the display device is 1920x1080, to configure a 10
pixel border on all four sides:
"DFP-0: 1920x1080 { ViewPortOut=1900x1060+10+10 }"
Or, to only display an image in the lower right quarter of the 1920x1080
mode:
"DFP-0: 1920x1080 { ViewPortOut=960x540+960+540 }"
When not specified, the ViewPortOut defaults to the size of the mode.
ViewPortOut is only available on G80 and later GPUs.
o "ViewPortIn": this defines the size of the region of the X screen which
will be displayed within the ViewPortOut. The format is "WIDTH x HEIGHT".
ViewPortIn is useful for configuring scaling between the X screen and the
display device. For example, to display an 800x600 region from the X
screen on a 1920x1200 mode:
"DFP-0: 1920x1200 { ViewPortIn=800x600 }"
Or, to display a 2560x1600 region from the X screen on a 1920x1200 mode:
"DFP-0: 1920x1200 { ViewPortIn=2560x1600 }"
Or, in conjunction with ViewPortOut, to scale an 800x600 region of the X
screen within a 1920x1200 mode while preserving the aspect ratio:
"DFP-0: 1920x1200 { ViewPortIn=800x600, ViewPortOut=1600x1200+160+0
}"
Scaling from ViewPortIn to ViewPortOut is also expressible through the
"Transform" attribute. In fact, ViewPortIn is just a shortcut for
populating the transformation matrix. If both ViewPortIn and Transform
are specified in the MetaMode for a display device, ViewPortIn is
ignored.
Note that the current MetaMode can also be configured through the
NV-CONTROL X extension and the nvidia-settings utility. For example:
nvidia-settings --assign CurrentMetaMode="DFP-0: 1920x1200 {
ViewPortIn=800x600, ViewPortOut=1600x1200+160+0 }"
MetaModeOrientation
This option controls the positioning of the display devices within the
virtual X screen, when offsets are not explicitly given in the MetaModes.
The possible values are:
"RightOf" (the default)
"LeftOf"
"Above"
"Below"
"Clone"
When "Clone" is specified, all display devices will be assigned an offset
of 0,0.
Because it is often unclear which display device relates to which,
MetaModeOrientation can be confusing. You can further clarify the
MetaModeOrientation with display device names to indicate which display
device is positioned relative to which display device. For example:
"CRT-0 LeftOf DFP-0"
ConnectedMonitor
With this option you can override what the NVIDIA kernel module detects is
connected to your graphics card. This may be useful, for example, if any
of your display devices do not support detection using Display Data
Channel (DDC) protocols. Valid values are a comma-separated list of
display device names; for example:
"CRT-0, CRT-1"
"CRT"
"CRT-1, DFP-0"
WARNING: this option overrides what display devices are detected by the
NVIDIA kernel module, and is very seldom needed. You really only need this
if a display device is not detected, either because it does not provide
DDC information, or because it is on the other side of a KVM
(Keyboard-Video-Mouse) switch. In most other cases, it is best not to
specify this option.
Just as in all X config entries, spaces are ignored and all entries are case
insensitive.
13C. DYNAMIC TWINVIEW
Using the NV-CONTROL X extension, the display devices in use by an X screen,
the mode pool for each display device, and the MetaModes for each X screen can
be dynamically manipulated. The "Display Configuration" page in
nvidia-settings uses this functionality to modify the MetaMode list and then
uses XRandR to switch between MetaModes. This gives the ability to dynamically
configure TwinView.
The details of how this works are documented in the nv-control-dpy.c sample
NV-CONTROL client in the nvidia-settings source tarball.
Because the NVIDIA X driver can now transition into and out of TwinView
dynamically, MetaModes are always used internally by the NVIDIA X driver,
regardless of how many display devices are currently in use by the X screen
and regardless of whether the TwinView X configuration option was specified.
One implication of this implementation is that each MetaMode must be uniquely
identifiable to the XRandR X extension. Unfortunately, two MetaModes with the
same bounding box will look the same to XRandR. For example, two MetaModes
with different orientations:
"CRT: 1600x1200 +0+0, DFP: 1600x1200 +1600+0"
"CRT: 1600x1200 +1600+0, DFP: 1600x1200 +0+0"
will look identical to the XRandR or XF86VidMode X extensions, because they
have the same total size (3200x1200), and nvidia-settings would not be able to
use XRandR to switch between these MetaModes. To work around this limitation,
the NVIDIA X driver "lies" about the refresh rate of each MetaMode, using the
refresh rate of the MetaMode as a unique identifier.
The XRandR extension is currently being redesigned by the X.Org community, so
the refresh rate workaround may be removed at some point in the future. This
workaround can also be disabled by setting the "DynamicTwinView" X
configuration option to FALSE, which will disable NV-CONTROL support for
manipulating MetaModes, but will cause the XRandR and XF86VidMode visible
refresh rate to be accurate.
FREQUENTLY ASKED TWINVIEW QUESTIONS
Q. Nothing gets displayed on my second monitor; what is wrong?
A. Monitors that do not support monitor detection using Display Data Channel
(DDC) protocols (this includes most older monitors) are not detectable by
your NVIDIA card. You need to explicitly tell the NVIDIA X driver what you
have connected using the "ConnectedMonitor" option; e.g.,
Option "ConnectedMonitor" "CRT, CRT"
Q. Will window managers be able to appropriately place windows (e.g., avoiding
placing windows across both display devices, or in inaccessible regions of
the virtual desktop)?
Yes. Window managers can query the layout of display devices through either
RandR 1.2 or Xinerama.
The NVIDIA X driver provides a Xinerama extension that X clients (such as
window managers) can use to discover the current layout of display devices.
Note that the Xinerama protocol provides no way to notify clients when a
configuration change occurs, so if you modeswitch to a different MetaMode,
your window manager may still think you have the previous configuration.
Using RandR 1.2, or the Xinerama extension in conjunction with the
XF86VidMode extension to get modeswitch events, window managers should be
able to determine the display device configuration at any given time.
Unfortunately, the data provided by XineramaQueryScreens() appears to
confuse some window managers; to work around such broken window managers,
you can disable communication of the display device layout with the
"nvidiaXineramaInfo" X configuration option (see Appendix B for details).
The order that display devices are reported in via the NVIDIA Xinerama
information can be configured with the nvidiaXineramaInfoOrder X
configuration option.
Be aware that the NVIDIA driver cannot provide the Xinerama extension if
the X server's own Xinerama extension is being used. Explicitly specifying
Xinerama in the X config file or on the X server commandline will prohibit
NVIDIA's Xinerama extension from installing, so make sure that the X
server's log file does not contain:
(++) Xinerama: enabled
if you want the NVIDIA driver to be able to provide the Xinerama extension
while in TwinView.
Another solution is to use panning domains to eliminate inaccessible
regions of the virtual screen (see the MetaMode description above).
A third solution is to use two separate X screens, rather than use
TwinView. See Chapter 15.
Q. Why can I not get a resolution of 1600x1200 on the second display device
when using a GeForce2 MX?
A. Because the second display device on the GeForce2 MX was designed to be a
digital flat panel, the Pixel Clock for the second display device is only
150 MHz. This effectively limits the resolution on the second display
device to somewhere around 1280x1024 (for a description of how Pixel Clock
frequencies limit the programmable modes, see the XFree86 Video Timings
HOWTO). This constraint is not present on GeForce4 or GeForce FX GPUs --
the maximum pixel clock is the same on both heads.
Q. Do video overlays work across both display devices?
A. With GPUs based on G80 and later, and some older GPUs, video overlays are
available on all displays.
On some older GPUs, hardware video overlays only work on the first display
device. The current solution is that blitted video is used instead on
TwinView with these GPUs.
Q. How are virtual screen dimensions determined in TwinView?
A. After all requested modes have been validated, and the offsets for each
MetaMode's viewports have been computed, the NVIDIA driver computes the
bounding box of the panning domains for each MetaMode. The maximum bounding
box width and height is then found.
Note that one side effect of this is that the virtual width and virtual
height may come from different MetaModes. Given the following MetaMode
string:
"1600x1200,NULL; 1024x768+0+0, 1024x768+0+768"
the resulting virtual screen size will be 1600 x 1536.
Q. Can I play full screen games across both display devices?
A. Yes. While the details of configuration will vary from game to game, the
basic idea is that a MetaMode presents X with a mode whose resolution is
the bounding box of the viewports for that MetaMode. For example, the
following:
Option "MetaModes" "1024x768,1024x768; 800x600,800x600"
Option "MetaModeOrientation" "RightOf"
produce two modes: one whose resolution is 2048x768, and another whose
resolution is 1600x600. Games such as Quake 3 Arena use the VidMode
extension to discover the resolutions of the modes currently available. To
configure Quake 3 Arena to use the above MetaMode string, add the following
to your q3config.cfg file:
seta r_customaspect "1"
seta r_customheight "600"
seta r_customwidth "1600"
seta r_fullscreen "1"
seta r_mode "-1"
Note that, given the above configuration, there is no mode with a
resolution of 800x600 (remember that the MetaMode "800x600, 800x600" has a
resolution of 1600x600"), so if you change Quake 3 Arena to use a
resolution of 800x600, it will display in the lower left corner of your
screen, with the rest of the screen grayed out. To have single head modes
available as well, an appropriate MetaMode string might be something like:
"800x600,800x600; 1024x768,NULL; 800x600,NULL; 640x480,NULL"
More precise configuration information for specific games is beyond the
scope of this document, but the above examples coupled with numerous online
sources should be enough to point you in the right direction.
______________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 14. Configuring GLX in Xinerama
______________________________________________________________________________
The NVIDIA Linux Driver supports GLX when Xinerama is enabled on similar GPUs.
The Xinerama extension takes multiple physical X screens (possibly spanning
multiple GPUs), and binds them into one logical X screen. This allows windows
to be dragged between GPUs and to span across multiple GPUs. The NVIDIA driver
supports hardware accelerated OpenGL rendering across all NVIDIA GPUs when
Xinerama is enabled.
To configure Xinerama
1. Configure multiple X screens (refer to the XF86Config(5x) or
xorg.conf(5x) man pages for details).
2. Enable Xinerama by adding the line
Option "Xinerama" "True"
to the "ServerFlags" section of your X config file.
Requirements:
o Using identical GPUs is recommended. Some combinations of non-identical,
but similar, GPUs are supported. If a GPU is incompatible with the rest
of a Xinerama desktop then no OpenGL rendering will appear on the screens
driven by that GPU. Rendering will still appear normally on screens
connected to other supported GPUs. In this situation the X log file will
include a message of the form:
(WW) NVIDIA(2): The GPU driving screen 2 is incompatible with the rest of
(WW) NVIDIA(2): the GPUs composing the desktop. OpenGL rendering will
(WW) NVIDIA(2): be disabled on screen 2.
o NVIDIA's GLX implementation only supports Xinerama when physical X screen
0 is driven by the NVIDIA X driver. This is because the X.Org X server
bases the visuals of the logical Xinerama X screen on the visuals of
physical X screen 0.
When physical X screen 0 is not being driven by the NVIDIA X driver and
Xinerama is enabled, then GLX will be disabled. If physical X screens
other than screen 0 are not being driven by the NVIDIA X driver, OpenGL
rendering will be disabled on them.
o Only the intersection of capabilities across all GPUs will be advertised.
The maximum OpenGL viewport size depends on the hardware used, and is
described by the following table. If an OpenGL window is larger than the
maximum viewport, regions beyond the viewport will be blank.
OpenGL Viewport Maximums in Xinerama
GeForce GPUs before GeForce 8: 4096 x 4096 pixels
GeForce 8 through GeForce GTX 8192 x 8192 pixels
400 GPUs:
GeForce GTX 400 series GPUs: 16384x16384 pixels
Quadro GPUs before G80: as large as the Xinerama
desktop
Quadro G80 through Quadro 8192 x 8192 pixels
Fermi:
Quadro Fermi and later GPUs: 16384x16384 pixels
o X configuration options that affect GLX operation (e.g.: stereo,
overlays) should be set consistently across all X screens in the X
server.
Known Issues:
o Versions of XFree86 prior to 4.5 and versions of X.Org prior to 6.8.0
lack the required interfaces to properly implement overlays with the
Xinerama extension. On earlier server versions mixing overlays and
Xinerama will result in rendering corruption. If you are using the
Xinerama extension with overlays, it is recommended that you upgrade to
XFree86 4.5, X.Org 6.8.0, or newer.
______________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 15. Configuring Multiple X Screens on One Card
______________________________________________________________________________
GPUs that support TwinView (Chapter 13) can also be configured to treat each
connected display device as a separate X screen.
While there are several disadvantages to this approach as compared to TwinView
(e.g.: windows cannot be dragged between X screens, hardware accelerated
OpenGL cannot span the two X screens), it does offer several advantages over
TwinView:
o If each display device is a separate X screen, then properties that may
vary between X screens may vary between displays (e.g.: depth, root
window size, etc).
o Hardware that can only be used on one display at a time (e.g.: video
overlays and hardware accelerated RGB overlays on certain older GPUs),
and which consequently cannot be used at all when in TwinView, can be
exposed on the first X screen when each display is a separate X screen.
o TwinView is a fairly new feature. X has historically used one screen per
display device.
To configure two separate X screens to share one graphics card, here is what
you will need to do:
First, create two separate Device sections, each listing the BusID of the
graphics card to be shared and listing the driver as "nvidia", and assign each
a separate screen:
Section "Device"
Identifier "nvidia0"
Driver "nvidia"
# Edit the BusID with the location of your graphics card
BusID "PCI:2:0:0"
Screen 0
EndSection
Section "Device"
Identifier "nvidia1"
Driver "nvidia"
# Edit the BusID with the location of your graphics card
BusId "PCI:2:0:0"
Screen 1
EndSection
Then, create two Screen sections, each using one of the Device sections:
Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "nvidia0"
Monitor "Monitor0"
DefaultDepth 24
Subsection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "1600x1200" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubsection
EndSection
Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen1"
Device "nvidia1"
Monitor "Monitor1"
DefaultDepth 24
Subsection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "1600x1200" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubsection
EndSection
(Note: You'll also need to create a second Monitor section) Finally, update
the ServerLayout section to use and position both Screen sections:
Section "ServerLayout"
...
Screen 0 "Screen0"
Screen 1 "Screen1" leftOf "Screen0"
...
EndSection
For further details, refer to the XF86Config(5x) or xorg.conf(5x) man pages.
______________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 16. Configuring TV-Out
______________________________________________________________________________
NVIDIA GPU-based graphics cards with a TV-Out connector can use a television
as another display device (the same way that it would use a CRT or digital
flat panel). The TV can be used by itself, or in conjunction with another
display device in a TwinView or multiple X screen configuration. If a TV is
the only display device connected to your graphics card, it will be used as
the primary display when you boot your system (i.e. the console will come up
on the TV just as if it were a CRT).
The NVIDIA X driver populates the mode pool for the TV with all the mode sizes
that the driver supports with the given TV standard and the TV encoder on the
graphics card. These modes are given names that correspond to their
resolution; e.g., "800x600".
Because these TV modes only depend on the TV encoder and the TV standard, TV
modes do not go through normal mode validation. The X configuration options
HorizSync and VertRefresh are not used for TV mode validation.
Additionally, the NVIDIA driver contains a hardcoded list of mode sizes that
it can drive for each combination of TV encoder and TV standard. Therefore,
custom modelines in your X configuration file are ignored for TVs.
To use your TV with X, there are several relevant X configuration options:
o The Modes in the screen section of your X configuration file; you can use
these to request any of the modes in the mode pool which the X driver
created for this combination of TV standard and TV encoder. Examples
include "640x480" and "800x600". If in doubt, use "nvidia-auto-select".
o The "TVStandard" option should be added to your screen section; valid
values are:
TVStandard Description
------------- --------------------------------------------------
"PAL-B" used in Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Germany,
Guinea, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Italy,
Malaysia, The Netherlands, Norway, Portugal,
Singapore, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland
"PAL-D" used in China and North Korea
"PAL-G" used in Denmark, Finland, Germany, Italy,
Malaysia, The Netherlands, Norway, Portugal,
Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland
"PAL-H" used in Belgium
"PAL-I" used in Hong Kong and The United Kingdom
"PAL-K1" used in Guinea
"PAL-M" used in Brazil
"PAL-N" used in France, Paraguay, and Uruguay
"PAL-NC" used in Argentina
"NTSC-J" used in Japan
"NTSC-M" used in Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica,
Ecuador, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, Puerto
Rico, South Korea, Taiwan, United States of
America, and Venezuela
"HD480i" 480 line interlaced
"HD480p" 480 line progressive
"HD720p" 720 line progressive
"HD1080i" 1080 line interlaced
"HD1080p" 1080 line progressive
"HD576i" 576 line interlace
"HD576p" 576 line progressive
The line in your X config file should be something like:
Option "TVStandard" "NTSC-M"
If you do not specify a TVStandard, or you specify an invalid value, the
default "NTSC-M" will be used. Note: if your country is not in the above
list, select the country closest to your location.
o The "UseDisplayDevice" option can be used if there are multiple display
devices connected, and you want the connected TV to be used instead of
the connected CRTs and/or DFPs. E.g.,
Option "UseDisplayDevice" "TV"
Using the "UseDisplayDevice" option, rather than the "ConnectedMonitor"
option, is recommended.
o The "TVOutFormat" option can be used to force the output format. Without
this option, the driver autodetects the output format. Unfortunately, it
does not always do this correctly. The output format can be forced with
the "TVOutFormat" option; valid values are:
TVOutFormat Description Supported TV
standards
------------------- ------------------- -------------------
"AUTOSELECT" The driver PAL, NTSC, HD
autodetects the
output format
(default value).
"COMPOSITE" Force Composite PAL, NTSC
output format
"SVIDEO" Force S-Video PAL, NTSC
output format
"COMPONENT" Force Component HD
output format, also
called YPbPr
"SCART" Force Scart output PAL, NTSC
format, also called
Peritel
The line in your X config file should be something like:
Option "TVOutFormat" "SVIDEO"
o The "TVOverScan" option can be used to enable Overscan, when the TV
encoder supports it. Valid values are decimal values in the range 1.0
(which means overscan as much as possible: make the image as large as
possible) and 0.0 (which means disable overscanning: make the image as
small as possible). Overscanning is disabled (0.0) by default.
______________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 17. Support for the X Resize and Rotate Extension
______________________________________________________________________________
This NVIDIA driver release contains support for the X Resize and Rotate
(RandR) Extension versions 1.1, 1.2, and 1.3. The version of the RandR
extension advertised to X clients is controlled by the X server: the RandR
extension and protocol are provided by the X server, which routes protocol
requests to the NVIDIA X driver. Run `xrandr --version` to check the version
of RandR provided by the X server.
17A. RANDR SUPPORT
Specific supported features include:
o Modes can be set per-screen, and the X screen can be resized through the
RRSetScreenConfig request (e.g., with xrandr(1)'s '--size' and '--rate'
command line options).
o The X screen can be resized with the RandR 1.2 RRSetScreenSize request
(e.g., with xrandr(1)'s '--fb' command line option).
o The state of the display hardware can be queried with the RandR 1.2 and
1.3 RRGetScreenResources, RRGetScreenResourcesCurrent, RRGetOutputInfo,
and RRGetCrtcInfo requests (e.g., with xrandr(1)'s '--query' command line
option).
o Modes can be set with RandR CRTC granularity with the RandR 1.2
RRSetCrtcConfig request. E.g., `xrandr --output DVI-I-2 --mode
1920x1200`.
o Rotation can be set with RandR CRTC granularity with the RandR 1.2
RRSetCrtcConfig request. E.g., `xrandr --output DVI-I-2 --mode 1920x1200
--rotation left`.
o Per-CRTC transformations can be manipulated with the RandR 1.3
RRSetCrtcTransform and RRGetCrtcTransform requests. E.g., `xrandr
--output DVI-I-3 --mode 1920x1200 --transform 43.864288330078125,21.33332
8247070312,-16384,0,43.864288330078125,0,0,0.0321197509765625,19.19062805
1757812`.
o The RandR 1.0/1.1 requests RRGetScreenInfo and RRSetScreenConfig
manipulate MetaModes. The MetaModes that the X driver uses (either
user-requested or implicitly generated) are reported through the
RRGetScreenInfo request (e.g., `xrandr --query --q1`) and chosen through
the RRSetScreenConfig request (e.g., `xrandr --size 1920x1200
--orientation left`).
The configurability exposed through RandR is also available through the
MetaMode syntax, independent of X server version. See Chapter 13 for more
details. As an example, these two commands are equivalent:
xrandr --output DVI-I-2 --mode 1280x1024 --pos 0x0 --rotate left \
--output DVI-I-3 --mode 1920x1200 --pos 0x0
nvidia-settings --assign CurrentMetaMode="DVI-I-2: 1280x1024 +0+0 \
{ Rotation=left }, DVI-I-3: 1920x1200 +0+0"
17B. RANDR 1.1 ROTATION BEHAVIOR
On X servers that support RandR 1.2 or later, when an RandR 1.1 rotation
request is received (e.g., `xrandr --orientation left`), the NVIDIA X driver
will apply that request to an entire MetaMode. E.g., if you configure multiple
monitors, either through a MetaMode or through RandR 1.2:
xrandr --output DVI-I-2 --mode 1280x1024 --pos 0x0 \
--output DVI-I-3 --mode 1920x1200 --pos 1280x0
nvidia-settings --assign CurrentMetaMode="DVI-I-2: 1280x1024 +0+0, \
DVI-I-3: 1920x1200 +1280+0"
Requesting RandR 1.1 rotation through `xrandr --orientation left`, will rotate
the entire MetaMode, producing the equivalent of either:
xrandr --output DVI-I-2 --mode 1280x1024 --pos 176x0 --rotate left \
--output DVI-I-3 --mode 1920x1200 --rotate left --pos 0x1280
nvidia-settings --assign CurrentMetaMode="DVI-I-2: 1280x1024 +176+0, \
{ Rotation=left }, DVI-I-3: 1920x1200 +0+1280 { Rotation=left }"
On X servers that do not support RandR 1.2 or later, the NVIDIA X driver does
not advertise RandR rotation support. On such X servers, it is recommended to
configure rotation through MetaModes, instead.
17C. OUTPUT PROPERTIES
The NVIDIA Linux driver supports a number of output device properties.
OFFICIAL PROPERTIES
Properties that do not start with an underscore are officially documented in
the file "randrproto.txt" in X.Org's randrproto package. See that file for a
full description of these properties.
o "ConnectorNumber"
This property groups RandR outputs by their physical connectors. For
example, DVI-I ports have both an analog and a digital output, which is
represented in RandR by two different output objects. One DVI-I port may
be represented by RandR outputs "DVI-I-0" with "SignalFormat" "TMDS"
(transition-minimized differential signaling, a digital signal format)
and "DVI-I-1" with "SignalFormat" "VGA", representing the analog part.
In this case, both RandR outputs would have the same value of
"ConnectorNumber".
o "ConnectorType"
This property lists the physical type of the connector. For example, in
the DVI-I example above, both "DVI-I-0" and "DVI-I-1" would have a
"ConnectorType" of "DVI-I".
o "EDID"
This property contains the raw bytes of the display's extended display
identification data. This data is intended for applications to use to
glean information about the monitor connected.
o "SignalFormat"
This property describes the type of signaling used to send image data to
the display device. For example, an analog device connected to a DVI-I
port might use VGA as its signaling format.
UNOFFICIAL PROPERTIES
Properties whose names begin with an underscore are not specified by X.Org.
They may be removed or modified in future driver releases. The NVIDIA Linux
driver supports the following unofficial properties:
o "_ConnectorLocation"
This property describes the physical location of the connector. On add-in
graphics boards, connector location 0 should generally be the position
closest to the motherboard, with increasing location numbers indicating
connectors progressively farther away.
Type INTEGER
Format 32
# Items 1
Flags Immutable, Static
Range 0-
o "_GUID"
DisplayPort 1.2 specifies that all devices must have a globally-unique
identifier, referred to as a GUID. When a GUID is available, the "_GUID"
property contains its raw bytes.
Type INTEGER
Format 8
# Items 16
Flags Immutable
Range 0-
17D. DISPLAYPORT 1.2
When display devices are connected via DisplayPort 1.2 branch devices,
additional RandR outputs will be created, one for each connected display
device. These dynamic outputs will remain as long as the display device is
connected or used in a MetaMode, even if they are not named in the current
MetaMode. They will be deleted automatically when the display is disconnected
and no MetaModes use them.
See Appendix C for a description of how the names of these outputs are
generated.
If you are developing applications that use the RandR extension, please be
aware that outputs can be created and destroyed dynamically. You should be
sure to use the XRRSelectInput function to watch for events that indicate when
this happens.
17E. KNOWN ISSUES
o RandR per-CRTC panning configuration through the RandR 1.3 RRGetPanning
and RRSetPanning requests is not yet implemented.
o Rotation and Transformations (configured either through RandR or
MetaModes) are not yet supported with Workstation overlays or stereo.
o The RandR 1.2 X configuration options provided by the XFree86 DDX
implementation and documented in xorg.conf(5) are not yet supported.
o Transformations (configured either through RandR or MetaModes) are not
yet correctly clipped.
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Chapter 18. Configuring a Notebook
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18A. INSTALLATION AND CONFIGURATION
Installation and configuration of the NVIDIA Linux Driver Set on a notebook is
the same as for any desktop environment, with a few additions, as described
below.
18B. POWER MANAGEMENT
All notebook NVIDIA GPUs support power management, both S3 (also known as
"Standby" or "Suspend to RAM") and S4 (also known as "Hibernate", "Suspend to
Disk" or "SWSUSP"). Power management is system-specific and is dependent upon
all the components in the system; some systems may be more problematic than
other systems.
Most recent notebook NVIDIA GPUs also support PowerMizer, which monitors
application work load to adjust system parameters to deliver the optimal
balance of performance and battery life. However, PowerMizer is only enabled
by default on some notebooks. Please see the known issues below for more
details.
18C. HOTKEY SWITCHING OF DISPLAY DEVICES
Mobile NVIDIA GPUs also have the capacity to react to a display change hotkey
event, toggling between each of the connected display devices and each
possible combination of the connected display devices (note that only 2
display devices may be active at a time).
Hotkey switching dynamically changes the TwinView configuration; a given
hotkey event will indicate which display devices should be in use at that
time, and all MetaModes currently configured on the X screen will be updated
to use the new configuration of display devices.
Another important aspect of hotkey functionality is that you can dynamically
connect and remove display devices to/from your notebook and use the hotkey to
activate and deactivate them without restarting X.
Note that there are two approaches to implementing this hotkey support: ACPI
events and polling.
Most recent notebooks use ACPI events to deliver hotkeys from the System BIOS
to the graphics driver. This is the preferred method of delivering hotkey
events, but is still a new feature under most UNIX platforms and may not
always function correctly.
The polling mechanism requires checking during the vertical blanking interval
for a hotkey status change. It is an older mechanism for handling hotkeys, and
is therefore not supported on all notebooks and is not tested by notebook
manufacturers. It also does not always report the same combinations of display
devices that are reported by ACPI hotkey events.
The NVIDIA Linux Driver will attempt to use ACPI hotkey events, if possible.
In the case that ACPI hotkey event support is not available, the driver will
revert back to trying hotkey polling. In the case that the notebook does not
support hotkey polling, hotkeys will not work. Please see the known issues
section below for more details.
When switching away from X to a virtual terminal, the VGA console will always
be restored to the display device on which it was present when X was started.
Similarly, when switching back into X, the same display device configuration
will be used as when you switched away, regardless of what display change
hotkey activity occurred while the virtual terminal was active.
18D. DOCKING EVENTS
All notebook NVIDIA GPUs support docking, however support may be limited by
the OS or system. There are three types of notebook docking (hot, warm, and
cold), which refer to the state of the system when the docking event occurs.
hot refers to a powered on system with a live desktop, warm refers to a system
that has entered a suspended power management state, and cold refers to a
system that has been powered off. Only warm and cold docking are supported by
the NVIDIA driver.
18E. TWINVIEW
All notebook NVIDIA GPUs support TwinView. TwinView on a notebook can be
configured in the same way as on a desktop computer (refer to Chapter 13 );
note that in a TwinView configuration using the notebook's internal flat panel
and an external CRT, the CRT is the primary display device (specify its
HorizSync and VertRefresh in the Monitor section of your X config file) and
the flat panel is the secondary display device (specify its HorizSync and
VertRefresh through the SecondMonitorHorizSync and SecondMonitorVertRefresh
options).
The "UseEdidFreqs" X config option is enabled by default, so normally you
should not need to specify the "SecondMonitorHorizSync" and
"SecondMonitorVertRefresh" options. See the description of the UseEdidFreqs
option in Appendix B for details).
18F. KNOWN NOTEBOOK ISSUES
There are a few known issues associated with notebooks:
o Display change hotkey switching is not available on all notebooks. In
some cases, the ACPI infrastructure is not fully supported by the NVIDIA
Linux Driver. Work is ongoing to increase the robustness of NVIDIA's
support in this area. Toshiba and Lenovo notebooks are known to be
problematic.
o ACPI Display change hotkey switching is not supported by X.Org X servers
earlier than 1.2.0; see EnableACPIHotkeys in Appendix B for details and
"Q. How do I interpret X server version numbers?" in Chapter 7 for
information on how to determine whether your X server is new enough.
o In many cases, suspending and/or resuming will fail. As mentioned above,
this functionality is very system-specific. There are still many cases
that are problematic. Here are some tips that may help:
o In some cases, hibernation can have bad interactions with the PCI
Express bus clocks, which can lead to system hangs when entering
hibernation. This issue is still being investigated, but a known
workaround is to leave an OpenGL application running when
hibernating.
o On notebooks with relatively little system memory, repetitive
hibernation attempts may fail due to insufficient free memory. This
problem can be avoided by running `echo 0 > /sys/power/image_size`,
which reduces the image size to be stored during hibernation.
o Some distributions use a tool called vbetool to save and restore VGA
adapter state. This tool is incompatible with NVIDIA GPUs' Video
BIOSes and is likely to lead to problems restoring the GPU and its
state. Disabling calls to this tool in your distribution's init
scripts may improve power management reliability.
o On some notebooks, PowerMizer is not enabled by default. This issue is
being investigated, and there is no known workaround.
o On GeForce 6- and 7-series GPUs, the video overlay only works on the
first display device on which you started X. For example, if you start X
on the internal LCD, run a video application that uses the video overlay
(uses the "Video Overlay" adapter advertised through the XV extension),
and then hotkey switch to add a second display device, the video will not
appear on the second display device. To work around this, you can either
configure the video application to use the "Video Blitter" adapter
advertised through the XV extension (this is always available), or hotkey
switch to the display device on which you want to use the video overlay
*before* starting X.
______________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 19. Using the NVIDIA Driver with Optimus Laptops
______________________________________________________________________________
Some laptops with NVIDIA GPUs make use of Optimus technology to allow
switching between an integrated GPU and a discrete NVIDIA GPU. The NVIDIA
Linux driver can be used on these systems, though functionality may be
limited.
19A. INSTALLING THE NVIDIA DRIVER ON AN OPTIMUS LAPTOP
The driver may be installed normally on Optimus systems, but the NVIDIA X
driver and the NVIDIA OpenGL driver may not be able to display to the laptop's
internal display panel unless a means to connect the panel to the NVIDIA GPU
(for example, a hardware multiplexer, or "mux", often controllable by a BIOS
setting) is available. On systems without a mux, the NVIDIA GPU can still be
useful for offscreen rendering, running CUDA applications, and other uses that
don't require driving a display.
On muxless Optimus laptops, or on laptops where a mux is present, but not set
to drive the internal display from the NVIDIA GPU, the internal display is
driven by the integrated GPU. On these systems, it's important that the X
server not be configured to use the NVIDIA X driver after the driver is
installed. Instead, the correct driver for the integrated GPU should be used.
Often, this can be determined automatically by the X server, and no explicit
configuration is required, especially on newer X server versions. If your X
server autoselects the NVIDIA X driver after installation, you may need to
explicitly select the driver for your integrated GPU.
An additional caveat is that existing OpenGL libraries may be overwritten by
the install process. If you want to prevent this from happening, e.g., if you
intend to use OpenGL on the integrated GPU, you may prevent the installer from
installing the OpenGL and GLX libraries by passing the option
--no-opengl-files to the '.run' file, or directly to nvidia-installer, e.g.:
# NVIDIA-Linux-x86-304.131.run --no-opengl-files
See Chapter 4 for details on the driver install process.
19B. LOADING THE KERNEL MODULE AND CREATING THE DEVICE FILES WITHOUT X
In order for programs that use the NVIDIA driver to work correctly (e.g.: X,
OpenGL, and CUDA applications), the kernel module must be loaded, and the
device files '/dev/nvidiactl' and '/dev/nvidia[0-9]+' must exist with read and
write permissions for any users of such applications. When running X with the
NVIDIA X driver, the kernel module is automatically loaded and the device
files are automatically created when X starts; however, if X is not in use,
for example, on an Optimus laptop where the NVIDIA GPU is used to run CUDA
applications only, then this must be done separately.
The NVIDIA driver can load the kernel module and populate the device files
automatically, if an application that uses the driver is run as a super user
(usually root). Such applications include an X server configured to use the
NVIDIA X driver, CUDA applications, and some of the utilities that are
distributed with the NVIDIA driver.
For example, running:
# nvidia-xconfig --query-gpu-info
as root will cause the kernel module to be loaded, and the device files to be
created, if this hasn't already been done. Note: the --query-gpu-info option
to 'nvidia-xconfig' is important here: without it, 'nvidia-xconfig' will
configure the X server to use the NVIDIA X driver, which may prevent X from
starting later.
See "Q. How and when are the the NVIDIA device files created?" in Chapter 7
for more information.
Note that on some Optimus notebooks the driver may fail to initialize the GPU
due to system-specific ACPI interaction problems: see "Q. Why does the VBIOS
fail to load on my Optimus system?" in Chapter 8 for more information.
______________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 20. Programming Modes
______________________________________________________________________________
The NVIDIA Accelerated Linux Graphics Driver supports all standard VGA and
VESA modes, as well as most user-written custom mode lines; double-scan and
interlaced modes are supported on all GPUs supported by the NVIDIA driver.
To request one or more standard modes for use in X, you can simply add a
"Modes" line such as:
Modes "1600x1200" "1024x768" "640x480"
in the appropriate Display subsection of your X config file (see the
XF86Config(5x) or xorg.conf(5x) man pages for details). Or, the
nvidia-xconfig(1) utility can be used to request additional modes; for
example:
nvidia-xconfig --mode 1600x1200
See the nvidia-xconfig(1) man page for details.
20A. DEPTH, BITS PER PIXEL, AND PITCH
While not directly a concern when programming modes, the bits used per pixel
is an issue when considering the maximum programmable resolution; for this
reason, it is worthwhile to address the confusion surrounding the terms
"depth" and "bits per pixel". Depth is how many bits of data are stored per
pixel. Supported depths are 8, 15, 16, and 24. Depth 30 is also available on
GeForce 8 series and higher GPUs. Most video hardware, however, stores pixel
data in sizes of 8, 16, or 32 bits; this is the amount of memory allocated per
pixel. When you specify your depth, X selects the bits per pixel (bpp) size in
which to store the data. Below is a table of what bpp is used for each
possible depth:
Depth BPP
---------------------------------- ----------------------------------
8 8
15 16
16 16
24 32
30 32
Lastly, the "pitch" is how many bytes in the linear frame buffer there are
between one pixel's data, and the data of the pixel immediately below. You can
think of this as the horizontal resolution multiplied by the bytes per pixel
(bits per pixel divided by 8). In practice, the pitch may be more than this
product due to alignment constraints.
20B. MAXIMUM RESOLUTIONS
The NVIDIA Accelerated Linux Graphics Driver and NVIDIA GPU-based graphics
cards support resolutions up to 16384x16384 pixels for the GeForce GTX 400
series and newer GPUs, 8192x8192 pixels for the GeForce 8 series and above,
and up to 4096x4096 pixels for the GeForce 7 series and below, though the
maximum resolution your system can support is also limited by the amount of
video memory (see USEFUL FORMULAS for details) and the maximum supported
resolution of your display device (monitor/flat panel/television). Also note
that while use of a video overlay does not limit the maximum resolution or
refresh rate, video memory bandwidth used by a programmed mode does affect the
overlay quality.
20C. USEFUL FORMULAS
The maximum resolution is a function both of the amount of video memory and
the bits per pixel you elect to use:
HR * VR * (bpp/8) = Video Memory Used
In other words, the amount of video memory used is equal to the horizontal
resolution (HR) multiplied by the vertical resolution (VR) multiplied by the
bytes per pixel (bits per pixel divided by eight). Technically, the video
memory used is actually the pitch times the vertical resolution, and the pitch
may be slightly greater than (HR * (bpp/8)) to accommodate the hardware
requirement that the pitch be a multiple of some value.
Note that this is just memory usage for the frame buffer; video memory is also
used by other things, such as OpenGL and pixmap caching.
Another important relationship is that between the resolution, the pixel clock
(also known as the dot clock) and the vertical refresh rate:
RR = PCLK / (HFL * VFL)
In other words, the refresh rate (RR) is equal to the pixel clock (PCLK)
divided by the total number of pixels: the horizontal frame length (HFL)
multiplied by the vertical frame length (VFL) (note that these are the frame
lengths, and not just the visible resolutions). As described in the XFree86
Video Timings HOWTO, the above formula can be rewritten as:
PCLK = RR * HFL * VFL
Given a maximum pixel clock, you can adjust the RR, HFL and VFL as desired, as
long as the product of the three is consistent. The pixel clock is reported in
the log file. Your X log should contain a line like this:
(--) NVIDIA(0): ViewSonic VPD150 (DFP-1): 165 MHz maximum pixel clock
which indicates the maximum pixel clock for that display device.
20D. HOW MODES ARE VALIDATED
In traditional XFree86/X.Org mode validation, the X server takes as a starting
point the X server's internal list of VESA standard modes, plus any modes
specified with special ModeLines in the X configuration file's Monitor
section. These modes are validated against criteria such as the valid
HorizSync/VertRefresh frequency ranges for the user's monitor (as specified in
the Monitor section of the X configuration file), as well as the maximum pixel
clock of the GPU.
Once the X server has determined the set of valid modes, it takes the list of
user requested modes (i.e., the set of modes named in the "Modes" line in the
Display subsection of the Screen section of X configuration file), and finds
the "best" validated mode with the requested name.
The NVIDIA X driver uses a variation on the above approach to perform mode
validation. During X server initialization, the NVIDIA X driver builds a pool
of valid modes for each display device. It gathers all possible modes from
several sources:
o The display device's EDID
o The X server's built-in list
o Any user-specified ModeLines in the X configuration file
o The VESA standard modes
For every possible mode, the mode is run through mode validation. The core of
mode validation is still performed similarly to traditional XFree86/X.Org mode
validation: the mode timings are checked against things such as the valid
HorizSync and VertRefresh ranges and the maximum pixelclock. Note that each
individual stage of mode validation can be independently controlled through
the "ModeValidation" X configuration option.
Note that when validating interlaced mode timings, VertRefresh specifies the
field rate, rather than the frame rate. For example, the following modeline
has a vertical refresh rate of 87 Hz:
# 1024x768i @ 87Hz (industry standard)
ModeLine "1024x768" 44.9 1024 1032 1208 1264 768 768 776 817 +hsync +vsync
Interlace
Invalid modes are discarded; valid modes are inserted into the mode pool. See
MODE VALIDATION REPORTING for how to get more details on mode validation
results for each considered mode.
Valid modes are given a unique name that is guaranteed to be unique across the
whole mode pool for this display device. This mode name is constructed
approximately like this:
<width>x<height>_<refreshrate>
(e.g., "1600x1200_85")
The name may also be prepended with another number to ensure the mode is
unique; e.g., "1600x1200_85_0".
As validated modes are inserted into the mode pool, duplicate modes are
removed, and the mode pool is sorted, such that the "best" modes are at the
beginning of the mode pool. The sorting is based roughly on:
o Resolution
o Source (EDID-provided modes are prioritized higher than VESA-provided
modes, which are prioritized higher than modes that were in the X
server's built-in list)
o Refresh rate
Once modes from all mode sources are validated and the mode pool is
constructed, all modes with the same resolution are compared; the best mode
with that resolution is added to the mode pool a second time, using just the
resolution as its unique modename (e.g., "1600x1200"). In this way, when you
request a mode using the traditional names (e.g., "1600x1200"), you still get
what you got before (the 'best' 1600x1200 mode); the added benefit is that all
modes in the mode pool can be addressed by a unique name.
When verbose logging is enabled (see "Q. How can I increase the amount of data
printed in the X log file?" in Chapter 7), the mode pool for each display
device is printed to the X log file.
After the mode pool is built for all display devices, the requested modes (as
specified in the X configuration file), are looked up from the mode pool. Each
requested mode that can be matched against a mode in the mode pool is then
advertised to the X server and is available to the user through the X server's
mode switching hotkeys (ctrl-alt-plus/minus) and the XRandR and XF86VidMode X
extensions.
Additionally, all modes in the mode pool of the primary display device are
implicitly made available to the X server. See the "IncludeImplicitMetaModes"
X configuration option in Appendix B for details.
20E. THE NVIDIA-AUTO-SELECT MODE
You can request a special mode by name in the X config file, named
"nvidia-auto-select". When the X driver builds the mode pool for a display
device, it selects one of the modes as the "nvidia-auto-select" mode; a new
entry is made in the mode pool, and "nvidia-auto-select" is used as the unique
name for the mode.
The "nvidia-auto-select" mode is intended to be a reasonable mode for the
display device in question. For example, the "nvidia-auto-select" mode is
normally the native resolution for flat panels, as reported by the flat
panel's EDID, or one of the detailed timings from the EDID. The
"nvidia-auto-select" mode is guaranteed to always be present, and to always be
defined as something considered valid by the X driver for this display device.
Note that the "nvidia-auto-select" mode is not necessarily the largest
possible resolution, nor is it necessarily the mode with the highest refresh
rate. Rather, the "nvidia-auto-select" mode is selected such that it is a
reasonable default. The selection process is roughly:
o If the EDID for the display device reported a preferred mode timing, and
that mode timing is considered a valid mode, then that mode is used as
the "nvidia-auto-select" mode. You can check if the EDID reported a
preferred timing by starting X with logverbosity greater than or equal to
5 (see "Q. How can I increase the amount of data printed in the X log
file?" in Chapter 7), and looking at the EDID printout; if the EDID
contains a line:
Prefer first detailed timing : Yes
Then the first mode listed under the "Detailed Timings" in the EDID will
be used.
o If the EDID did not provide a preferred timing, the best detailed timing
from the EDID is used as the "nvidia-auto-select" mode.
o If the EDID did not provide any detailed timings (or there was no EDID at
all), the best valid mode not larger than 1024x768 is used as the
"nvidia-auto-select" mode. The 1024x768 limit is imposed here to restrict
use of modes that may have been validated, but may be too large to be
considered a reasonable default, such as 2048x1536.
o If all else fails, the X driver will use a built-in 800 x 600 60Hz mode
as the "nvidia-auto-select" mode.
If no modes are requested in the X configuration file, or none of the
requested modes can be found in the mode pool, then the X driver falls back to
the "nvidia-auto-select" mode, so that X can always start. Appropriate warning
messages will be printed to the X log file in these fallback scenarios.
You can add the "nvidia-auto-select" mode to your X configuration file by
running the command
nvidia-xconfig --mode nvidia-auto-select
and restarting your X server.
The X driver can generally do a much better job of selecting the
"nvidia-auto-select" mode if the display device's EDID is available. This is
one reason why it is recommended to only use the "UseEDID" X configuration
option sparingly. Note that, rather than globally disable all uses of the EDID
with the "UseEDID" option, you can individually disable each particular use of
the EDID using the "UseEDIDFreqs", "UseEDIDDpi", and/or the "NoEDIDModes"
argument in the "ModeValidation" X configuration option.
20F. MODE VALIDATION REPORTING
When log verbosity is set to 6 or higher (see "Q. How can I increase the
amount of data printed in the X log file?" in Chapter 7), the X log will
record every mode that is considered for each display device's mode pool, and
report whether the mode passed or failed. For modes that were considered
invalid, the log will report why the mode was considered invalid.
20G. ENSURING IDENTICAL MODE TIMINGS
Some functionality, such as Active Stereo with TwinView, requires control over
exactly which mode timings are used. For explicit control over which mode
timings are used on each display device, you can specify the ModeLine you want
to use (using one of the ModeLine generators available), and using a unique
name. For example, if you wanted to use 1024x768 at 120 Hz on each monitor in
TwinView with active stereo, you might add something like this to the monitor
section of your X configuration file:
# 1024x768 @ 120.00 Hz (GTF) hsync: 98.76 kHz; pclk: 139.05 MHz
Modeline "1024x768_120" 139.05 1024 1104 1216 1408 768 769 772 823
-HSync +Vsync
Then, in the Screen section of your X config file, specify a MetaMode like
this:
Option "MetaModes" "1024x768_120, 1024x768_120"
20H. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
An XFree86 ModeLine generator, conforming to the GTF Standard is available at
http://gtf.sourceforge.net/. Additional generators can be found by searching
for "modeline" on freshmeat.net.
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Chapter 21. Configuring Flipping and UBB
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The NVIDIA Accelerated Linux Graphics Driver supports Unified Back Buffer
(UBB) and OpenGL Flipping. These features can provide performance gains in
certain situations.
o Unified Back Buffer (UBB): UBB is available only on Quadro GPUs (Quadro
NVS GPUs excluded) and is enabled by default when there is sufficient
video memory available. This can be disabled with the UBB X config option
described in Appendix B. When UBB is enabled, all windows share the same
back, stencil and depth buffers. When there are many windows, the back,
stencil and depth usage will never exceed the size of that used by a full
screen window. However, even for a single small window, the back,
stencil, and depth video memory usage is that of a full screen window. In
that case video memory may be used less efficiently than in the non-UBB
case.
o Flipping: When OpenGL flipping is enabled, OpenGL can perform buffer
swaps by changing which buffer is scanned out rather than copying the
back buffer contents to the front buffer; this is generally a higher
performance mechanism and allows tearless swapping during the vertical
retrace (when __GL_SYNC_TO_VBLANK is set).
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Chapter 22. Using the Proc Filesystem Interface
______________________________________________________________________________
You can use the /proc filesystem interface to obtain run-time information
about the driver, any installed NVIDIA graphics cards, and the AGP status
(where applicable).
This information is contained in several files in /proc/driver/nvidia
/proc/driver/nvidia/version
Lists the installed driver revision and the version of the GNU C compiler
used to build the Linux kernel module.
/proc/driver/nvidia/warnings
The NVIDIA graphics driver tries to detect potential problems with the
host system's kernel and warns about them using the kernel's printk()
mechanism, typically logged by the system to '/var/log/messages'.
Important NVIDIA warning messages are also logged to dedicated text files
in this /proc directory.
/proc/driver/nvidia/gpus/0..N/information
Provide information about each of the installed NVIDIA graphics adapters
(model name, IRQ, BIOS version, Bus Type). Note that the BIOS version is
only available while X is running.
/proc/driver/nvidia/agp/card
Information about the installed AGP card's AGP capabilities.
/proc/driver/nvidia/agp/host-bridge
Information about the host bridge (model and AGP capabilities).
/proc/driver/nvidia/agp/status
The current AGP status. If AGP support has been enabled on your system,
the AGP driver being used, the AGP rate, and information about the status
of AGP Fast Writes and Side Band Addressing is shown.
The AGP driver is either NVIDIA (NVIDIA built-in AGP driver) or AGPGART
(the Linux kernel's agpgart.o driver). If you see "inactive" next to
AGPGART, then this means that the AGP chipset was programmed by AGPGART,
but is not currently in use.
SBA and Fast Writes indicate whether either one of these features is
currently in use. Note that several factors determine whether support for
either will be enabled. Even if both the AGP card and the host bridge
support them, the driver may decide not to use these features in favor of
system stability. This is particularly true of AGP Fast Writes.
______________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 23. Configuring Power Management Support
______________________________________________________________________________
The NVIDIA driver includes support for both APM- and ACPI- based power
management. The NVIDIA Linux driver supports APM-based suspend and resume, as
well as ACPI standby (S3) and suspend (S4).
To use APM, your system's BIOS will need to support APM, rather than ACPI.
Many, but not all, of the GeForce2- and GeForce4-based notebooks include APM
support. You can check for APM support via the procfs interface (check for the
existence of /proc/apm) or via the kernel's boot output:
% dmesg | grep -i apm
a message similar to this indicates APM support:
apm: BIOS version 1.2 Flags 0x03 (Driver version 1.16)
or a message like this indicates no APM support:
No APM support in Kernel
Note: If you are using Linux 2.6 (or a newer Linux kernel) that was configured
with support for both ACPI and APM, the NVIDIA kernel module will be built
with ACPI Power Management support. If you wish to use APM, you will need to
rebuild the Linux kernel without ACPI support and reinstall the NVIDIA Linux
graphics driver.
Sometimes chipsets lose their AGP configuration during suspend, and may cause
corruption on the bus upon resume. The AGP driver is required to save and
restore relevant register state on such systems; NVIDIA's NvAGP is notified of
power management events and ensures its configuration is kept intact across
suspend/resume cycles.
Linux 2.4 AGPGART does not support power management, Linux 2.6 or later
AGPGART does, but only for a few select chipsets. If you use either of these
two AGP drivers and find your system fails to resume reliably, you may have
more success with the NvAGP driver.
Disabling AGP support (see Chapter 12 for more details on disabling AGP) will
also work around this problem.
More recent systems are more likely to support ACPI. ACPI is supported by the
NVIDIA graphics driver in Linux 2.6 and newer kernels. The driver supports
ACPI standby (S3) and includes beta support for ACPI suspend (S4).
If you enable ACPI S4 support via suspend2 patches, you will need to tweak the
Linux kernel such that it dynamically determines the amount of pages needed by
the drivers that will be suspended in the system. This is done by issuing the
following command as root:
% echo 0 > /sys/power/suspend2/extra_pages_allowance
Older versions of suspend2 may provide a different interface, in which case
the following command needs to be issued as root:
% echo 0 > /proc/suspend2/extra_pages_allowance
The system does NOT need rebooting, and as a matter of fact, the setting is
volatile over reboots. You will need to include the tweak in your startup
scripts. However, failure to perform the tweak will result in a hang going to
sleep. For further information regarding suspend2 patches, see
http://www.suspend2.net/.
______________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 24. Using the X Composite Extension
______________________________________________________________________________
X.Org X servers, beginning with X11R6.8.0, contain experimental support for a
new X protocol extension called Composite. This extension allows windows to be
drawn into pixmaps instead of directly onto the screen. In conjunction with
the Damage and Render extensions, this allows a program called a composite
manager to blend windows together to draw the screen.
Performance will be degraded significantly if the "RenderAccel" option is
disabled in xorg.conf. See Appendix B for more details.
When the NVIDIA X driver is used with an X.Org X server X11R6.9.0 or newer and
the Composite extension is enabled, NVIDIA's OpenGL implementation interacts
properly with the Damage and Composite X extensions. This means that OpenGL
rendering is drawn into offscreen pixmaps and the X server is notified of the
Damage event when OpenGL renders to the pixmap. This allows OpenGL
applications to behave properly in a composited X desktop.
If the Composite extension is enabled on an X server older than X11R6.9.0,
then GLX will be disabled. You can force GLX on while Composite is enabled on
pre-X11R6.9.0 X servers with the "AllowGLXWithComposite" X configuration
option. However, GLX will not render correctly in this environment. Upgrading
your X server to X11R6.9.0 or newer is recommended.
You can enable the Composite X extension by running 'nvidia-xconfig
--composite'. Composite can be disabled with 'nvidia-xconfig --no-composite'.
See the nvidia-xconfig(1) man page for details.
If you are using Composite with GLX, it is recommended that you also enable
the "DamageEvents" X option for enhanced performance. If you are using an
OpenGL-based composite manager, you may also need the "DisableGLXRootClipping"
option to obtain proper output.
The Composite extension also causes problems with other driver components:
o In X servers prior to X.Org 7.1, Xv cannot draw into pixmaps that have
been redirected offscreen and will draw directly onto the screen instead.
For some programs you can work around this issue by using an alternative
video driver. For example, "mplayer -vo x11" will work correctly, as will
"xine -V xshm". If you must use Xv with an older server, you can also
disable the compositing manager and re-enable it when you are finished.
On X.Org 7.1 and higher, the driver will properly redirect video into
offscreen pixmaps. Note that the Xv adaptors will ignore the
sync-to-vblank option when drawing into a redirected window.
o Workstation overlays, stereo visuals, and the unified back buffer (UBB)
are incompatible with Composite. These features will be automatically
disabled when Composite is detected.
o The Composite extension is currently incompatible with Xinerama, due to
limitations in the X.Org X server. Composite will be automatically
disabled when Xinerama is enabled.
This NVIDIA Linux driver supports OpenGL rendering to 32-bit ARGB windows on
X.Org 7.2 and higher or when the "AddARGBGLXVisuals" X config file option is
enabled. 32-bit visuals are only available on screens with depths 24 or 30. If
you are an application developer, you can use these new visuals in conjunction
with a composite manager to create translucent OpenGL applications:
int attrib[] = {
GLX_RENDER_TYPE, GLX_RGBA_BIT,
GLX_DRAWABLE_TYPE, GLX_WINDOW_BIT,
GLX_RED_SIZE, 1,
GLX_GREEN_SIZE, 1,
GLX_BLUE_SIZE, 1,
GLX_ALPHA_SIZE, 1,
GLX_DOUBLEBUFFER, True,
GLX_DEPTH_SIZE, 1,
None };
GLXFBConfig *fbconfigs, fbconfig;
int numfbconfigs, render_event_base, render_error_base;
XVisualInfo *visinfo;
XRenderPictFormat *pictFormat;
/* Make sure we have the RENDER extension */
if(!XRenderQueryExtension(dpy, &render_event_base, &render_error_base)) {
fprintf(stderr, "No RENDER extension found\n");
exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
}
/* Get the list of FBConfigs that match our criteria */
fbconfigs = glXChooseFBConfig(dpy, scrnum, attrib, &numfbconfigs);
if (!fbconfigs) {
/* None matched */
exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
}
/* Find an FBConfig with a visual that has a RENDER picture format that
* has alpha */
for (i = 0; i < numfbconfigs; i++) {
visinfo = glXGetVisualFromFBConfig(dpy, fbconfigs[i]);
if (!visinfo) continue;
pictFormat = XRenderFindVisualFormat(dpy, visinfo->visual);
if (!pictFormat) continue;
if(pictFormat->direct.alphaMask > 0) {
fbconfig = fbconfigs[i];
break;
}
XFree(visinfo);
}
if (i == numfbconfigs) {
/* None of the FBConfigs have alpha. Use a normal (opaque)
* FBConfig instead */
fbconfig = fbconfigs[0];
visinfo = glXGetVisualFromFBConfig(dpy, fbconfig);
pictFormat = XRenderFindVisualFormat(dpy, visinfo->visual);
}
XFree(fbconfigs);
When rendering to a 32-bit window, keep in mind that the X RENDER extension,
used by most composite managers, expects "premultiplied alpha" colors. This
means that if your color has components (r,g,b) and alpha value a, then you
must render (a*r, a*g, a*b, a) into the target window.
More information about Composite can be found at
http://freedesktop.org/Software/CompositeExt
______________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 25. Using the nvidia-settings Utility
______________________________________________________________________________
A graphical configuration utility, 'nvidia-settings', is included with the
NVIDIA Linux graphics driver. After installing the driver and starting X, you
can run this configuration utility by running:
% nvidia-settings
in a terminal window.
Detailed information about the configuration options available are documented
in the help window in the utility.
For more information, see the nvidia-settings man page.
The source code to nvidia-settings is released as GPL and is available here:
ftp://download.nvidia.com/XFree86/nvidia-settings/
______________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 26. Using the nvidia-smi Utility
______________________________________________________________________________
A monitoring and management command line utility, 'nvidia-smi', is included
with the NVIDIA Linux graphics driver. After installing the driver, you can
run this utility by running:
% nvidia-smi
in a terminal window.
Detailed help information is available via the --help command line option and
via the nvidia-smi man page.
To include nvidia-smi information in other applications see Chapter 27
______________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 27. The NVIDIA Management Library
______________________________________________________________________________
A C-based API for monitoring and managing various states of the NVIDIA GPU
devices. NVIDIA Management Library (NVML) provides a direct access to the
queries and commands exposed via nvidia-smi. NVML is included with the NVIDIA
Linux graphics driver.
To write applications against this library see the NVML developer page:
http://developer.nvidia.com/nvidia-management-library-NVML
To include NVML functionality in scripting languages see:
http://search.cpan.org/~nvbinding/nvidia-ml-pl/lib/nvidia/ml.pm and
http://pypi.python.org/pypi/nvidia-ml-py/
______________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 28. Using the nvidia-debugdump Utility
______________________________________________________________________________
A utility for collecting internal GPU state, 'nvidia-debugdump', is included
with the NVIDIA Linux graphics driver. After installing the driver, you can
run this utility by running:
% nvidia-debugdump
in a terminal window.
Detailed help information is available via the --help command line option, or
when no parameters are supplied.
In most cases, this utility is invoked by the 'nvidia-bug-report.sh'
(/usr/bin/nvidia-bug-report.sh) script. In rare cases, typically when directed
by an NVIDIA technical support representative, nvidia-debugdump may also be
invoked as a stand-alone diagnostics program. The "dump" output of
nvidia-debugdump is a binary blob that requires internal NVIDIA engineering
tools in order to be interpreted.
______________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 29. Configuring SLI and Multi-GPU FrameRendering
______________________________________________________________________________
The NVIDIA Linux driver contains support for NVIDIA SLI FrameRendering and
NVIDIA Multi-GPU FrameRendering. Both of these technologies allow an OpenGL
application to take advantage of multiple GPUs to improve visual performance.
The distinction between SLI and Multi-GPU is straightforward. SLI is used to
leverage the processing power of GPUs across two or more graphics cards, while
Multi-GPU is used to leverage the processing power of two GPUs colocated on
the same graphics card. If you want to link together separate graphics cards,
you should use the "SLI" X config option. Likewise, if you want to link
together GPUs on the same graphics card, you should use the "MultiGPU" X
config option. If you have two cards, each with two GPUs, and you wish to link
them all together, you should use the "SLI" option.
29A. RENDERING MODES
In Linux, with two GPUs SLI and Multi-GPU can both operate in one of three
modes: Alternate Frame Rendering (AFR), Split Frame Rendering (SFR), and
Antialiasing (AA). When AFR mode is active, one GPU draws the next frame while
the other one works on the frame after that. In SFR mode, each frame is split
horizontally into two pieces, with one GPU rendering each piece. The split
line is adjusted to balance the load between the two GPUs. AA mode splits
antialiasing work between the two GPUs. Both GPUs work on the same scene and
the result is blended together to produce the final frame. This mode is useful
for applications that spend most of their time processing with the CPU and
cannot benefit from AFR.
With four GPUs, the same options are applicable. AFR mode cycles through all
four GPUs, each GPU rendering a frame in turn. SFR mode splits the frame
horizontally into four pieces. AA mode splits the work between the four GPUs,
allowing antialiasing up to 64x. With four GPUs SLI can also operate in an
additional mode, Alternate Frame Rendering of Antialiasing. (AFR of AA). With
AFR of AA, pairs of GPUs render alternate frames, each GPU in a pair doing
half of the antialiasing work. Note that these scenarios apply whether you
have four separate cards or you have two cards, each with two GPUs.
With some GPU configurations, there is in addition a special SLI Mosaic Mode
to extend a single X screen transparently across all of the available display
outputs on each GPU. See below for the exact set of configurations which can
be used with SLI Mosaic Mode.
29B. ENABLING MULTI-GPU
Multi-GPU is enabled by setting the "MultiGPU" option in the X configuration
file; see Appendix B for details about the "MultiGPU" option.
The nvidia-xconfig utility can be used to set the "MultiGPU" option, rather
than modifying the X configuration file by hand. For example:
% nvidia-xconfig --multigpu=on
29C. ENABLING SLI
SLI is enabled by setting the "SLI" option in the X configuration file; see
Appendix B for details about the SLI option.
The nvidia-xconfig utility can be used to set the SLI option, rather than
modifying the X configuration file by hand. For example:
% nvidia-xconfig --sli=on
29D. ENABLING SLI MOSAIC MODE
The simplest way to configure SLI Mosaic Mode using a grid of monitors is to
use 'nvidia-settings' (see Chapter 25). The steps to perform this
configuration are as follows:
1. Connect each of the monitors you would like to use to any connector from
any GPU used for SLI Mosaic Mode. If you are going to use fewer monitors
than there are connectors, connect one monitor to each GPU before adding
a second monitor to any GPUs.
2. Install the NVIDIA display driver set.
3. Configure an X screen to use the "nvidia" driver on at least one of the
GPUs (see Chapter 6 for more information).
4. Start X.
5. Run 'nvidia-settings'. You should see a tab in the left pane of
nvidia-settings labeled "SLI Mosaic Mode Settings". Note that you may
need to expand the entry for the X screen you configured earlier.
6. Check the "Use SLI Mosaic Mode" check box.
7. Select the monitor grid configuration you'd like to use from the "display
configuration" dropdown.
8. Choose the resolution and refresh rate at which you would like to drive
each individual monitor.
9. Set any overlap you would like between the displays.
10. Click the "Save to X Configuration File" button. NOTE: If you don't have
permissions to write to your system's X configuration file, you will be
prompted to choose a location to save the file. After doing so, you MUST
copy the X configuration file into a location the X server will consider
upon startup (usually '/etc/X11/xorg.conf' for X.Org servers or
'/etc/X11/XF86Config' for XFree86 servers).
11. Exit nvidia-settings and restart your X server.
Alternatively, nvidia-xconfig can be used to configure SLI Mosaic Mode via a
command like 'nvidia-xconfig --sli=Mosaic --metamodes=METAMODES' where the
METAMODES string specifies the desired grid configuration. For example:
nvidia-xconfig --sli=Mosaic --metamodes="GPU-0.DFP-0: 1920x1024+0+0,
GPU-0.DFP-1: 1920x1024+1920+0, GPU-1.DFP-0: 1920x1024+0+1024, GPU-1.DFP-1:
1920x1024+1920+1024"
will configure four DFPs in a 2x2 configuration, each running at 1920x1024,
with the two DFPs on GPU-0 driving the top two monitors of the 2x2
configuration, and the two DFPs on GPU-1 driving the bottom two monitors of
the 2x2 configuration.
See the MetaModes X configuration description in details in Chapter 13. See
Appendix C for further details on GPU and Display Device Names.
29E. HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS
SLI functionality requires:
o Identical PCI Express graphics cards
o A supported motherboard (with the exception of Quadro Plex)
o In most cases, a video bridge connecting the two graphics cards
o To use SLI Mosaic Mode, the GPUs must either be part of a Quadro Plex
Visual Computing System (VCS) Model IV or newer, or each GPU must be
Quadro FX 5800, or Quadro Fermi or newer.
For the latest in supported SLI and Multi-GPU configurations, including SLI-
and Multi-GPU capable GPUs and SLI-capable motherboards, see
http://www.slizone.com.
29F. OTHER NOTES AND REQUIREMENTS
The following other requirements apply to SLI and Multi-GPU:
o Mobile GPUs are NOT supported
o GPUs with ECC enabled may not be used in an SLI configuration
o SLI on Quadro-based graphics cards always requires a video bridge
o TwinView is also not supported with SLI or Multi-GPU. Only one display
can be used when SLI or Multi-GPU is enabled, with the exception of
Mosaic.
o If X is configured to use multiple screens and screen 0 has SLI or
Multi-GPU enabled, the other screens configured to use the nvidia driver
will be disabled. Note that if SLI or Multi-GPU is enabled, the GPUs used
by that configuration will be unavailable for single GPU rendering.
FREQUENTLY ASKED SLI AND MULTI-GPU QUESTIONS
Q. Why is glxgears slower when SLI or Multi-GPU is enabled?
A. When SLI or Multi-GPU is enabled, the NVIDIA driver must coordinate the
operations of all GPUs when each new frame is swapped (made visible). For
most applications, this GPU synchronization overhead is negligible.
However, because glxgears renders so many frames per second, the GPU
synchronization overhead consumes a significant portion of the total time,
and the framerate is reduced.
Q. Why is Doom 3 slower when SLI or Multi-GPU is enabled?
A. The NVIDIA Accelerated Linux Graphics Driver does not automatically detect
the optimal SLI or Multi-GPU settings for games such as Doom 3 and Quake 4.
To work around this issue, the environment variable __GL_DOOM3 can be set
to tell OpenGL that Doom 3's optimal settings should be used. In Bash, this
can be done in the same command that launches Doom 3 so the environment
variable does not remain set for other OpenGL applications started in the
same session:
% __GL_DOOM3=1 doom3
Doom 3's startup script can also be modified to set this environment
variable:
#!/bin/sh
# Needed to make symlinks/shortcuts work.
# the binaries must run with correct working directory
cd "/usr/local/games/doom3/"
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$LD_LIBRARY_PATH:.
export __GL_DOOM3=1
exec ./doom.x86 "$@"
This environment variable is temporary and will be removed in the future.
Q. Why does SLI or MultiGPU fail to initialize?
A. There are several reasons why SLI or MultiGPU may fail to initialize. Most
of these should be clear from the warning message in the X log file; e.g.:
o "Unsupported bus type"
o "The video link was not detected"
o "GPUs do not match"
o "Unsupported GPU video BIOS"
o "Insufficient PCIe link width"
The warning message "'Unsupported PCI topology'" is likely due to problems
with your Linux kernel. The NVIDIA driver must have access to the PCI
Bridge (often called the Root Bridge) that each NVIDIA GPU is connected to
in order to configure SLI or MultiGPU correctly. There are many kernels
that do not properly recognize this bridge and, as a result, do not allow
the NVIDIA driver to access this bridge. See the below "How can I determine
if my kernel correctly detects my PCI Bridge?" FAQ for details.
Below are some specific troubleshooting steps to help deal with SLI and
MultiGPU initialization failures.
o Make sure that ACPI is enabled in your kernel. NVIDIA's experience
has been that ACPI is needed for the kernel to correctly recognize
the Root Bridge. Note that in some cases, the kernel's version of
ACPI may still have problems and require an update to a newer kernel.
o Run 'lspci' to check that multiple NVIDIA GPUs can be identified by
the operating system; e.g:
% /sbin/lspci | grep -i nvidia
If 'lspci' does not report all the GPUs that are in your system, then
this is a problem with your Linux kernel, and it is recommended that
you use a different kernel.
Please note: the 'lspci' utility may be installed in a location other
than '/sbin' on your system. If the above command fails with the
error: "'/sbin/lspci: No such file or directory'", please try:
% lspci | grep -i nvidia
, instead. You may also need to install your distribution's
"pciutils" package.
o Make sure you have the most recent SBIOS available for your
motherboard.
o The PCI Express slots on the motherboard must provide a minimum link
width. Please make sure that the PCI Express slot(s) on your
motherboard meet the following requirements and that you have
connected the graphics board to the correct PCI Express slot(s):
o A dual-GPU board needs a minimum of 8 lanes (i.e. x8 or x16)
o A pair of single-GPU boards requires one of the following
supported link width combinations:
o x16 + x16
o x16 + x8
o x16 + x4
o x8 + x8
Q. How can I determine if my kernel correctly detects my PCI Bridge?
A. As discussed above, the NVIDIA driver must have access to the PCI Bridge
that each NVIDIA GPU is connected to in order to configure SLI or MultiGPU
correctly. The following steps will identify whether the kernel correctly
recognizes the PCI Bridge:
o Identify both NVIDIA GPUs:
% /sbin/lspci | grep -i vga
0a:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation [...]
81:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation [...]
o Verify that each GPU is connected to a bus connected to the Root
Bridge (note that the GPUs in the above example are on buses 0a and
81):
% /sbin/lspci -t
good:
-+-[0000:80]-+-00.0
| +-01.0
| \-0e.0-[0000:81]----00.0
...
\-[0000:00]-+-00.0
+-01.0
+-01.1
+-0e.0-[0000:0a]----00.0
bad:
-+-[0000:81]---00.0
...
\-[0000:00]-+-00.0
+-01.0
+-01.1
+-0e.0-[0000:0a]----00.0
Note that in the first example, bus 81 is connected to Root Bridge
80, but that in the second example there is no Root Bridge 80 and bus
81 is incorrectly connected at the base of the device tree. In the
bad case, the only solution is to upgrade your kernel to one that
properly detects your PCI bus layout.
______________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 30. Configuring Frame Lock and Genlock
______________________________________________________________________________
NOTE: Frame Lock and Genlock features are supported only on specific hardware,
as noted below.
Visual computing applications that involve multiple displays, or even multiple
windows within a display, can require special signal processing and
application controls in order to function properly. For example, in order to
produce quality video recording of animated graphics, the graphics display
must be synchronized with the video camera. As another example, applications
presented on multiple displays must be synchronized in order to complete the
illusion of a larger, virtual canvas.
This synchronization is enabled through the frame lock and genlock
capabilities of the NVIDIA driver. This section describes the setup and use of
frame lock and genlock.
30A. DEFINITION OF TERMS
GENLOCK: Genlock refers to the process of synchronizing the pixel scanning of
one or more displays to an external synchronization source. NVIDIA Genlock
requires the external signal to be either TTL or composite, such as used for
NTSC, PAL, or HDTV. It should be noted that the NVIDIA Genlock implementation
is guaranteed only to be frame-synchronized, and not necessarily
pixel-synchronized.
FRAME LOCK: Frame Lock involves the use of hardware to synchronize the frames
on each display in a connected system. When graphics and video are displayed
across multiple monitors, frame locked systems help maintain image continuity
to create a virtual canvas. Frame lock is especially critical for stereo
viewing, where the left and right fields must be in sync across all displays.
In short, to enable genlock means to sync to an external signal. To enable
frame lock means to sync 2 or more display devices to a signal generated
internally by the hardware, and to use both means to sync 2 or more display
devices to an external signal.
SWAP SYNC: Swap sync refers to the synchronization of buffer swaps of multiple
application windows. By means of swap sync, applications running on multiple
systems can synchronize the application buffer swaps between all the systems.
In order to work across multiple systems, swap sync requires that the systems
are frame locked.
QUADRO SYNC DEVICE: A Quadro Sync Device refers to a device capable of Frame
lock/Genlock. See "Supported Hardware" below.
30B. SUPPORTED HARDWARE
Frame lock and genlock are supported for the following hardware:
o Quadro G-Sync, used in conjunction with a Quadro FX 4400, Quadro FX 4500,
or Quadro FX 5500
o Quadro G-Sync II, used in conjunction with a Quadro FX 4600, Quadro FX
5600, Quadro FX 4800, Quadro FX 5800, Quadro 5000, or Quadro 6000
o Quadro Sync, used in conjunction with a Quadro K5000
o Quadro Plex 1000 Models I, II and IV, Quadro Plex 2200 D2, or Quadro Plex
7000.
30C. HARDWARE SETUP
Before you begin, you should check that your hardware has been properly
installed. The following steps must be performed while the system is off.
1. On a Quadro Sync card with four Sync connectors, connect a ribbon cable
to any of the four connectors, if none are already connected.
On a Quadro G-Sync or G-Sync II card with two G-Sync connectors, locate
the G-Sync connector labeled "primary". If the associated ribbon cable is
not already joined to this connector, do so now. If you plan to use frame
lock or genlock in conjunction with SLI FrameRendering or Multi-GPU
FrameRendering (see Chapter 29) or other multi-GPU configurations, you
should connect the G-Sync connector labeled "secondary" to the second
GPU. A section at the end of this appendix describes restrictions on such
setups.
2. Install the Quadro Sync card in any available slot. Note that the slot
itself is only used for physical mounting, so even a known "bad" slot is
acceptable. The slot must be close enough to the graphics card that the
ribbon cable can reach.
3. On a Quadro Sync card with four Sync connectors, external power is
required. Connect a 6-pin PCIe power cable or a SATA power cable to the
card. No external power is required for Quadro G-Sync or Quadro G-Sync II
cards with two framelock connectors.
4. Connect the other end of the ribbon cable to the Quadro Sync connector on
the graphics card.
On supported Quadro Kepler cards, the Quadro Sync connector is identical
in appearance to the SLI connector. The ribbon cable from the Quadro Sync
card should be connected to the connector labeled "SDI | SYNC". If the
ribbon cable is connected to the SLI connector, the GPU will not be able
to synchronize with the Quadro Sync card.
You may now boot the system and begin the software setup of genlock and/or
frame lock. These instructions assume that you have already successfully
installed the NVIDIA Accelerated Linux Driver Set. If you have not done so,
see Chapter 4.
30D. CONFIGURATION WITH NVIDIA-SETTINGS GUI
Frame lock and genlock are configured through the nvidia-settings utility. See
the 'nvidia-settings(1)' man page, and the nvidia-settings online help (click
the "Help" button in the lower right corner of the interface for per-page help
information).
From the nvidia-settings frame lock panel, you may control the addition of
Quadro Sync (and display) devices to the frame lock/genlock group, monitor the
status of that group, and enable/disable frame lock and genlock.
After the system has booted and X Windows has been started, run
nvidia-settings as
% nvidia-settings
You may wish to start this utility before continuing, as we refer to it
frequently in the subsequent discussion.
The setup of genlock and frame lock are described separately. We then describe
the use of genlock and frame lock together.
30E. GENLOCK SETUP
After the system has been booted, connect the external signal to the house
sync connector (the BNC connector) on either the graphics card or the Quadro
Sync card. There is a status LED next to the connector. A solid red or unlit
LED indicates that the hardware cannot detect the timing signal. A green LED
indicates that the hardware is detecting a timing signal. An occasional red
flash is okay. On a Quadro Sync card with four Sync connectors, a blinking
green LED indicates that the server is locked to the house sync. The Quadro
Sync device (graphics card or Quadro Sync card) will need to be configured
correctly for the signal to be detected.
In the frame lock panel of the nvidia-settings interface, add the X Server
that contains the display and Quadro Sync devices that you would like to sync
to this external source by clicking the "Add Devices..." button. An X Server
is typically specified in the format "system:m", e.g.:
mycomputer.domain.com:0
or
localhost:0
After adding an X Server, rows will appear in the "Quadro Sync Devices"
section on the frame lock panel that displays relevant status information
about the Quadro Sync devices, GPUs attached to those Quadro Sync devices and
the display devices driven by those GPUs. In particular, the Quadro Sync rows
will display the server name and Quadro Sync device number along with
"Receiving" LED, "Rate", "House" LED, "Port 0"/"Port 1" Images, and "Delay"
information. The GPU rows will display the GPU product name information along
with the GPU ID for the server. The Display Device rows will show the display
device name and device type along with server/client check boxes, refresh
rate, "Timing" LED and "Stereo" LED.
Once the Quadro Sync and display devices have been added to the frame
lock/genlock group, a Server display device will need to be selected. This is
done by selecting the "Server" check box of the desired display device.
If you are using a Quadro Sync card, you must also click the "Use House Sync
if Present" check box. To enable synchronization of this Quadro Sync device to
the external source, click the "Enable Frame Lock" button. The display
device(s) may take a moment to stabilize. If it does not stabilize, you may
have selected a synchronization signal that the system cannot support. You
should disable synchronization by clicking the "Disable Frame Lock" button and
check the external sync signal.
Modifications to genlock settings (e.g., "Use House Sync if Present", "Add
Devices...") must be done while synchronization is disabled.
30F. FRAME LOCK SETUP
Frame Lock is supported across an arbitrary number of Quadro Sync systems,
although mixing different generations of Quadro Sync products in the same
frame lock group is not supported. Additionally, each system to be included in
the frame lock group must be configured with identical mode timings. See
Chapter 20 for information on mode timings.
Connect the systems through their RJ45 ports using standard CAT5 patch cables.
These ports are located on the frame lock card. DO NOT CONNECT A FRAME LOCK
PORT TO AN ETHERNET CARD OR HUB. DOING SO MAY PERMANENTLY DAMAGE THE HARDWARE.
The connections should be made in a daisy-chain fashion: each card has two
RJ45 ports, call them 1 and 2. Connect port 1 of system A to port 2 of system
B, connect port 1 of system B to port 2 of system C, etc. Note that you will
always have two empty ports in your frame lock group.
The ports self-configure as inputs or outputs once frame lock is enabled. Each
port has a yellow and a green LED that reflect this state. A flashing yellow
LED indicates an output and a flashing green LED indicates an input. On a
Quadro G-Sync or Quadro G-Sync II card with two G-Sync connectors, a solid
green LED indicates that the port has not yet been configured; on a Quadro
Sync card with four Sync connectors, a solid green LED indicates that the port
has been configured as an input, but no sync pulse is detected, and a solid
yellow LED means the card is configured as an output, but no sync is being
transmitted.
In the frame lock panel of the nvidia-settings interface, add the X server
that contains the display devices that you would like to include in the frame
lock group by clicking the "Add Devices..." button (see the description for
adding display devices in the previous section on GENLOCK SETUP. Like the
genlock status indicators, the "Port 0" and "Port 1" columns in the table on
the frame lock panel contain indicators whose states mirror the states of the
physical LEDs on the RJ45 ports. Thus, you may monitor the status of these
ports from the software interface.
Any X Server can be added to the frame lock group, provided that
1. The system supporting the X Server is configured to support frame lock
and is connected via RJ45 cable to the other systems in the frame lock
group.
2. The system driving nvidia-settings can communicate with the X server that
is to be included for frame lock. This means that either the server must
be listening over TCP and the system's firewall is permissive enough to
allow remote X11 display connections, or that you've configured an
alternative mechanism such as ssh(1) forwarding between the machines.
For the case of listening over TCP, verify that the "-nolisten tcp"
commandline option was not used when starting the X server. You can find
the X server commandline with a command such as
% ps ax | grep X
If "-nolisten tcp" is on the X server commandline, consult your Linux
distribution documentation for details on how to properly remove this
option. For example, distributions configured to use the GDM login
manager may need to set "DisallowTCP=false" in the GDM configuration file
(e.g., /etc/gdm/custom.conf, /etc/X11/gdm/gdm.conf, or /etc/gdb/gdb.conf;
the exact configuration file name and path varies by the distribution).
Or, distributions configured to use the KDM login manager may have the
line
ServerArgsLocal=-nolisten tcp
in their kdm file (e.g., /etc/kde3/kdm/kdmrc). This line can be commented
out by prepending with "#".
3. The system driving nvidia-settings can locate and has display privileges
on the X server that is to be included for frame lock.
A system can gain display privileges on a remote system by executing
% xhost +
on the remote system. See the xhost(1) man page for details.
Typically, frame lock is controlled through one of the systems that will be
included in the frame lock group. While this is not a requirement, note that
nvidia-settings will only display the frame lock panel when running on an X
server that supports frame lock.
To enable synchronization on these display devices, click the "Enable Frame
Lock" button. The screens may take a moment to stabilize. If they do not
stabilize, you may have selected mode timings that one or more of the systems
cannot support. In this case you should disable synchronization by clicking
the "Disable Frame Lock" button and refer to Chapter 20 for information on
mode timings.
Modifications to frame lock settings (e.g. "Add/Remove Devices...") must be
done while synchronization is disabled.
nvidia-settings will not automatically enable Frame Lock via the
nvidia-settings.rc file. To enable Frame Lock when starting the X server, a
line such as the following can be added to the '~/.xinitrc' file:
# nvidia-settings -a [gpu:0]/FrameLockEnable=1
30G. FRAME LOCK + GENLOCK
The use of frame lock and genlock together is a simple extension of the above
instructions for using them separately. You should first follow the
instructions for Frame Lock Setup, and then to one of the systems that will be
included in the frame lock group, attach an external sync source. In order to
sync the frame lock group to this single external source, you must select a
display device driven by the GPU connected to the Quadro Sync card (On Quadro
G-Sync or G-Sync II cards, this display device must be connected to the
primary connector) that is connected to the external source to be the signal
server for the group. This is done by selecting the check box labeled "Server"
of the tree on the frame lock panel in nvidia-settings. If you are using a
Quadro Sync based frame lock group, you must also select the "Use House Sync
if Present" check box. Enable synchronization by clicking the "Enable Frame
Lock" button. As with other frame lock/genlock controls, you must select the
signal server while synchronization is disabled.
30H. GPU STATUS LEDS ON THE QUADRO SYNC CARD
In addition to the graphical indicators in the control panel described in the
Genlock Setup section above, the Quadro Sync card for Quadro Kepler GPUs has
two status LEDs for each of the four ports:
A sync status LED indicates the sync status for each port. An unlit LED
indicates that no GPU is connected to the port; a steady amber LED indicates
that a GPU is connected, but not synced to any sync source; and a steady green
LED indicates that a GPU is connected and in sync with an internal or external
sync source. A flashing LED indicates that a connected GPU is in the process
of locking to a sync source; flashing green indicates that the sync source's
timings are within a reasonable range, and flashing amber indicates that the
timings are out of range, and the GPU may be unable to lock to the sync
source.
A stereo status LED indicates the stereo sync status for each port. The LED
will be lit steady amber when the card first powers on. An unlit LED indicates
that stereo is not active, or that no GPU is connected; a blinking green LED
indicates that stereo is active, but not locked to the stereo master; and a
steady green LED indicates that stereo is active and locked to the stereo
master.
30I. CONFIGURATION WITH NVIDIA-SETTINGS COMMAND LINE
Frame Lock may also be configured through the nvidia-settings command line.
This method of configuring Frame Lock may be useful in a scripted environment
to automate the setup process. (Note that the examples listed below depend on
the actual hardware configuration and as such may not work as-is.)
To properly configure Frame Lock, the following steps should be completed:
1. Make sure Frame Lock Sync is disabled on all GPUs.
2. Make sure all display devices that are to be frame locked have the same
refresh rate.
3. Configure which (display/GPU) device should be the master.
4. Configure house sync (if applicable).
5. Configure the slave display devices.
6. Enable frame lock sync on the master GPU.
7. Enable frame lock sync on the slave GPUs.
8. Toggle the test signal on the master GPU (for testing the hardware
connectivity.)
For a full list of the nvidia-settings Frame Lock attributes, please see the
'nvidia-settings(1)' man page. Examples:
1. 1 System, 1 Frame Lock board, 1 GPU, and 1 display device syncing to the
house signal:
# - Make sure frame lock sync is disabled
nvidia-settings -a [gpu:0]/FrameLockEnable=0
nvidia-settings -q [gpu:0]/FrameLockEnable
# - Query the enabled displays on the gpu
nvidia-settings -q [gpu:0]/EnabledDisplays
# - Check that the refresh rate is the one we want
nvidia-settings -q [gpu:0]/RefreshRate
# - Set the master display device to CRT-0. The desired display
# device(s) to be set are passed in as a hexadecimal number
# in which specific bits denote which display devices to set.
# examples:
#
# 0x00000001 - CRT-0
# 0x00000002 - CRT-1
# 0x00000003 - CRT-0 and CRT-1
#
# 0x00000100 - TV-0
# 0x00000200 - TV-1
#
# 0x00020000 - DFP-1
#
# 0x00010101 - CRT-0, TV-0 and DFP-0
#
# 0x000000FF - All CRTs
# 0x0000FF00 - All TVs
# 0x00FF0000 - All DFPs
#
# Note that the following command:
#
# nvidia-settings -q [gpu:0]/EnabledDisplays
#
# will list the available displays on the given GPU.
nvidia-settings -a [gpu:0]/FrameLockMaster=0x00000001
nvidia-settings -q [gpu:0]/FrameLockMaster
# - Enable use of house sync signal
nvidia-settings -a [framelock:0]/FrameLockUseHouseSync=1
# - Configure the house sync signal video mode
nvidia-settings -a [framelock:0]/FrameLockVideoMode=0
# - Set the slave display device to none (to avoid
# having unwanted display devices locked to the
# sync signal.)
nvidia-settings -a [gpu:0]/FrameLockSlaves=0x00000000
nvidia-settings -q [gpu:0]/FrameLockSlaves
# - Enable frame lock
nvidia-settings -a [gpu:0]/FrameLockEnable=1
# - Toggle the test signal
nvidia-settings -a [gpu:0]/FrameLockTestSignal=1
nvidia-settings -a [gpu:0]/FrameLockTestSignal=0
2. 2 Systems, each with 2 GPUs, 1 Frame Lock board and 1 display device per
GPU syncing from the first system's first display device:
# - Make sure frame lock sync is disabled
nvidia-settings -a myserver:0[gpu:0]/FrameLockEnable=0
nvidia-settings -a myserver:0[gpu:1]/FrameLockEnable=0
nvidia-settings -a myslave1:0[gpu:0]/FrameLockEnable=0
nvidia-settings -a myslave1:0[gpu:1]/FrameLockEnable=0
# - Query the enabled displays on the GPUs
nvidia-settings -q myserver:0[gpu:0]/EnabledDisplays
nvidia-settings -q myserver:0[gpu:1]/EnabledDisplays
nvidia-settings -q myslave1:0[gpu:0]/EnabledDisplays
nvidia-settings -q myslave1:0[gpu:1]/EnabledDisplays
# - Check the refresh rate is the same for all displays
nvidia-settings -q myserver:0[gpu:0]/RefreshRate
nvidia-settings -q myserver:0[gpu:1]/RefreshRate
nvidia-settings -q myslave1:0[gpu:0]/RefreshRate
nvidia-settings -q myslave1:0[gpu:1]/RefreshRate
# - Make sure the display device we want as master is masterable
nvidia-settings -q myserver:0[gpu:0]/FrameLockMasterable
# - Set the master display device (CRT-0)
nvidia-settings -a myserver:0[gpu:0]/FrameLockMaster=0x00000001
# - Disable the house sync signal on the master device
nvidia-settings -a myserver:0[framelock:0]/FrameLockUseHouseSync=0
# - Set the slave display devices
nvidia-settings -a myserver:0[gpu:1]/FrameLockSlaves=0x00000001
nvidia-settings -a myslave1:0[gpu:0]/FrameLockSlaves=0x00000001
nvidia-settings -a myslave1:0[gpu:1]/FrameLockSlaves=0x00000001
# - Enable frame lock on server
nvidia-settings -a myserver:0[gpu:0]/FrameLockEnable=1
# - Enable frame lock on slave devices
nvidia-settings -a myserver:0[gpu:1]/FrameLockEnable=1
nvidia-settings -a myslave1:0[gpu:0]/FrameLockEnable=1
nvidia-settings -a myslave1:0[gpu:1]/FrameLockEnable=1
# - Toggle the test signal
nvidia-settings -a myserver:0[gpu:0]/FrameLockTestSignal=1
nvidia-settings -a myserver:0[gpu:0]/FrameLockTestSignal=0
3. 1 System, 4 GPUs, 2 Frame Lock boards and 2 display devices per GPU
syncing from the first GPU's display device:
# - Make sure frame lock sync is disabled
nvidia-settings -a [gpu:0]/FrameLockEnable=0
nvidia-settings -a [gpu:1]/FrameLockEnable=0
nvidia-settings -a [gpu:2]/FrameLockEnable=0
nvidia-settings -a [gpu:3]/FrameLockEnable=0
# - Query the enabled displays on the GPUs
nvidia-settings -q [gpu:0]/EnabledDisplays
nvidia-settings -q [gpu:1]/EnabledDisplays
nvidia-settings -q [gpu:2]/EnabledDisplays
nvidia-settings -q [gpu:3]/EnabledDisplays
# - Check the refresh rate is the same for all displays
nvidia-settings -q [gpu:0]/RefreshRate
nvidia-settings -q [gpu:1]/RefreshRate
nvidia-settings -q [gpu:2]/RefreshRate
nvidia-settings -q [gpu:3]/RefreshRate
# - Make sure the display device we want as master is masterable
nvidia-settings -q myserver:0[gpu:0]/FrameLockMasterable
# - Set the master display device (CRT-0)
nvidia-settings -a [gpu:0]/FrameLockMaster=0x00000001
# - Disable the house sync signal on the master device
nvidia-settings -a [framelock:0]/FrameLockUseHouseSync=0
# - Set the slave display devices
nvidia-settings -a [gpu:0]/FrameLockSlaves=0x00000002 # CRT-1
nvidia-settings -a [gpu:1]/FrameLockSlaves=0x00000003 # CRT-0 and CRT-1
nvidia-settings -a [gpu:2]/FrameLockSlaves=0x00000003 # CRT-0 and CRT-1
nvidia-settings -a [gpu:3]/FrameLockSlaves=0x00000003 # CRT-0 and CRT-1
# - Enable frame lock on master GPU
nvidia-settings -a [gpu:0]/FrameLockEnable=1
# - Enable frame lock on slave devices
nvidia-settings -a [gpu:1]/FrameLockEnable=1
nvidia-settings -a [gpu:2]/FrameLockEnable=1
nvidia-settings -a [gpu:3]/FrameLockEnable=1
# - Toggle the test signal
nvidia-settings -a [gpu:0]/FrameLockTestSignal=1
nvidia-settings -a [gpu:0]/FrameLockTestSignal=0
30J. LEVERAGING FRAME LOCK/GENLOCK IN OPENGL
With the GLX_NV_swap_group extension, OpenGL applications can be implemented
to join a group of applications within a system for local swap sync, and bind
the group to a barrier for swap sync across a frame lock group. A universal
frame counter is also provided to promote synchronization across applications.
30K. FRAME LOCK RESTRICTIONS:
The following restrictions must be met for enabling frame lock:
1. All display devices set as client in a frame lock group must have the
same mode timings as the server (master) display device. If a House Sync
signal is used (instead of internal timings), all client display devices
must be set to have the same refresh rate as the incoming house sync
signal.
2. All X Screens (driving the selected client/server display devices) must
have the same stereo setting. See Appendix B for instructions on how to
set the stereo X option.
3. The frame lock server (master) display device must be on a GPU on the
primary connector connected to a Quadro G-Sync or G-Sync II device. This
restriction does not apply to Quadro Sync devices with four Sync
connectors.
4. If connecting a single GPU to a Quadro G-Sync or G-Sync II device, the
primary connector must be used. On a Quadro Sync device with four Sync
connectors, any connector may be used.
5. In configurations with more than one display device per GPU, we recommend
enabling frame lock on all display devices on those GPUs.
6. Virtual terminal switching or mode switching will disable frame lock on
the display device. Note that the glXQueryFrameCountNV entry point
(provided by the GLX_NV_swap_group extension) will only provide
incrementing numbers while frame lock is enabled. Therefore, applications
that use glXQueryFrameCountNV to control animation will appear to stop
animating while frame lock is disabled.
30L. SUPPORTED FRAME LOCK CONFIGURATIONS:
The following configurations are currently supported:
1. Basic Frame Lock: Single GPU, Single X Screen, Single Display Device with
or without OpenGL applications that make use of Quad-Buffered Stereo
and/or the GLX_NV_swap_group extension.
2. Frame Lock + TwinView: Single GPU, Single X Screen, Multiple Display
Devices with or without OpenGL applications that make use of
Quad-Buffered Stereo and/or the GLX_NV_swap_group extension.
3. Frame Lock + Xinerama: 1 or more GPU(s), Multiple X Screens, Multiple
Display Devices with or without OpenGL applications that make use of
Quad-Buffered Stereo and/or the GLX_NV_swap_group extension.
4. Frame Lock + TwinView + Xinerama: 1 or more GPU(s), Multiple X Screens,
Multiple Display Devices with or without OpenGL applications that make
use of Quad-Buffered Stereo and/or the GLX_NV_swap_group extension.
5. Frame Lock + SLI SFR, AFR, or AA: 2 GPUs, Single X Screen, Single Display
Device with either OpenGL applications that make use of Quad-Buffered
Stereo or the GLX_NV_swap_group extension. Note that for Frame Lock + SLI
Frame Rendering applications that make use of both Quad-Buffered Stereo
and the GLX_NV_swap_group extension are not supported. Note that only
2-GPU SLI configurations are currently supported.
6. Frame Lock + Multi-GPU SFR, AFR, or AA: 2 GPUs, Single X Screen, Single
Display Device with either OpenGL applications that make use of
Quad-Buffered Stereo or the GLX_NV_swap_group extension. Note that for
Frame Lock + Multi-GPU Frame Rendering applications that make use of both
Quad-Buffered Stereo and the GLX_NV_swap_group extension are not
supported.
______________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 31. Configuring SDI Video Output
______________________________________________________________________________
Broadcast, film, and video post production and digital cinema applications can
require Serial Digital (SDI) or High Definition Serial Digital (HD-SDI) video
output. SDI/HD-SDI is a digital video interface used for the transmission of
uncompressed video signals as well as packetized data. SDI is standardized in
ITU-R BT.656 and SMPTE 259M while HD-SDI is standardized in SMPTE 292M. SMPTE
372M extends HD-SDI to define a dual-link configuration that uses a pair of
SMPTE 292M links to provide a 2.970 Gbit/second interface. SMPTE 424M extends
the interface further to define a single 2.97 Gbit/second serial data link.
SDI and HD-SDI video output is provided through the use of the NVIDIA driver
along with an NVIDIA SDI output daughter board. In addition to single- and
dual-link SDI/HD-SDI digital video output, frame lock and genlock
synchronization are provided in order to synchronize the outgoing video with
an external source signal (see Chapter 30 for details on these technologies).
This section describes the setup and use of the SDI video output.
31A. HARDWARE SETUP
Before you begin, you should check that your hardware has been properly
installed. If you are using the Quadro FX 4000 SDI, the SDI/HD-SDI hardware is
located on the dual-slot card itself, and after installing the card, no
additional setup is necessary. If you are using the Quadro FX 4500/5500 SDI or
Quadro FX 4600/5600 SDI II, the following additional setup steps are required
in order to connect the SDI daughter card to the graphics card. These steps
must be performed when the system is off.
1. Insert the NVIDIA SDI Output card into any available expansion slot
within six inches of the NVIDIA Quadro graphics card. Secure the card's
bracket using the method provided by the chassis manufacturer (usually a
thumb screw or an integrated latch).
2. Connect one end of the 14-pin ribbon cable to the Quadro Sync connector
on the NVIDIA Quadro graphics card, and the other end to the NVIDIA SDI
output card.
3. On Quadro FX 4500/5500 SDI, connect the SMA-to-BNC cables by screwing the
male SMA connectors onto the female SMA connectors on the NVIDIA SDI
output card. On Quadro FX 4600/5600 SDI II, this step is not necessary:
the SDI II has BNC connectors rather than SMA connectors.
4. Connect the DVI-loopback connector by connecting one end of the DVI cable
to the DVI connector on the NVIDIA SDI output card and the other end to
the "north" DVI connector on the NVIDIA Quadro graphics card. The "north"
DVI connector on the NVIDIA Quadro graphics card is the DVI connector
that is the farthest from the graphics card PCIe connection to the
motherboard. The SDI output card will NOT function properly if this cable
is connected to the "south" DVI connector.
Once the above installation is complete, you may boot the system and configure
the SDI video output using nvidia-settings. These instructions assume that you
have already successfully installed the NVIDIA Linux Accelerated Graphics
Driver. If you have not done so, see Chapter 4 for details.
31B. CLONE MODE CONFIGURATION WITH 'nvidia-settings'
SDI video output is configured through the nvidia-settings utility. See the
'nvidia-settings(1)' man page, and the nvidia-settings online help (click the
"Help" button in the lower right corner of the interface for per-page help
information).
After the system has booted and X Windows has been started, run
nvidia-settings as
% nvidia-settings
When the NVIDIA X Server Settings page appears, follow the steps below to
configure the SDI video output.
1. Click on the "Graphics to Video Out" tree item on the side menu. This
will open the "Graphics to Video Out" page.
2. Go to the "Synchronization Options" subpage and choose a synchronization
method. From the "Sync Options" drop down click the list arrow to the
right and then click the method that you want to use to synchronize the
SDI output.
Sync Method Description
------------- --------------------------------------------------
Free Running The SDI output will be synchronized with the
timing chosen from the SDI signal format list.
Genlock SDI output will be synchronized with the external
sync signal.
Frame Lock The SDI output will be synchronized with the
timing chosen from the SDI signal format list. In
this case, the list of available timings is
limited to those timings that can be synchronized
with the detected external sync signal.
Note that on Quadro FX 4600/5600 SDI II, you must first choose the
correct Sync Format before an incoming sync signal will be detected.
3. From the top Graphics to Video Out page, choose the output video format
that will control the video resolution, field rate, and SMPTE signaling
standard for the outgoing video stream. From the "Clone Mode" drop down
box, click the "Video Format" arrow and then click the signal format that
you would like to use. Note that only those resolutions that are smaller
or equal to the desktop resolution will be available. Also, this list is
pruned according to the sync option selected. If genlock synchronization
is chosen, the output video format is automatically set to match the
incoming video sync format and this drop down list will be grayed out
preventing you from choosing another format. If frame lock
synchronization has been selected, then only those modes that are
compatible with the detected sync signal will be available.
4. Choose the output data format from the "Output Data Format" drop down
list.
5. Click the "Enable SDI Output" button to enable video output using the
settings above. The status of the SDI output can be verified by examining
the LED indicators in the "Graphics to SDI property" page banner.
6. To subsequently stop SDI output, simply click on the button that now says
"Disable SDI Output".
7. In order to change any of the SDI output parameters such as the Output
Video Format, Output Data Format as well as the Synchronization Delay, it
is necessary to first disable the SDI output.
31C. CONFIGURATION FOR TWINVIEW OR AS A SEPARATE X SCREEN
SDI video output can be configured through the nvidia-settings X Server
Display Configuration page, for use in TwinView or as a separate X screen. The
SDI video output can be configured as if it were a digital flat panel,
choosing the resolution, refresh rate, and position within the desktop.
Similarly, the SDI video output can be configured for use in TwinView or as a
separate X screen through the X configuration file. The supported SDI video
output modes can be requested by name anywhere a mode name can be used in the
X configuration file (either in the "Modes" line, or in the "MetaModes"
option). E.g.,
Option "MetaModes" "CRT-0:nvidia-auto-select, DFP-1:1280x720_60.00_smpte296"
The mode names are reported in the nvidia-settings Display Configuration page
when in advanced mode.
As well, the initial output data format, sync mode and sync source can be set
via the Appendix B, Appendix B, and Appendix B. See Appendix B for
instructions on how to set these X options.
Note that SDI "Clone Mode" as configured through the Graphics to Video Out
page in nvidia-settings is mutually exclusive with using the SDI video output
in TwinView or as a separate X screen.
______________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 32. Configuring Depth 30 Displays
______________________________________________________________________________
This driver release supports X screens with screen depths of 30 bits per pixel
(10 bits per color component) on NVIDIA GPUs based on G80 and higher chip
architectures. This provides about 1 billion possible colors, allowing for
higher color precision and smoother gradients.
When displaying a depth 30 image, the color data may be dithered to lower bit
depths, depending on the capabilities of the display device and how it is
connected to the GPU. Some devices connected via analog VGA or DisplayPort can
display the full 10 bit range of colors. Devices connected via DVI or HDMI, as
well as laptop internal panels connected via LVDS, will be dithered to 8 or 6
bits per pixel.
To work reliably, depth 30 requires X.Org 7.3 or higher and pixman 0.11.6 or
higher.
In addition to the above software requirements, many X applications and
toolkits do not understand depth 30 visuals as of this writing. Some programs
may work correctly, some may work but display incorrect colors, and some may
simply fail to run. In particular, many OpenGL applications request 8 bits of
alpha when searching for FBConfigs. Since depth 30 visuals have only 2 bits of
alpha, no suitable FBConfigs will be found and such applications will fail to
start.
______________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 33. Addressing Capabilities
______________________________________________________________________________
Many PCIe devices have limitations in what memory addresses they can access
for DMA purposes (based on the number of lines dedicated to memory
addressing). This can cause problems if the host system has memory mapped to
addresses beyond what the PCIe device can support. If a PCIe device is
allocated memory at an address beyond what the device can support, the address
may be truncated and the device will access the incorrect memory location.
Note that since certain system resources, such as ACPI tables and PCI I/O
regions, are mapped to address ranges below the 4 GB boundary, the RAM
installed in x86/x86-64 systems cannot necessarily be mapped contiguously.
Similarly, system firmware is free to map the available RAM at its or its
users' discretion. As a result, it is common for systems to have RAM mapped
outside of the address range [0, RAM_SIZE], where RAM_SIZE is the amount of
RAM installed in the system.
For example, it is common for a system with 512 GB of RAM installed to have
physical addresses up to ~513 GB. In this scenario, a GPU with an addressing
capability of 512 GB would force the driver to fall back to the 4 GB DMA zone
for this GPU.
The NVIDIA Linux driver attempts to identify the scenario where the host
system has more memory than a given GPU can address. If this scenario is
detected, the NVIDIA driver will drop back to allocations from the 4 GB DMA
zone to avoid address truncation. This means that the driver will use the
__GFP_DMA32 flag and limit itself to memory addresses below the 4 GB boundary.
This is done on a per-GPU basis, so limiting one GPU will not limit other GPUs
in the system.
The addressing capabilities of an NVIDIA GPU can be queried at runtime via the
procfs interface:
% cat /proc/driver/nvidia/gpus/index/information
...
DMA Size: 40 bits
DMA Mask: 0xffffffffff
...
The memory mapping of RAM on a given system can be seen in the BIOS-e820 table
printed out by the kernel and available via `dmesg`. Note that the 'usable'
ranges are actual RAM:
[ 0.000000] BIOS-provided physical RAM map:
[ 0.000000] BIOS-e820: 0000000000000000 - 000000000009f000 (usable)
[ 0.000000] BIOS-e820: 000000000009f000 - 00000000000a0000 (reserved)
[ 0.000000] BIOS-e820: 0000000000100000 - 000000003fe5a800 (usable)
[ 0.000000] BIOS-e820: 000000003fe5a800 - 0000000040000000 (reserved)
33A. INDIVIDUAL CAPABILITIES
Listing of per-board addressing capabilities.
GEFORCE CAPABILITIES
1. 1 Terabyte (40 bits)
o All GeForce GPUs (minus following exceptions)
2. 512 Gigabytes (39 bits)
o GeForce GTX 460, 460 SE, 465, 470, 480
o GeForce GTX 470M, 480M, 485M
3. 128 Gigabytes (37 bits)
o GeForce GT 420, 430, 440, 520, 530, 610, 620, 630
o GeForce GT 415M, 420M, 425M, 435M, 520M, 525M, 540M, 550M, 555M, 610M,
620M, 630M, 635M
QUADRO CAPABILITIES
1. 1 Terabyte (40 bits)
o All Quadro GPUs (minus following exceptions)
2. 512 Gigabytes (39 bits)
o Quadro 3000M, 4000, 4000M, 5000, 5000M, 6000
3. 128 Gigabytes (37 bits)
o Quadro 500M, 600, 1000M
TESLA CAPABILITIES
1. 1 Terabyte (40 bits)
o All Tesla GPUs (minus following exceptions)
2. 512 Gigabytes (39 bits)
o Tesla T20, C2050, C2070, M2070, M2070-Q
33B. SOLUTIONS
There are multiple potential ways to solve a discrepancy between your system
configuration and a GPU's addressing capabilities.
1. Select a GPU with addressing capabilities that match your target
configuration.
The best way to achieve optimal system and GPU performance is to make
sure that the capabilities of the two are in alignment. This is
especially important with multiple GPUs in the system, as the GPUs may
have different addressing capabilities. In this multiple GPU scenario,
other solutions could needlessly impact the GPU that has larger
addressing capabilities.
2. Configure the system's IOMMU to the GPU's addressing capabilities.
This is a solution targeted at developers and system builders. The use of
IOMMU may be an option, depending on system configuration and IOMMU
capabilities. Please contact NVIDIA to discuss solutions for specific
configurations.
3. Limit the amount of memory seen by the Operating System to match your
GPU's addressing capabilities with kernel configuration.
This is best used in the scenario where RAM is mapped to addresses that
slightly exceeds a GPU's capabilities and other solutions are either not
achievable or more intrusive. A good example is the 512 GB RAM scenario
outlined above with a GPU capable of addressing 512 GB. The kernel
parameter can be used to ignore the RAM mapped above 512 GB.
This can be achieved in Linux by use of the "mem" kernel parameter. See
the kernel-parameters.txt documentation for more details on this
parameter.
This solution does affect the entire system and will limit how much
memory the OS and other devices can use. In scenarios where there is a
large discrepancy between the system configuration and GPU capabilities,
this is not a desirable solution.
4. Remove RAM from the system to align with the GPU's addressing
capabilities.
This is the most heavy-handed, but may ultimately be the most reliable
solution.
______________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 34. NVIDIA Contact Info and Additional Resources
______________________________________________________________________________
There is an NVIDIA Linux Driver web forum. You can access it by going to
http://devtalk.nvidia.com and following the "Linux" link in the "GPU Unix
Graphics" section. This is the preferable tool for seeking help; users can
post questions, answer other users' questions, and search the archives of
previous postings.
If all else fails, you can contact NVIDIA for support at:
linux-bugs@nvidia.com. But please, only send email to this address after you
have explored the Chapter 7 and Chapter 8 chapters of this document, and asked
for help on the devtalk.nvidia.com web forum. When emailing
linux-bugs@nvidia.com, please include the 'nvidia-bug-report.log.gz' file
generated by the 'nvidia-bug-report.sh' script (which is installed as part of
driver installation), along with a detailed description of your problem.
NVIDIA provides a technical contact for information about potential security
issues. Anyone who has identified what they believe to be a security issue
with an NVIDIA UNIX driver is encouraged to directly contact the NVIDIA UNIX
Graphics Driver security email alias, unix-security@nvidia.com, to report and
evaluate any potential issues prior to publishing a public security advisory.
Additional Resources
Linux OpenGL ABI
http://www.opengl.org/registry/ABI/
The XFree86 Project
http://www.xfree86.org/
XFree86 Video Timings HOWTO
http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/XFree86-Video-Timings-HOWTO/index.html
The X.Org Foundation
http://www.x.org/
OpenGL
http://www.opengl.org/
______________________________________________________________________________
Chapter 35. Acknowledgements
______________________________________________________________________________
loki_update
'nvidia-installer' was inspired by the 'loki_update' tool:
http://icculus.org/loki_setup//
snarf
The FTP and HTTP support in 'nvidia-installer' is based upon 'snarf 7.0':
http://www.xach.com/snarf/
The source code for nvidia-installer, including the FTP/HTTP code based on
snarf, is available at:
ftp://download.nvidia.com/XFree86/nvidia-installer/
makeself
The self-extracting archive (also known as the '.run' file) is generated
using 'makeself.sh': http://www.megastep.org/makeself/
The version of makeself.sh used to create the .run is bundled within the
.run file, and can retrieved by extracting the .run file's contents, e.g.:
$ sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86-304.131.run --extract-only
$ ls -l NVIDIA-Linux-x86-304.131/makeself.sh
LLVM
Portions of the NVIDIA OpenCL implementation contain components licensed
from third parties under the following terms:
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a
copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"),
to deal with the Software without restriction, including without
limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute,
sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to
whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following
conditions:
o Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice,
this list of conditions and the following disclaimers.
o Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice,
this list of conditions and the following disclaimers in the
documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
o Neither the names of the LLVM Team, University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign, nor the names of its contributors may be used to
endorse or promote products derived from this Software without specific
prior written permission.
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL
THE CONTRIBUTORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR
OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE,
ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR
OTHER DEALINGS WITH THE SOFTWARE.
PNG Library
The NVIDIA X driver splash screen is decoded using 'libpng':
http://libpng.org/pub/png/libpng.html
X.Org
This NVIDIA Linux driver contains code from the X.Org project.
Source code from the X.Org project is available from
http://cgit.freedesktop.org/xorg/xserver
NetBSD Compiler Intrinsics
The NetBSD implementations of the following compiler intrinsics are used
for better portability: __udivdi3, __umoddi3, __divdi3, __moddi3,
__ucmpdi2, __cmpdi2, __fixunssfdi, __fixunsdfdi, __ashldi3 and __lshrdi3.
These carry the following copyright notice:
Copyright (c) 1992, 1993 The Regents of the University of California. All
rights reserved.
This software was developed by the Computer Systems Engineering group at
Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory under DARPA contract BG 91-66 and contributed
to Berkeley.
Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are
met:
1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice,
this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice,
this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation
and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software
must display the following acknowledgement: This product includes
software developed by the University of California, Berkeley and its
contributors.
4. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors may
be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without
specific prior written permission.
THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND
ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE
ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE
FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL
DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR
SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER
CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT
LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY
OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF
SUCH DAMAGE.
______________________________________________________________________________
Appendix A. Supported NVIDIA GPU Products
______________________________________________________________________________
For the most complete and accurate listing of supported GPUs, please see the
Supported Products List, available from the NVIDIA Linux x86 Graphics
Driver download page. Please go to http://www.nvidia.com/object/unix.html,
follow the Archive link under the Linux x86 heading, follow the link for
the 304.131 driver, and then go to the Supported Products List.
For an explanation of the VDPAU features column, please refer to the section
called "VdpDecoder" of Appendix H.
Note that the list of supported GPU products provided below and on the driver
download page is provided to indicate which GPUs are supported by a particular
driver version. Some designs incorporating supported GPUs may not be
compatible with the NVIDIA Linux driver: in particular, notebook and
all-in-one desktop designs with switchable (hybrid) or Optimus graphics will
not work if means to disable the integrated graphics in hardware are not
available. Hardware designs will vary from manufacturer to manufacturer, so
please consult with a system's manufacturer to determine whether that
particular system is compatible.
A1. NVIDIA GEFORCE GPUS
NVIDIA GPU product Device PCI ID* VDPAU features
---------------------------------- --------------- ---------------
GeForce 6800 Ultra 0x0040 -
GeForce 6800 0x0041 -
GeForce 6800 LE 0x0042 -
GeForce 6800 XE 0x0043 -
GeForce 6800 XT 0x0044 -
GeForce 6800 GT 0x0045 -
GeForce 6800 GT 0x0046 -
GeForce 6800 GS 0x0047 -
GeForce 6800 XT 0x0048 -
GeForce 7800 GTX 0x0090 -
GeForce 7800 GTX 0x0091 -
GeForce 7800 GT 0x0092 -
GeForce 7800 GS 0x0093 -
GeForce 7800 SLI 0x0095 -
GeForce Go 7800 0x0098 -
GeForce Go 7800 GTX 0x0099 -
GeForce 6800 GS 0x00C0 -
GeForce 6800 0x00C1 -
GeForce 6800 LE 0x00C2 -
GeForce 6800 XT 0x00C3 -
GeForce Go 6800 0x00C8 -
GeForce Go 6800 Ultra 0x00C9 -
GeForce 6600 GT 0x00F1 -
GeForce 6600 0x00F2 -
GeForce 6200 0x00F3 -
GeForce 6600 LE 0x00F4 -
GeForce 7800 GS 0x00F5 -
GeForce 6800 GS 0x00F6 -
GeForce 6800 Ultra 0x00F9 -
GeForce 6600 GT 0x0140 -
GeForce 6600 0x0141 -
GeForce 6600 LE 0x0142 -
GeForce 6600 VE 0x0143 -
GeForce Go 6600 0x0144 -
GeForce 6610 XL 0x0145 -
GeForce Go 6600 TE/6200 TE 0x0146 -
GeForce 6700 XL 0x0147 -
GeForce Go 6600 0x0148 -
GeForce Go 6600 GT 0x0149 -
GeForce 6200 0x014F -
GeForce 6500 0x0160 -
GeForce 6200 TurboCache(TM) 0x0161 -
GeForce 6200SE TurboCache(TM) 0x0162 -
GeForce 6200 LE 0x0163 -
GeForce Go 6200 0x0164 -
GeForce Go 6400 0x0166 -
GeForce Go 6200 0x0167 -
GeForce Go 6400 0x0168 -
GeForce 6250 0x0169 -
GeForce 7100 GS 0x016A -
GeForce 8800 GTX 0x0191 -
GeForce 8800 GTS 0x0193 -
GeForce 8800 Ultra 0x0194 -
GeForce 7350 LE 0x01D0 -
GeForce 7300 LE 0x01D1 -
GeForce 7550 LE 0x01D2 -
GeForce 7300 SE/7200 GS 0x01D3 -
GeForce Go 7200 0x01D6 -
GeForce Go 7300 0x01D7 -
GeForce Go 7400 0x01D8 -
GeForce 7500 LE 0x01DD -
GeForce 7300 GS 0x01DF -
GeForce 6200 0x0221 -
GeForce 6200 A-LE 0x0222 -
GeForce 6150 0x0240 -
GeForce 6150 LE 0x0241 -
GeForce 6100 0x0242 -
GeForce Go 6150 0x0244 -
GeForce Go 6100 0x0247 -
GeForce 7900 GTX 0x0290 -
GeForce 7900 GT/GTO 0x0291 -
GeForce 7900 GS 0x0292 -
GeForce 7950 GX2 0x0293 -
GeForce 7950 GX2 0x0294 -
GeForce 7950 GT 0x0295 -
GeForce Go 7950 GTX 0x0297 -
GeForce Go 7900 GS 0x0298 -
GeForce 7600 GT 0x02E0 -
GeForce 7600 GS 0x02E1 -
GeForce 7300 GT 0x02E2 -
GeForce 7900 GS 0x02E3 -
GeForce 7950 GT 0x02E4 -
GeForce 7650 GS 0x038B -
GeForce 7650 GS 0x0390 -
GeForce 7600 GT 0x0391 -
GeForce 7600 GS 0x0392 -
GeForce 7300 GT 0x0393 -
GeForce 7600 LE 0x0394 -
GeForce 7300 GT 0x0395 -
GeForce Go 7700 0x0397 -
GeForce Go 7600 0x0398 -
GeForce Go 7600 GT 0x0399 -
GeForce 6150SE nForce 430 0x03D0 -
GeForce 6100 nForce 405 0x03D1 -
GeForce 6100 nForce 400 0x03D2 -
GeForce 6100 nForce 420 0x03D5 -
GeForce 7025 / nForce 630a 0x03D6 -
GeForce 8600 GTS 0x0400 A
GeForce 8600 GT 0x0401 A
GeForce 8600 GT 0x0402 A
GeForce 8600 GS 0x0403 A
GeForce 8400 GS 0x0404 A
GeForce 9500M GS 0x0405 A
GeForce 8300 GS 0x0406 -
GeForce 8600M GT 0x0407 A
GeForce 9650M GS 0x0408 A
GeForce 8700M GT 0x0409 A
GeForce GT 330 0x0410 A
GeForce 8400 SE 0x0420 -
GeForce 8500 GT 0x0421 A
GeForce 8400 GS 0x0422 A
GeForce 8300 GS 0x0423 -
GeForce 8400 GS 0x0424 A
GeForce 8600M GS 0x0425 A
GeForce 8400M GT 0x0426 A
GeForce 8400M GS 0x0427 A
GeForce 8400M G 0x0428 A
GeForce 9400 GT 0x042C A
GeForce 9300M G 0x042E A
GeForce 7150M / nForce 630M 0x0531 -
GeForce 7000M / nForce 610M 0x0533 -
GeForce 7050 PV / nForce 630a 0x053A -
GeForce 7050 PV / nForce 630a 0x053B -
GeForce 7025 / nForce 630a 0x053E -
GeForce GTX 295 0x05E0 A
GeForce GTX 280 0x05E1 A
GeForce GTX 260 0x05E2 A
GeForce GTX 285 0x05E3 A
GeForce GTX 275 0x05E6 A
GeForce GTX 260 0x05EA A
GeForce GTX 295 0x05EB A
GeForce 8800 GTS 512 0x0600 A
GeForce 9800 GT 0x0601 A
GeForce 8800 GT 0x0602 A
GeForce GT 230 0x0603 A
GeForce 9800 GX2 0x0604 A
GeForce 9800 GT 0x0605 A
GeForce 8800 GS 0x0606 A
GeForce GTS 240 0x0607 A
GeForce 9800M GTX 0x0608 A
GeForce 8800M GTS 0x0609 A
GeForce GTX 280M 0x060A A
GeForce 9800M GT 0x060B A
GeForce 8800M GTX 0x060C A
GeForce 8800 GS 0x060D A
GeForce GTX 285M 0x060F A
GeForce 9600 GSO 0x0610 A
GeForce 8800 GT 0x0611 A
GeForce 9800 GTX/9800 GTX+ 0x0612 A
GeForce 9800 GTX+ 0x0613 A
GeForce 9800 GT 0x0614 A
GeForce GTS 250 0x0615 A
GeForce 9800M GTX 0x0617 A
GeForce GTX 260M 0x0618 A
GeForce GT 230 0x0621 A
GeForce 9600 GT 0x0622 A
GeForce 9600 GS 0x0623 A
GeForce 9600 GSO 512 0x0625 A
GeForce GT 130 0x0626 A
GeForce GT 140 0x0627 A
GeForce 9800M GTS 0x0628 A
GeForce 9700M GTS 0x062A A
GeForce 9800M GS 0x062B A
GeForce 9800M GTS 0x062C A
GeForce 9600 GT 0x062D A
GeForce 9600 GT 0x062E A
GeForce 9700 S 0x0630 A
GeForce GTS 160M 0x0631 A
GeForce GTS 150M 0x0632 A
GeForce 9600 GSO 0x0635 A
GeForce 9600 GT 0x0637 A
GeForce 9500 GT 0x0640 A
GeForce 9400 GT 0x0641 A
GeForce 9500 GT 0x0643 A
GeForce 9500 GS 0x0644 A
GeForce 9500 GS 0x0645 A
GeForce GT 120 0x0646 A
GeForce 9600M GT 0x0647 A
GeForce 9600M GS 0x0648 A
GeForce 9600M GT 0x0649 A
GeForce 9700M GT 0x064A A
GeForce 9500M G 0x064B A
GeForce 9650M GT 0x064C A
GeForce G 110M 0x0651 A
GeForce GT 130M 0x0652 A
GeForce GT 120M 0x0653 A
GeForce GT 220M 0x0654 A
GeForce GT 120 0x0655 0x0633 A
GeForce 9650 S 0x0656 A
GeForce 9400 GT 0x065B A
GeForce GTX 480 0x06C0 C
GeForce GTX 465 0x06C4 C
GeForce GTX 480M 0x06CA C
GeForce GTX 470 0x06CD C
GeForce 9300 GE 0x06E0 B 1
GeForce 9300 GS 0x06E1 B 1
GeForce 8400 0x06E2 B 1
GeForce 8400 SE 0x06E3 -
GeForce 8400 GS 0x06E4 A 1
GeForce 9300M GS 0x06E5 B 1
GeForce G100 0x06E6 B 1
GeForce 9300 SE 0x06E7 -
GeForce 9200M GS 0x06E8 B 1
GeForce 9300M GS 0x06E9 B 1
GeForce G 105M 0x06EC B 1
GeForce G 103M 0x06EF B 1
GeForce G105M 0x06F1 B 1
GeForce 7150 / nForce 630i 0x07E0 -
GeForce 7100 / nForce 630i 0x07E1 -
GeForce 7050 / nForce 630i 0x07E2 -
GeForce 7050 / nForce 610i 0x07E3 -
GeForce 7050 / nForce 620i 0x07E5 -
GeForce 8200M 0x0840 B 1
GeForce 9100M G 0x0844 B 1
GeForce 8200M G 0x0845 B 1
GeForce 9200 0x0846 B 1
GeForce 9100 0x0847 B 1
GeForce 8300 0x0848 B 1
GeForce 8200 0x0849 B 1
nForce 730a 0x084A B 1
GeForce 9200 0x084B B 1
nForce 980a/780a SLI 0x084C B 1
nForce 750a SLI 0x084D B 1
GeForce 8100 / nForce 720a 0x084F -
GeForce 9400 0x0860 B 1
GeForce 9400 0x0861 B 1
GeForce 9400M G 0x0862 B 1
GeForce 9400M 0x0863 B 1
GeForce 9300 0x0864 B 1
ION 0x0865 B 1
GeForce 9400M G 0x0866 B 1
GeForce 9400 0x0867 B 1
nForce 760i SLI 0x0868 B 1
GeForce 9400 0x0869 B 1
GeForce 9400 0x086A B 1
GeForce 9300 / nForce 730i 0x086C B 1
GeForce 9200 0x086D B 1
GeForce 9100M G 0x086E B 1
GeForce 8200M G 0x086F B 1
GeForce 9400M 0x0870 B 1
GeForce 9200 0x0871 B 1
GeForce G102M 0x0872 B 1
GeForce G102M 0x0873 B 1
ION 0x0874 B 1
ION 0x0876 B 1
GeForce 9400 0x087A B 1
ION 0x087D B 1
ION LE 0x087E B 1
ION LE 0x087F B 1
GeForce 320M 0x08A0 C
GeForce 320M 0x08A2 C
GeForce 320M 0x08A3 C
GeForce 320M 0x08A4 C
GeForce 320M 0x08A5 C
GeForce GT 220 0x0A20 C
GeForce 315 0x0A22 -
GeForce 210 0x0A23 C
GeForce 405 0x0A26 C
GeForce 405 0x0A27 C
GeForce GT 230M 0x0A28 C
GeForce GT 330M 0x0A29 C
GeForce GT 230M 0x0A2A C
GeForce GT 330M 0x0A2B C
GeForce GT 320M 0x0A2D C
GeForce GT 415 0x0A32 C
GeForce GT 240M 0x0A34 C
GeForce GT 325M 0x0A35 C
GeForce G210 0x0A60 C
GeForce 205 0x0A62 C
GeForce 310 0x0A63 C
Second Generation ION 0x0A64 C
GeForce 210 0x0A65 C
GeForce 310 0x0A66 C
GeForce 315 0x0A67 -
GeForce G105M 0x0A68 B
GeForce G105M 0x0A69 B
GeForce 305M 0x0A6E C
Second Generation ION 0x0A6F C
GeForce 310M 0x0A70 C
GeForce 305M 0x0A71 C
GeForce 310M 0x0A72 C
GeForce 305M 0x0A73 C
GeForce G210M 0x0A74 C
GeForce 310M 0x0A75 C
Second Generation ION 0x0A76 C
GeForce 315M 0x0A7A C
GeForce GT 330 0x0CA0 A
GeForce GT 320 0x0CA2 C
GeForce GT 240 0x0CA3 C
GeForce GT 340 0x0CA4 C
GeForce GT 220 0x0CA5 C
GeForce GT 330 0x0CA7 A
GeForce GTS 260M 0x0CA8 C
GeForce GTS 250M 0x0CA9 C
GeForce GT 220 0x0CAC -
GeForce GT 335M 0x0CAF C
GeForce GTS 350M 0x0CB0 C
GeForce GTS 360M 0x0CB1 C
GeForce GT 440 0x0DC0 C
GeForce GTS 450 0x0DC4 C
GeForce GTS 450 0x0DC5 C
GeForce GTS 450 0x0DC6 C
GeForce GT 555M 0x0DCD C
GeForce GT 555M 0x0DCE C
GeForce GTX 460M 0x0DD1 C
GeForce GT 445M 0x0DD2 C
GeForce GT 435M 0x0DD3 C
GeForce GT 550M 0x0DD6 C
GeForce GT 440 0x0DE0 C
GeForce GT 430 0x0DE1 C
GeForce GT 420 0x0DE2 C
GeForce GT 635M 0x0DE3 C
GeForce GT 520 0x0DE4 C
GeForce GT 530 0x0DE5 C
GeForce GT 620M 0x0DE8 C
GeForce GT 630M 0x0DE9 C
GeForce 610M 0x0DEA C
GeForce GT 555M 0x0DEB C
GeForce GT 525M 0x0DEC C
GeForce GT 520M 0x0DED C
GeForce GT 415M 0x0DEE C
GeForce GT 425M 0x0DF0 C
GeForce GT 420M 0x0DF1 C
GeForce GT 435M 0x0DF2 C
GeForce GT 420M 0x0DF3 C
GeForce GT 540M 0x0DF4 C
GeForce GT 525M 0x0DF5 C
GeForce GT 550M 0x0DF6 C
GeForce GT 520M 0x0DF7 C
GeForce GTX 460 0x0E22 C
GeForce GTX 460 SE 0x0E23 C
GeForce GTX 460 0x0E24 C
GeForce GTX 470M 0x0E30 C
GeForce GTX 485M 0x0E31 C
GeForce GT 630 0x0F00 C
GeForce GT 620 0x0F01 C
GeForce GT 640 0x0FC0 C
GeForce GT 640 0x0FC1 C
GeForce GT 630 0x0FC2 C
GeForce GTX 650 0x0FC6 D
GeForce GT 640M LE 0x0FCE D
GeForce GT 650M 0x0FD1 D
GeForce GT 640M 0x0FD2 D
GeForce GT 640M LE 0x0FD3 D
GeForce GTX 660M 0x0FD4 D
GeForce GT 650M 0x0FD5 D
GeForce GT 640M 0x0FD8 D
GeForce GT 645M 0x0FD9 D
GeForce GTX 660M 0x0FE0 D
GeForce GT 520 0x1040 C
GeForce 510 0x1042 D
GeForce 605 0x1048 D
GeForce GT 620 0x1049 C
GeForce GT 610 0x104A D
GeForce GT 520M 0x1050 C
GeForce GT 520MX 0x1051 D
GeForce GT 520M 0x1052 C
GeForce 410M 0x1054 D
GeForce 410M 0x1055 D
GeForce 610M 0x1058 C
GeForce 610M 0x1059 C
GeForce 610M 0x105A C
GeForce GTX 580 0x1080 C
GeForce GTX 570 0x1081 C
GeForce GTX 560 Ti 0x1082 C
GeForce GTX 560 0x1084 C
GeForce GTX 570 0x1086 C
GeForce GTX 560 Ti 0x1087 C
GeForce GTX 590 0x1088 C
GeForce GTX 580 0x1089 C
GeForce GTX 580 0x108B C
GeForce 9300 GS 0x10C0 B
GeForce 8400GS 0x10C3 A
GeForce 405 0x10C5 C
GeForce GT 630M 0x1140 0x0565 C
GeForce GT 630M 0x1140 0x0568 C
GeForce GT 620M 0x1140 0x067A C
GeForce GT 620M 0x1140 0x0680 C
GeForce GT 620M 0x1140 0x20DD C
GeForce GTX 680 0x1180 D
GeForce GTX 660 Ti 0x1183 D
GeForce GTX 660 0x1185 D
GeForce GTX 690 0x1188 D
GeForce GTX 670 0x1189 D
GeForce GTX 680M 0x11A0 D
GeForce GTX 670MX 0x11A1 D
GeForce GTX 675MX 0x11A7 D
GeForce GTX 660 0x11C0 D
GeForce GTX 650 Ti 0x11C6 D
GeForce GTX 560 Ti 0x1200 C
GeForce GTX 560 0x1201 C
GeForce GTX 460 SE v2 0x1203 C
GeForce GTX 460 v2 0x1205 C
GeForce GTX 555 0x1206 C
GeForce GT 645 0x1207 C
GeForce GTX 560 SE 0x1208 C
GeForce GTX 570M 0x1210 C
GeForce GTX 580M 0x1211 C
GeForce GTX 675M 0x1212 C
GeForce GTX 670M 0x1213 C
GeForce GT 545 0x1241 C
GeForce GT 545 0x1243 C
GeForce GTX 550 Ti 0x1244 C
GeForce GTS 450 0x1245 C
GeForce GT 550M 0x1246 C
GeForce GT 555M 0x1247 C
GeForce GT 635M 0x1247 0x212A C
GeForce GT 635M 0x1247 0x212B C
GeForce GT 635M 0x1247 0x212C C
GeForce GT 555M 0x1248 C
GeForce GTS 450 0x1249 C
GeForce GT 640 0x124B C
GeForce GT 555M 0x124D C
GeForce GT 635M 0x124D 0x10CC C
GeForce GTX 560M 0x1251 C
A2. NVIDIA QUADRO GPUS
NVIDIA GPU product Device PCI ID* VDPAU features
---------------------------------- --------------- ---------------
Quadro FX 4000 0x004E -
Quadro FX 4500 0x009D -
Quadro FX Go1400 0x00CC -
Quadro FX 3450/4000 SDI 0x00CD -
Quadro FX 1400 0x00CE -
Quadro FX 3400/Quadro FX 4000 0x00F8 -
Quadro FX 540M 0x014C -
Quadro FX 550 0x014D -
Quadro FX 540 0x014E -
Quadro FX 5600 0x019D -
Quadro FX 4600 0x019E -
Quadro FX 350M 0x01DC -
Quadro FX 350 0x01DE -
Quadro FX 2500M 0x029A -
Quadro FX 1500M 0x029B -
Quadro FX 5500 0x029C -
Quadro FX 3500 0x029D -
Quadro FX 1500 0x029E -
Quadro FX 4500 X2 0x029F -
Quadro FX 560M 0x039C -
Quadro FX 560 0x039E -
Quadro FX 370 0x040A A
Quadro FX 570M 0x040C A
Quadro FX 1600M 0x040D A
Quadro FX 570 0x040E A
Quadro FX 1700 0x040F A
Quadro FX 360M 0x042D A
Quadroplex 2200 D2 0x05ED A
Quadroplex 2200 S4 0x05F8 A
Quadro CX 0x05F9 A
Quadro FX 5800 0x05FD A
Quadro FX 4800 0x05FE A
Quadro FX 3800 0x05FF A
Quadro FX 4700 X2 0x0619 A
Quadro FX 3700 0x061A A
Quadro VX 200 0x061B A
Quadro FX 3600M 0x061C A
Quadro FX 2800M 0x061D A
Quadro FX 3700M 0x061E A
Quadro FX 3800M 0x061F A
Quadro FX 1800 0x0638 A
Quadro FX 2700M 0x063A A
Quadro FX 380 0x0658 A
Quadro FX 580 0x0659 A
Quadro FX 1700M 0x065A A
Quadro FX 770M 0x065C A
Quadro 6000 0x06D8 C
Quadro 5000 0x06D9 C
Quadro 5000M 0x06DA C
Quadro 6000 0x06DC C
Quadro 4000 0x06DD C
Quadro FX 370 LP 0x06F9 B 1
Quadro FX 370M 0x06FB B 1
HICx16 + Graphics 0x06FF B 1
Quadro 400 0x0A38 C
Quadro FX 880M 0x0A3C C
Quadro FX 380 LP 0x0A78 C
Quadro FX 380M 0x0A7C C
Quadro FX 1800M 0x0CBC C
Quadro 2000 0x0DD8 C
Quadro 2000D 0x0DD8 0x0914 C
Quadro 2000M 0x0DDA C
Quadro 600 0x0DF8 C
Quadro 500M 0x0DF9 C
Quadro 1000M 0x0DFA C
Quadro 3000M 0x0E3A C
Quadro 4000M 0x0E3B C
Quadro K2000M 0x0FFB D
Quadro K1000M 0x0FFC D
Quadro 410 0x0FFF D
Quadro 5010M 0x109A C
Quadro 7000 0x109B C
Quadro K5000 0x11BA D
Quadro K5000M 0x11BC D
Quadro K4000M 0x11BD D
Quadro K3000M 0x11BE D
A3. NVIDIA NVS GPUS
NVIDIA GPU product Device PCI ID* VDPAU features
---------------------------------- --------------- ---------------
Quadro NVS 440 0x014A -
Quadro NVS 285 0x0165 -
Quadro NVS 110M 0x01DA -
Quadro NVS 120M 0x01DB -
Quadro NVS 210S / GeForce 6150LE 0x0245 -
Quadro NVS 510M 0x0299 -
Quadro NVS 320M 0x040B A
Quadro NVS 140M 0x0429 A
Quadro NVS 130M 0x042A A
Quadro NVS 135M 0x042B A
Quadro NVS 290 0x042F A
Quadro NVS 150M 0x06EA B 1
Quadro NVS 160M 0x06EB B 1
Quadro NVS 420 0x06F8 B 1
Quadro NVS 450 0x06FA B 1
Quadro NVS 295 0x06FD B 1
NVS 5100M 0x0A2C C
NVS 2100M 0x0A6A C
NVS 3100M 0x0A6C C
NVS 5400M 0x0DEF C
NVS 5200M 0x0DFC C
NVS 510 0x0FFD D
NVS 4200M 0x1056 D
NVS 4200M 0x1057 D
NVS 310 0x107D D
NVS 300 0x10D8 C
A4. NVIDIA TESLA GPUS
NVIDIA GPU product Device PCI ID* VDPAU features
---------------------------------- --------------- ---------------
Tesla C870 0x0197 -
Tesla C1060 0x05E7 A
Tesla T10 Processor 0x05E7 0x0595 A
Tesla T10 Processor 0x05E7 0x068F A
Tesla M1060 0x05E7 0x0697 A
Tesla M1060 0x05E7 0x0743 A
Tesla C2050 / C2070 0x06D1 C
Tesla C2070 0x06D1 0x0772 C
Tesla M2070 0x06D2 C
Tesla T20 Processor 0x06DE C
Tesla M2050 0x06DE 0x082F C
Tesla M2050 0x06DE 0x0846 C
Tesla M2070-Q 0x06DF C
Tesla K20c 0x1022 D
Tesla K20m 0x1028 D
Tesla M2090 0x1091 C
Tesla X2090 0x1091 0x0974 C
Tesla M2075 0x1094 C
Tesla C2075 0x1096 C
Tesla K10 0x118F D
A5. NVIDIA VGX GPUS
NVIDIA GPU product Device PCI ID* VDPAU features
---------------------------------- --------------- ---------------
GRID K1 0x0FF2 D
GRID K2 0x11BF D
Below are the legacy GPUs that are no longer supported in the unified driver.
These GPUs will continue to be maintained through the special legacy NVIDIA
GPU driver releases.
The 173.14.xx driver supports the following set of GPUs:
NVIDIA GPU product Device PCI ID
---------------------------------- ----------------------------------
GeForce PCX 5750 0x00FA
GeForce PCX 5900 0x00FB
Quadro FX 330/GeForce PCX 5300 0x00FC
Quadro FX 330/Quadro NVS 280 PCI-E 0x00FD
Quadro FX 1300 0x00FE
GeForce FX 5800 Ultra 0x0301
GeForce FX 5800 0x0302
Quadro FX 2000 0x0308
Quadro FX 1000 0x0309
GeForce FX 5600 Ultra 0x0311
GeForce FX 5600 0x0312
GeForce FX 5600XT 0x0314
GeForce FX Go5600 0x031A
GeForce FX Go5650 0x031B
Quadro FX Go700 0x031C
GeForce FX 5200 0x0320
GeForce FX 5200 Ultra 0x0321
GeForce FX 5200 0x0322
GeForce FX 5200LE 0x0323
GeForce FX Go5200 0x0324
GeForce FX Go5250 0x0325
GeForce FX 5500 0x0326
GeForce FX 5100 0x0327
GeForce FX Go5200 32M/64M 0x0328
Quadro NVS 55/280 PCI 0x032A
Quadro FX 500/FX 600 0x032B
GeForce FX Go53xx 0x032C
GeForce FX Go5100 0x032D
GeForce FX 5900 Ultra 0x0330
GeForce FX 5900 0x0331
GeForce FX 5900XT 0x0332
GeForce FX 5950 Ultra 0x0333
GeForce FX 5900ZT 0x0334
Quadro FX 3000 0x0338
Quadro FX 700 0x033F
GeForce FX 5700 Ultra 0x0341
GeForce FX 5700 0x0342
GeForce FX 5700LE 0x0343
GeForce FX 5700VE 0x0344
GeForce FX Go5700 0x0347
GeForce FX Go5700 0x0348
Quadro FX Go1000 0x034C
Quadro FX 1100 0x034E
The 96.43.xx driver supports the following set of GPUs:
NVIDIA GPU product Device PCI ID
---------------------------------- ----------------------------------
GeForce2 MX/MX 400 0x0110
GeForce2 MX 100/200 0x0111
GeForce2 Go 0x0112
Quadro2 MXR/EX/Go 0x0113
GeForce4 MX 460 0x0170
GeForce4 MX 440 0x0171
GeForce4 MX 420 0x0172
GeForce4 MX 440-SE 0x0173
GeForce4 440 Go 0x0174
GeForce4 420 Go 0x0175
GeForce4 420 Go 32M 0x0176
GeForce4 460 Go 0x0177
Quadro4 550 XGL 0x0178
GeForce4 440 Go 64M 0x0179
Quadro NVS 400 0x017A
Quadro4 500 GoGL 0x017C
GeForce4 410 Go 16M 0x017D
GeForce4 MX 440 with AGP8X 0x0181
GeForce4 MX 440SE with AGP8X 0x0182
GeForce4 MX 420 with AGP8X 0x0183
GeForce4 MX 4000 0x0185
Quadro4 580 XGL 0x0188
Quadro NVS 280 SD 0x018A
Quadro4 380 XGL 0x018B
Quadro NVS 50 PCI 0x018C
GeForce2 Integrated GPU 0x01A0
GeForce4 MX Integrated GPU 0x01F0
GeForce3 0x0200
GeForce3 Ti 200 0x0201
GeForce3 Ti 500 0x0202
Quadro DCC 0x0203
GeForce4 Ti 4600 0x0250
GeForce4 Ti 4400 0x0251
GeForce4 Ti 4200 0x0253
Quadro4 900 XGL 0x0258
Quadro4 750 XGL 0x0259
Quadro4 700 XGL 0x025B
GeForce4 Ti 4800 0x0280
GeForce4 Ti 4200 with AGP8X 0x0281
GeForce4 Ti 4800 SE 0x0282
GeForce4 4200 Go 0x0286
Quadro4 980 XGL 0x0288
Quadro4 780 XGL 0x0289
Quadro4 700 GoGL 0x028C
The 71.86.xx driver supports the following set of GPUs:
NVIDIA GPU product Device PCI ID
---------------------------------- ----------------------------------
RIVA TNT 0x0020
RIVA TNT2/TNT2 Pro 0x0028
RIVA TNT2 Ultra 0x0029
Vanta/Vanta LT 0x002C
RIVA TNT2 Model 64/Model 64 Pro 0x002D
Aladdin TNT2 0x00A0
GeForce 256 0x0100
GeForce DDR 0x0101
Quadro 0x0103
GeForce2 GTS/GeForce2 Pro 0x0150
GeForce2 Ti 0x0151
GeForce2 Ultra 0x0152
Quadro2 Pro 0x0153
* If two IDs are listed, the first ID is the PCI Device ID and the second ID
is the PCI Subsystem Device ID.
______________________________________________________________________________
Appendix B. X Config Options
______________________________________________________________________________
The following driver options are supported by the NVIDIA X driver. They may be
specified either in the Screen or Device sections of the X config file.
X Config Options
Option "Accel" "boolean"
Controls whether the X driver uses the GPU for graphics processing.
Disabling acceleration is useful when another component, such as CUDA,
requires exclusive use of the GPU's processing cores. Performance of the X
server will be greatly reduced when acceleration is disabled, and some
features may not be available.
Acceleration can be disabled on Fermi and later GPUs only.
When this option is set for an X screen, it will be applied to all X
screens running on the same GPU.
Default: acceleration is enabled.
Option "NvAGP" "integer"
Configure AGP support. Integer argument can be one of:
Value Behavior
-------------- ---------------------------------------------------
0 disable AGP
1 use NVIDIA internal AGP support, if possible
2 use AGPGART, if possible
3 use any AGP support (try AGPGART, then NVIDIA AGP)
Note that NVIDIA internal AGP support cannot work if AGPGART is either
statically compiled into your kernel or is built as a module and loaded
into your kernel. See Chapter 12 for details.
When this option is set for an X screen, it will be applied to all X
screens running on the same GPU.
Default: 3.
Option "NoLogo" "boolean"
Disable drawing of the NVIDIA logo splash screen at X startup. Default:
the logo is drawn for screens with depth 24.
Option "LogoPath" "string"
Sets the path to the PNG file to be used as the logo splash screen at X
startup. If the PNG file specified has a bKGD (background color) chunk,
then the screen is cleared to the color it specifies. Otherwise, the
screen is cleared to black. The logo file must be owned by root and must
not be writable by a non-root group. Note that a logo is only displayed
for screens with depth 24. Default: The built-in NVIDIA logo is used.
Option "RenderAccel" "boolean"
Enable or disable hardware acceleration of the RENDER extension. Default:
hardware acceleration of the RENDER extension is enabled.
Option "NoRenderExtension" "boolean"
Disable the RENDER extension. Other than recompiling it, the X server does
not seem to have another way of disabling this. Fortunately, we can
control this from the driver so we export this option. This is useful in
depth 8 where RENDER would normally steal most of the default colormap.
Default: RENDER is offered when possible.
Option "UBB" "boolean"
Enable or disable the Unified Back Buffer on Quadro-based GPUs (Quadro NVS
excluded); see Chapter 21 for a description of UBB. This option has no
effect on non-Quadro GPU products. Default: UBB is on for Quadro GPUs.
Option "NoFlip" "boolean"
Disable OpenGL flipping; see Chapter 21 for a description. Default: OpenGL
will swap by flipping when possible.
Option "GLShaderDiskCache" "boolean"
This option controls whether the OpenGL driver will utilize a disk cache
to save and reuse compiled shaders. See the description of the
__GL_SHADER_DISK_CACHE and __GL_SHADER_DISK_CACHE_PATH environment
variables in Chapter 11 for more details.
Option "Dac8Bit" "boolean"
Most Quadro products by default use a color look-up table (LUT) with a
higher resolution, which can be 10, 11 or 14 bits depending on the card.
This provides more accurate color on analog and DisplayPort outputs.
Setting this option to TRUE forces these GPUs to use an 8-bit (LUT).
Default: a high precision LUT is used, when available.
Option "Overlay" "boolean"
Enables RGB workstation overlay visuals. This is only supported on Quadro
GPUs (Quadro NVS GPUs excluded) in depth 24. This option causes the server
to advertise the SERVER_OVERLAY_VISUALS root window property and GLX will
report single- and double-buffered, Z-buffered 16-bit overlay visuals. The
transparency key is pixel 0x0000 (hex). There is no gamma correction
support in the overlay plane. This feature requires XFree86 version 4.2.0
or newer, or the X.Org X server. On GPUs before G80, when the X screen is
either wider than 2046 pixels or taller than 2047, the overlay may be
emulated with a substantial performance penalty. RGB workstation overlays
are not supported when the Composite extension is enabled.
UBB must be enabled when overlays are enabled (this is the default
behavior).
Option "CIOverlay" "boolean"
Enables Color Index workstation overlay visuals with identical
restrictions to Option "Overlay" above. This option causes the server to
advertise the SERVER_OVERLAY_VISUALS root window property. Some of the
visuals advertised that way may be listed in the main plane (layer 0) for
compatibility purposes. They however belong to the overlay (layer 1). The
server will offer visuals both with and without a transparency key. These
are depth 8 PseudoColor visuals. Enabling Color Index overlays on X
servers older than XFree86 4.3 will force the RENDER extension to be
disabled due to bugs in the RENDER extension in older X servers. Color
Index workstation overlays are not supported when the Composite extension
is enabled. Default: off.
UBB must be enabled when overlays are enabled (this is the default
behavior).
Option "TransparentIndex" "integer"
When color index overlays are enabled, use this option to choose which
pixel is used for the transparent pixel in visuals featuring transparent
pixels. This value is clamped between 0 and 255 (Note: some applications
such as Alias's Maya require this to be zero in order to work correctly).
Default: 0.
Option "OverlayDefaultVisual" "boolean"
When overlays are used, this option sets the default visual to an overlay
visual thereby putting the root window in the overlay. This option is not
recommended for RGB overlays. Default: off.
Option "EmulatedOverlaysTimerMs" "integer"
Enables the use of a timer within the X server to perform the updates to
the emulated overlay or CI overlay. This option can be used to improve the
performance of the emulated or CI overlays by reducing the frequency of
the updates. The value specified indicates the desired number of
milliseconds between overlay updates. To disable the use of the timer
either leave the option unset or set it to 0. Default: off.
Option "EmulatedOverlaysThreshold" "boolean"
Enables the use of a threshold within the X server to perform the updates
to the emulated overlay or CI overlay. The emulated or CI overlay updates
can be deferred but this threshold will limit the number of deferred
OpenGL updates allowed before the overlay is updated. This option can be
used to trade off performance and animation quality. Default: on.
Option "EmulatedOverlaysThresholdValue" "integer"
Controls the threshold used in updating the emulated or CI overlays. This
is used in conjunction with the EmulatedOverlaysThreshold option to trade
off performance and animation quality. Higher values for this option favor
performance over quality. Setting low values of this option will not cause
the overlay to be updated more often than the frequence specified by the
EmulatedOverlaysTimerMs option. Default: 5.
Option "SWCursor" "boolean"
Enable or disable software rendering of the X cursor. Default: off.
Option "HWCursor" "boolean"
Enable or disable hardware rendering of the X cursor. Default: on.
Option "CursorShadow" "boolean"
Enable or disable use of a shadow with the hardware accelerated cursor;
this is a black translucent replica of your cursor shape at a given offset
from the real cursor. Default: off (no cursor shadow).
Option "CursorShadowAlpha" "integer"
The alpha value to use for the cursor shadow; only applicable if
CursorShadow is enabled. This value must be in the range [0, 255] -- 0 is
completely transparent; 255 is completely opaque. Default: 64.
Option "CursorShadowXOffset" "integer"
The offset, in pixels, that the shadow image will be shifted to the right
from the real cursor image; only applicable if CursorShadow is enabled.
This value must be in the range [0, 32]. Default: 4.
Option "CursorShadowYOffset" "integer"
The offset, in pixels, that the shadow image will be shifted down from the
real cursor image; only applicable if CursorShadow is enabled. This value
must be in the range [0, 32]. Default: 2.
Option "ConnectedMonitor" "string"
Allows you to override what the NVIDIA kernel module detects is connected
to your graphics card. This may be useful, for example, if you use a KVM
(keyboard, video, mouse) switch and you are switched away when X is
started. In such a situation, the NVIDIA kernel module cannot detect which
display devices are connected, and the NVIDIA X driver assumes you have a
single CRT.
Valid values for this option are "CRT" (cathode ray tube), "DFP" (digital
flat panel), or "TV" (television); if using TwinView, this option may be a
comma-separated list of display devices; e.g.: "CRT, CRT" or "CRT, DFP".
It is generally recommended to not use this option, but instead use the
"UseDisplayDevice" option.
NOTE: anything attached to a 15 pin VGA connector is regarded by the
driver as a CRT. "DFP" should only be used to refer to digital flat panels
connected via a DVI port.
When this option is set for an X screen, it will be applied to all X
screens running on the same GPU.
Default: string is NULL (the NVIDIA driver will detect the connected
display devices).
Option "UseDisplayDevice" "string"
The "UseDisplayDevice" X configuration option is a list of one or more
display devices, which limits the display devices the NVIDIA X driver will
consider for an X screen. The display device names used in the option may
be either specific (with a numeric suffix; e.g., "DFP-1") or general
(without a numeric suffix; e.g., "DFP").
When assigning display devices to X screens, the NVIDIA X driver walks
through the list of all (not already assigned) display devices detected as
connected. When the "UseDisplayDevice" X configuration option is
specified, the X driver will only consider connected display devices which
are also included in the "UseDisplayDevice" list. This can be thought of
as a "mask" against the connected (and not already assigned) display
devices.
Note the subtle difference between this option and the "ConnectedMonitor"
option: the "ConnectedMonitor" option overrides which display devices are
actually detected, while the "UseDisplayDevice" option controls which of
the detected display devices will be used on this X screen.
Of the list of display devices considered for this X screen (either all
connected display devices, or a subset limited by the "UseDisplayDevice"
option), the NVIDIA X driver first looks at CRTs, then at DFPs, and
finally at TVs. For example, if both a CRT and a DFP are connected, by
default the X driver would assign the CRT to this X screen. However, by
specifying:
Option "UseDisplayDevice" "DFP"
the X screen would use the DFP instead. Or, if CRT-0, DFP-0, and DFP-1 are
connected and TwinView is enabled, the X driver would assign CRT-0 and
DFP-0 to the X screen. However, by specifying:
Option "UseDisplayDevice" "CRT-0, DFP-1"
the X screen would use CRT-0 and DFP-1 instead.
Additionally, the special value "none" can be specified for the
"UseDisplayDevice" option. When this value is given, any programming of
the display hardware is disabled. The NVIDIA driver will not perform any
mode validation or mode setting for this X screen. This is intended for
use in conjunction with CUDA or in remote graphics solutions such as VNC
or Hewlett Packard's Remote Graphics Software (RGS).
"UseDisplayDevice" defaults to "none" on GPUs that have no display
capabilities, such as some Tesla GPUs and some mobile GPUs used in Optimus
notebook configurations.
Note the following restrictions for setting the "UseDisplayDevice" to
"none":
o OpenGL SyncToVBlank will have no effect.
o None of Stereo, Overlay, CIOverlay, or SLI are allowed when
"UseDisplayDevice" is set to "none".
Option "UseEdidFreqs" "boolean"
This option controls whether the NVIDIA X driver will use the HorizSync
and VertRefresh ranges given in a display device's EDID, if any. When
UseEdidFreqs is set to True, EDID-provided range information will override
the HorizSync and VertRefresh ranges specified in the Monitor section. If
a display device does not provide an EDID, or the EDID does not specify an
hsync or vrefresh range, then the X server will default to the HorizSync
and VertRefresh ranges specified in the Monitor section of your X config
file. These frequency ranges are used when validating modes for your
display device.
Default: True (EDID frequencies will be used)
Option "UseEDID" "boolean"
By default, the NVIDIA X driver makes use of a display device's EDID, when
available, during construction of its mode pool. The EDID is used as a
source for possible modes, for valid frequency ranges, and for collecting
data on the physical dimensions of the display device for computing the
DPI (see Appendix E). However, if you wish to disable the driver's use of
the EDID, you can set this option to False:
Option "UseEDID" "FALSE"
Note that, rather than globally disable all uses of the EDID, you can
individually disable each particular use of the EDID; e.g.,
Option "UseEDIDFreqs" "FALSE"
Option "UseEDIDDpi" "FALSE"
Option "ModeValidation" "NoEdidModes"
When this option is set for an X screen, it will be applied to all X
screens running on the same GPU.
Default: True (use EDID).
Option "UseInt10Module" "boolean"
Enable use of the X Int10 module to soft-boot all secondary cards, rather
than POSTing the cards through the NVIDIA kernel module.
When this option is set for an X screen, it will be applied to all X
screens running on the same GPU.
Default: off (POSTing is done through the NVIDIA kernel module).
Option "TwinView" "boolean"
Enable or disable TwinView. See Chapter 13 for details. Default: off
(TwinView is disabled).
Option "MetaModeOrientation" "string"
Controls the default relationship between display devices when using
multiple display devices on a single X screen. Takes one of the following
values: "RightOf" "LeftOf" "Above" "Below" "Clone". For backwards
compatibility, "TwinViewOrientation" is a synonym for
"MetaModeOrientation". See Chapter 13 for details. Default: string is
NULL.
Option "MetaModes" "string"
This option describes the combination of modes to use on each monitor when
using TwinView or SLI Mosaic Mode. See Chapter 13 and Chapter 29 for
details. Default: string is NULL.
Option "nvidiaXineramaInfo" "boolean"
The NVIDIA X driver normally provides a Xinerama extension that X clients
(such as window managers) can use to discover the current layout of
display devices within an X screen. Some window mangers get confused by
this information, so this option is provided to disable this behavior.
Default: true (NVIDIA Xinerama information is provided).
On X servers with RandR 1.2 support, the X server's RandR implementation
may provide its own Xinerama implementation if NVIDIA Xinerama information
is not provided. So, on X servers with RandR 1.2, disabling
"nvidiaXineramaInfo" causes the NVIDIA X driver to still register its
Xinerama implementation but report a single screen-sized region. On X
servers without RandR 1.2 support, disabling "nvidiaXineramaInfo" causes
the NVIDIA X driver to not register its Xinerama implementation.
Due to bugs in some older software, NVIDIA Xinerama information is not
provided by default on X.Org 7.1 and older when the X server is started
with only one display device enabled.
For backwards compatibility, "NoTwinViewXineramaInfo" is a synonym for
disabling "nvidiaXineramaInfo".
Option "nvidiaXineramaInfoOrder" "string"
When the NVIDIA X driver provides nvidiaXineramaInfo (see the
nvidiaXineramaInfo X config option), it by default reports the currently
enabled display devices in the order "CRT, DFP, TV". The
nvidiaXineramaInfoOrder X config option can be used to override this
order.
The option string is a comma-separated list of display device names. The
display device names can either be general (e.g, "CRT", which identifies
all CRTs), or specific (e.g., "CRT-1", which identifies a particular CRT).
Not all display devices need to be identified in the option string;
display devices that are not listed will be implicitly appended to the end
of the list, in their default order.
Note that nvidiaXineramaInfoOrder tracks all display devices that could
possibly be connected to the GPU, not just the ones that are currently
enabled. When reporting the Xinerama information, the NVIDIA X driver
walks through the display devices in the order specified, only reporting
enabled display devices.
Examples:
"DFP"
"TV, DFP"
"DFP-1, DFP-0, TV, CRT"
In the first example, any enabled DFPs would be reported first (any
enabled CRTs or TVs would be reported afterwards). In the second example,
any enabled TVs would be reported first, then any enabled DFPs (any
enabled CRTs would be reported last). In the last example, if DFP-1 were
enabled, it would be reported first, then DFP-0, then any enabled TVs, and
then any enabled CRTs; finally, any other enabled DFPs would be reported.
For backwards compatibility, "TwinViewXineramaInfoOrder" is a synonym for
"nvidiaXineramaInfoOrder".
Default: "CRT, DFP, TV"
Option "nvidiaXineramaInfoOverride" "string"
This option overrides the values reported by the NVIDIA X driver's
nvidiaXineramaInfo implementation. This disregards the actual display
devices used by the X screen and any order specified in
nvidiaXineramaInfoOrder.
The option string is interpreted as a comma-separated list of regions,
specified as '[width]x[height]+[x-offset]+[y-offset]'. The regions' sizes
and offsets are not validated against the X screen size, but are directly
reported to any Xinerama client.
Examples:
"1600x1200+0+0, 1600x1200+1600+0"
"1024x768+0+0, 1024x768+1024+0, 1024x768+0+768, 1024x768+1024+768"
For backwards compatibility, "TwinViewXineramaInfoOverride" is a synonym
for "nvidiaXineramaInfoOverride".
Option "TVStandard" "string"
See Chapter 16 for details on configuring TV-out.
Option "TVOutFormat" "string"
See Chapter 16 for details on configuring TV-out.
Option "TVOverScan" "Decimal value in the range 0.0 to 1.0"
Valid values are in the range 0.0 through 1.0; See Chapter 16 for details
on configuring TV-out.
Option "Stereo" "integer"
Enable offering of quad-buffered stereo visuals on Quadro. Integer
indicates the type of stereo equipment being used:
Value Equipment
-------------- ---------------------------------------------------
1 DDC glasses. The sync signal is sent to the
glasses via the DDC signal to the monitor. These
usually involve a passthrough cable between the
monitor and the graphics card. This mode is not
available on G8xGL and higher GPUs.
2 "Blueline" glasses. These usually involve a
passthrough cable between the monitor and graphics
card. The glasses know which eye to display based
on the length of a blue line visible at the bottom
of the screen. When in this mode, the root window
dimensions are one pixel shorter in the Y
dimension than requested. This mode does not work
with virtual root window sizes larger than the
visible root window size (desktop panning). This
mode is not available on G8xGL and higher GPUs.
3 Onboard stereo support. This is usually only found
on professional cards. The glasses connect via a
DIN connector on the back of the graphics card.
4 One-eye-per-display passive stereo. This mode
allows each display to be configured to statically
display either left or right eye content. This can
be especially useful with multi-display
configurations (TwinView or SLI Mosaic). For
example, this is commonly used in conjunction with
special projectors to produce 2 polarized images
which are then viewed with polarized glasses. To
use this stereo mode, it is recommended that you
configure TwinView (or pairs of displays in SLI
Mosaic) in clone mode with the same resolution,
panning offset, and panning domains on each
display. See Chapter 13 for more information about
configuring multiple displays.
5 Vertical interlaced stereo mode, for use with
SeeReal Stereo Digital Flat Panels.
6 Color interleaved stereo mode, for use with
Sharp3D Stereo Digital Flat Panels.
7 Horizontal interlaced stereo mode, for use with
Arisawa, Hyundai, Zalman, Pavione, and Miracube
Digital Flat Panels.
8 Checkerboard pattern stereo mode, for use with 3D
DLP Display Devices.
9 Inverse checkerboard pattern stereo mode, for use
with 3D DLP Display Devices.
10 NVIDIA 3D Vision mode for use with NVIDIA 3D
Vision glasses. The NVIDIA 3D Vision infrared
emitter must be connected to a USB port of your
computer, and to the 3-pin DIN connector of a
Quadro graphics board (based on G8xGL or higher
GPU) before starting the X server. Hot-plugging
the USB infrared stereo emitter is not yet
supported. Also, 3D Vision Stereo Linux support
requires a Linux kernel built with USB device
filesystem (usbfs) and USB 2.0 support. Not
presently supported on FreeBSD or Solaris.
11 NVIDIA 3D VisionPro mode for use with NVIDIA 3D
VisionPro glasses. The NVIDIA 3D VisionPro RF hub
must be connected to a USB port of your computer,
and to the 3-pin DIN connector of a Quadro
graphics board (based on G8xGL or higher GPU)
before starting the X server. Hot-plugging the USB
RF hub is not yet supported. Also, 3D VisionPro
Stereo Linux support requires a Linux kernel built
with USB device filesystem (usbfs) and USB 2.0
support. When RF hub is connected and X is started
in NVIDIA 3D VisionPro stereo mode, a new page
will be available in nvidia-settings for various
configuration settings. Some of these settings can
also be done via nvidia-settings command line
interface. Refer to the corresponding Help section
in nvidia-settings for further details. Not
presently supported on FreeBSD or Solaris.
Default: 0 (Stereo is not enabled).
Stereo options 1, 2, 3, 10 and 11 are known as "active" stereo. Other
options are known as "passive" stereo.
When active stereo is used with multiple display devices, it is
recommended that modes within each MetaMode have identical timing values
(modelines). See Chapter 20 for suggestions on making sure the modes
within your MetaModes are identical.
The following table summarizes the available stereo modes, their supported
GPUs, and their intended display devices:
Stereo mode (value) Graphics card Display supported
supported [1]
-------------------- -------------------- --------------------
DDC glasses (1) Quadro graphics CRTs with high
cards with refresh rate
pre-G8xGL GPUs
Blueline glasses Quadro graphics CRTs with high
(2) cards with refresh rate
pre-G8xGL GPUs
Onboard DIN (3) Quadro graphics Displays with high
cards refresh rate
One-eye-per-display Quadro graphics Any
(4) cards
Vertical Interlaced Quadro graphics SeeReal Stereo DFP
(5) cards
Color Interleaved Quadro graphics Sharp3D stereo DFP
(6) cards
Horizontal Quadro graphics Arisawa, Hyundai,
Interlaced (7) cards with G8xGL or Zalman, Pavione,
higher GPU and Miracube
Checkerboard Quadro graphics 3D DLP display
Pattern (8) cards with G8xGL or devices
higher GPU
Inverse Quadro graphics 3D DLP display
Checkerboard (9) cards with G8xGL or devices
higher GPU
NVIDIA 3D Vision Quadro graphics Supported 3D Vision
(10) cards with G8xGL or ready displays [3]
higher GPUs [2]
NVIDIA 3D VisionPro Quadro graphics Supported 3D Vision
(11) cards with G8xGL or ready displays [3]
higher GPUs [2]
[1] Quadro graphics cards excluding Quadro NVS cards.
[2]
http://www.nvidia.com/object/quadro_pro_graphics_boards_linux.html
[3] http://www.nvidia.com/object/3D_Vision_Requirements.html
UBB must be enabled when stereo is enabled (this is the default behavior).
Active stereo can be enabled on digital display devices (connected via
DVI, HDMI, or DisplayPort). However, some digital display devices might
not behave as desired with active stereo:
o Some digital display devices may not be able to toggle pixel colors
quickly enough when flipping between eyes on every vblank.
o Some digital display devices may have an optical polarization that
interferes with stereo goggles.
o Active stereo requires high refresh rates, because a vertical refresh
is needed to display each eye. Some digital display devices have a
low refresh rate, which will result in flickering when used for
active stereo.
o Some digital display devices might internally convert from other
refresh rates to their native refresh rate (e.g., 60Hz), resulting in
incompatible rates between the stereo glasses and stereo displayed on
screen.
These limitations do not apply to any display devices suitable for stereo
option 10.
Stereo applies to an entire X screen, so it will apply to all display
devices on that X screen, whether or not they all support the selected
Stereo mode.
Multi-GPU cards (such as the Quadro FX 4500 X2) provide a single DIN
connector for onboard stereo support (option 3), NVIDIA 3D Vision stereo
(option 10) and NVIDIA 3D VisionPro stereo (option 11), which is tied to
the bottommost GPU. In order to synchronize stereo with the other GPU, you
must use a Quadro Sync device (see Chapter 30 for details).
Option "ForceStereoFlipping" "boolean"
Stereo flipping is the process by which left and right eyes are displayed
on alternating vertical refreshes. Normally, stereo flipping is only
performed when a stereo drawable is visible. This option forces stereo
flipping even when no stereo drawables are visible.
This is to be used in conjunction with the "Stereo" option. If "Stereo" is
0, the "ForceStereoFlipping" option has no effect. If otherwise, the
"ForceStereoFlipping" option will force the behavior indicated by the
"Stereo" option, even if no stereo drawables are visible. This option is
useful in a multiple-screen environment in which a stereo application is
run on a different screen than the stereo master.
Possible values:
Value Behavior
-------------- ---------------------------------------------------
0 Stereo flipping is not forced. The default
behavior as indicated by the "Stereo" option is
used.
1 Stereo flipping is forced. Stereo is running even
if no stereo drawables are visible. The stereo
mode depends on the value of the "Stereo" option.
Default: 0 (Stereo flipping is not forced).
Option "XineramaStereoFlipping" "boolean"
By default, when using Stereo with Xinerama, all physical X screens having
a visible stereo drawable will stereo flip. Use this option to allow only
one physical X screen to stereo flip at a time.
This is to be used in conjunction with the "Stereo" and "Xinerama"
options. If "Stereo" is 0 or "Xinerama" is 0, the "XineramaStereoFlipping"
option has no effect.
If you wish to have all X screens stereo flip all the time, see the
"ForceStereoFlipping" option.
Possible values:
Value Behavior
-------------- ---------------------------------------------------
0 Stereo flipping is enabled on one X screen at a
time. Stereo is enabled on the first X screen
having the stereo drawable.
1 Stereo flipping in enabled on all X screens.
Default: 1 (Stereo flipping is enabled on all X screens).
Option "IgnoreDisplayDevices" "string"
This option tells the NVIDIA kernel module to completely ignore the
indicated classes of display devices when checking which display devices
are connected. You may specify a comma-separated list containing any of
"CRT", "DFP", and "TV". For example:
Option "IgnoreDisplayDevices" "DFP, TV"
will cause the NVIDIA driver to not attempt to detect if any digital flat
panels or TVs are connected. This option is not normally necessary;
however, some video BIOSes contain incorrect information about which
display devices may be connected, or which i2c port should be used for
detection. These errors can cause long delays in starting X. If you are
experiencing such delays, you may be able to avoid this by telling the
NVIDIA driver to ignore display devices which you know are not connected.
NOTE: anything attached to a 15 pin VGA connector is regarded by the
driver as a CRT. "DFP" should only be used to refer to digital flat panels
connected via a DVI port.
When this option is set for an X screen, it will be applied to all X
screens running on the same GPU.
Option "MultisampleCompatibility" "boolean"
Enable or disable the use of separate front and back multisample buffers.
Enabling this will consume more memory but is necessary for correct output
when rendering to both the front and back buffers of a multisample or FSAA
drawable. This option is necessary for correct operation of SoftImage XSI.
Default: false (a single multisample buffer is shared between the front
and back buffers).
Option "NoPowerConnectorCheck" "boolean"
The NVIDIA X driver will fail initialization on a GPU if it detects that
the GPU that requires an external power connector does not have an
external power connector plugged in. This option can be used to bypass
this test.
When this option is set for an X screen, it will be applied to all X
screens running on the same GPU.
Default: false (the power connector test is performed).
Option "ThermalConfigurationCheck" "boolean"
The NVIDIA X driver will fail initialization on a GPU if it detects that
the GPU has a bad thermal configuration. This may indicate a problem with
how your graphics board was built, or simply a driver bug. It is
recommended that you contact your graphics board vendor if you encounter
this problem.
When this option is set for an X screen, it will be applied to all X
screens running on the same GPU.
This option can be set to False to bypass this test. Default: true (the
thermal configuration test is performed).
Option "XvmcUsesTextures" "boolean"
Forces XvMC to use the 3D engine for XvMCPutSurface requests rather than
the video overlay. Default: false (video overlay is used when available).
Option "AllowGLXWithComposite" "boolean"
Enables GLX even when the Composite X extension is loaded. ENABLE AT YOUR
OWN RISK. OpenGL applications will not display correctly in many
circumstances with this setting enabled.
This option is intended for use on versions of X.Org older than X11R6.9.0.
On X11R6.9.0 or newer, the NVIDIA OpenGL implementation interacts properly
by default with the Composite X extension and this option should not be
needed. However, on X11R6.9.0 or newer, support for GLX with Composite can
be disabled by setting this option to False.
Default: false (GLX is disabled when Composite is enabled on X releases
older than X11R6.9.0).
Option "AddARGBGLXVisuals" "boolean"
Adds a 32-bit ARGB visual for each supported OpenGL configuration. This
allows applications to use OpenGL to render with alpha transparency into
32-bit windows and pixmaps. This option requires the Composite extension.
Default: ARGB GLX visuals are enabled on X servers new enough to support
them when the Composite extension is also enabled and the screen depth is
24 or 30.
Option "DisableGLXRootClipping" "boolean"
If enabled, no clipping will be performed on rendering done by OpenGL in
the root window. This option is deprecated. It is needed by older versions
of OpenGL-based composite managers that draw the contents of redirected
windows directly into the root window using OpenGL. Most OpenGL-based
composite managers have been updated to support the Composite Overlay
Window, a feature introduced in Xorg release 7.1. Using the Composite
Overlay Window is the preferred method for performing OpenGL-based
compositing.
Option "DamageEvents" "boolean"
Use OS-level events to efficiently notify X when a client has performed
direct rendering to a window that needs to be composited. This will
significantly improve performance and interactivity when using GLX
applications with a composite manager running. It will also affect
applications using GLX when rotation is enabled. This option is currently
incompatible with SLI and Multi-GPU modes and will be disabled if either
are used. Enabled by default.
Option "ExactModeTimingsDVI" "boolean"
Forces the initialization of the X server with the exact timings specified
in the ModeLine. Default: false (for DVI devices, the X server initializes
with the closest mode in the EDID list).
The "AllowNonEdidModes" token in the "ModeValidation" X configuration
option has the same effect as "ExactModeTimingsDVI", but
"AllowNonEdidModes" has per-display device granularity.
Option "Coolbits" "integer"
Enables various unsupported features, such as support for GPU clock
manipulation in the NV-CONTROL X extension. This option accepts a bit mask
of features to enable.
WARNING: this may cause system damage and void warranties. This utility
can run your computer system out of the manufacturer's design
specifications, including, but not limited to: higher system voltages,
above normal temperatures, excessive frequencies, and changes to BIOS that
may corrupt the BIOS. Your computer's operating system may hang and result
in data loss or corrupted images. Depending on the manufacturer of your
computer system, the computer system, hardware and software warranties may
be voided, and you may not receive any further manufacturer support.
NVIDIA does not provide customer service support for the Coolbits option.
It is for these reasons that absolutely no warranty or guarantee is either
express or implied. Before enabling and using, you should determine the
suitability of the utility for your intended use, and you shall assume all
responsibility in connection therewith.
When "1" (Bit 0) is set in the "Coolbits" option value, the
nvidia-settings utility will contain a page labeled "Clock Frequencies"
through which clock settings can be manipulated. On mobile GPUs, limited
clock manipulation support is available when "1" is set in the "Coolbits"
option value: clocks can be lowered relative to the default settings, but
overclocking is not supported due to the thermal constraints of notebook
designs.
When "2" (Bit 1) is set in the "Coolbits" option value, the NVIDIA driver
will attempt to initialize SLI when using GPUs with different amounts of
video memory.
When "4" (Bit 2) is set in the "Coolbits" option value, the
nvidia-settings Thermal Monitor page will allow configuration of GPU fan
speed, on graphics boards with programmable fan capability.
When this option is set for an X screen, it will be applied to all X
screens running on the same GPU.
The default for this option is 0 (unsupported features are disabled).
Option "MultiGPU" "string"
This option controls the configuration of Multi-GPU rendering in supported
configurations.
Value Behavior
-------------------------------- --------------------------------
0, no, off, false, Single Use only a single GPU when
rendering
1, yes, on, true, Auto Enable Multi-GPU and allow the
driver to automatically select
the appropriate rendering mode.
AFR Enable Multi-GPU and use the
Alternate Frame Rendering mode.
SFR Enable Multi-GPU and use the
Split Frame Rendering mode.
AA Enable Multi-GPU and use
antialiasing. Use this in
conjunction with full scene
antialiasing to improve visual
quality.
Option "SLI" "string"
This option controls the configuration of SLI rendering in supported
configurations.
Value Behavior
-------------------------------- --------------------------------
0, no, off, false, Single Use only a single GPU when
rendering
1, yes, on, true, Auto Enable SLI and allow the driver
to automatically select the
appropriate rendering mode.
AFR Enable SLI and use the Alternate
Frame Rendering mode.
SFR Enable SLI and use the Split
Frame Rendering mode.
AA Enable SLI and use SLI
Antialiasing. Use this in
conjunction with full scene
antialiasing to improve visual
quality.
AFRofAA Enable SLI and use SLI Alternate
Frame Rendering of Antialiasing
mode. Use this in conjunction
with full scene antialiasing to
improve visual quality. This
option is only valid for SLI
configurations with 4 GPUs.
Mosaic Enable SLI and use SLI Mosaic
Mode. Use this in conjunction
with the MetaModes X
configuration option to specify
the combination of mode(s) used
on each display.
Option "TripleBuffer" "boolean"
Enable or disable the use of triple buffering. If this option is enabled,
OpenGL windows that sync to vblank and are double-buffered will be given a
third buffer. This decreases the time an application stalls while waiting
for vblank events, but increases latency slightly (delay between user
input and displayed result).
Option "DPI" "string"
This option specifies the Dots Per Inch for the X screen; for example:
Option "DPI" "75 x 85"
will set the horizontal DPI to 75 and the vertical DPI to 85. By default,
the X driver will compute the DPI of the X screen from the EDID of any
connected display devices. See Appendix E for details. Default: string is
NULL (disabled).
Option "UseEdidDpi" "string"
By default, the NVIDIA X driver computes the DPI of an X screen based on
the physical size of the display device, as reported in the EDID, and the
size in pixels of the first mode to be used on the display device. If
multiple display devices are used by the X screen, then the NVIDIA X
screen will choose which display device to use. This option can be used to
specify which display device to use. The string argument can be a display
device name, such as:
Option "UseEdidDpi" "DFP-0"
or the argument can be "FALSE" to disable use of EDID-based DPI
calculations:
Option "UseEdidDpi" "FALSE"
See Appendix E for details. Default: string is NULL (the driver computes
the DPI from the EDID of a display device and selects the display device).
Option "ConstantDPI" "boolean"
By default on X.Org 6.9 or newer, the NVIDIA X driver recomputes the size
in millimeters of the X screen whenever the size in pixels of the X screen
is changed using XRandR, such that the DPI remains constant.
This behavior can be disabled (which means that the size in millimeters
will not change when the size in pixels of the X screen changes) by
setting the "ConstantDPI" option to "FALSE"; e.g.,
Option "ConstantDPI" "FALSE"
ConstantDPI defaults to True.
On X releases older than X.Org 6.9, the NVIDIA X driver cannot change the
size in millimeters of the X screen. Therefore the DPI of the X screen
will change when XRandR changes the size in pixels of the X screen. The
driver will behave as if ConstantDPI was forced to FALSE.
Option "CustomEDID" "string"
This option forces the X driver to use the EDID specified in a file rather
than the display's EDID. You may specify a semicolon separated list of
display names and filename pairs. Valid display device names include
"CRT-0", "CRT-1", "DFP-0", "DFP-1", "TV-0", "TV-1", or one of the generic
names "CRT", "DFP", "TV", which apply the EDID to all devices of the
specified type. Additionally, if SLI Mosaic is enabled, this name can be
prefixed by a GPU name (e.g., "GPU-0.CRT-0"). The file contains a raw EDID
(e.g., a file generated by nvidia-settings).
For example:
Option "CustomEDID" "CRT-0:/tmp/edid1.bin; DFP-0:/tmp/edid2.bin"
will assign the EDID from the file /tmp/edid1.bin to the display device
CRT-0, and the EDID from the file /tmp/edid2.bin to the display device
DFP-0. Note that a display device name must always be specified even if
only one EDID is specified.
Caution: Specifying an EDID that doesn't exactly match your display may
damage your hardware, as it allows the driver to specify timings beyond
the capabilities of your display. Use with care.
When this option is set for an X screen, it will be applied to all X
screens running on the same GPU.
Option "IgnoreEDIDChecksum" "string"
This option forces the X driver to accept an EDID even if the checksum is
invalid. You may specify a comma separated list of display names. Valid
display device names include "CRT-0", "CRT-1", "DFP-0", "DFP-1", "TV-0",
"TV-1", or one of the generic names "CRT", "DFP", "TV", which ignore the
EDID checksum on all devices of the specified type. Additionally, if SLI
Mosaic is enabled, this name can be prefixed by a GPU name (e.g.,
"GPU-0.CRT-0").
For example:
Option "IgnoreEDIDChecksum" "CRT, DFP-0"
will cause the nvidia driver to ignore the EDID checksum for all CRT
monitors and the displays DFP-0 and TV-0.
Caution: An invalid EDID checksum may indicate a corrupt EDID. A corrupt
EDID may have mode timings beyond the capabilities of your display, and
using it could damage your hardware. Use with care.
When this option is set for an X screen, it will be applied to all X
screens running on the same GPU.
Option "ModeValidation" "string"
This option provides fine-grained control over each stage of the mode
validation pipeline, disabling individual mode validation checks. This
option should only very rarely be used.
The option string is a semicolon-separated list of comma-separated lists
of mode validation arguments. Each list of mode validation arguments can
optionally be prepended with a display device name and GPU specifier.
"<dpy-0>: <tok>, <tok>; <dpy-1>: <tok>, <tok>, <tok>; ..."
Possible arguments:
o "AllowNon60HzDFPModes": some lower quality TMDS encoders are only
rated to drive DFPs at 60Hz; the driver will determine when only 60Hz
DFP modes are allowed. This argument disables this stage of the mode
validation pipeline.
o "NoMaxPClkCheck": each mode has a pixel clock; this pixel clock is
validated against the maximum pixel clock of the hardware (for a DFP,
this is the maximum pixel clock of the TMDS encoder, for a CRT, this
is the maximum pixel clock of the DAC). This argument disables the
maximum pixel clock checking stage of the mode validation pipeline.
o "NoEdidMaxPClkCheck": a display device's EDID can specify the maximum
pixel clock that the display device supports; a mode's pixel clock is
validated against this pixel clock maximum. This argument disables
this stage of the mode validation pipeline.
o "AllowInterlacedModes": interlaced modes are not supported on all
NVIDIA GPUs; the driver will discard interlaced modes on GPUs where
interlaced modes are not supported; this argument disables this stage
of the mode validation pipeline.
o "NoMaxSizeCheck": each NVIDIA GPU has a maximum resolution that it
can drive; this argument disables this stage of the mode validation
pipeline.
o "NoHorizSyncCheck": a mode's horizontal sync is validated against the
range of valid horizontal sync values; this argument disables this
stage of the mode validation pipeline.
o "NoVertRefreshCheck": a mode's vertical refresh rate is validated
against the range of valid vertical refresh rate values; this
argument disables this stage of the mode validation pipeline.
o "NoWidthAlignmentCheck": the alignment of a mode's visible width is
validated against the capabilities of the GPU; normally, a mode's
visible width must be a multiple of 8. This argument disables this
stage of the mode validation pipeline.
o "NoDFPNativeResolutionCheck": when validating for a DFP, a mode's
size is validated against the native resolution of the DFP; this
argument disables this stage of the mode validation pipeline.
o "NoVirtualSizeCheck": if the X configuration file requests a specific
virtual screen size, a mode cannot be larger than that virtual size;
this argument disables this stage of the mode validation pipeline.
o "NoVesaModes": when constructing the mode pool for a display device,
the X driver uses a built-in list of VESA modes as one of the mode
sources; this argument disables use of these built-in VESA modes.
o "NoEdidModes": when constructing the mode pool for a display device,
the X driver uses any modes listed in the display device's EDID as
one of the mode sources; this argument disables use of EDID-specified
modes.
o "NoXServerModes": when constructing the mode pool for a display
device, the X driver uses the built-in modes provided by the core
XFree86/Xorg X server as one of the mode sources; this argument
disables use of these modes. Note that this argument does not disable
custom ModeLines specified in the X config file; see the
"NoCustomModes" argument for that.
o "NoCustomModes": when constructing the mode pool for a display
device, the X driver uses custom ModeLines specified in the X config
file (through the "Mode" or "ModeLine" entries in the Monitor
Section) as one of the mode sources; this argument disables use of
these modes.
o "NoPredefinedModes": when constructing the mode pool for a display
device, the X driver uses additional modes predefined by the NVIDIA X
driver; this argument disables use of these modes.
o "NoUserModes": additional modes can be added to the mode pool
dynamically, using the NV-CONTROL X extension; this argument
prohibits user-specified modes via the NV-CONTROL X extension.
o "NoExtendedGpuCapabilitiesCheck": allow mode timings that may exceed
the GPU's extended capability checks.
o "ObeyEdidContradictions": an EDID may contradict itself by listing a
mode as supported, but the mode may exceed an EDID-specified valid
frequency range (HorizSync, VertRefresh, or maximum pixel clock).
Normally, the NVIDIA X driver prints a warning in this scenario, but
does not invalidate an EDID-specified mode just because it exceeds an
EDID-specified valid frequency range. However, the
"ObeyEdidContradictions" argument instructs the NVIDIA X driver to
invalidate these modes.
o "NoTotalSizeCheck": allow modes in which the individual visible or
sync pulse timings exceed the total raster size.
o "DoubleScanPriority": on GPUs older than G80, doublescan modes are
sorted before non-doublescan modes of the same resolution for
purposes of mode pool sorting; but on G80 and later GPUs, doublescan
modes are sorted after non-doublescan modes of the same resolution.
This token inverts that priority (i.e., doublescan modes will be
sorted after on pre-G80 GPUs, and sorted before on G80 and later
GPUs).
o "NoDualLinkDVICheck": for mode timings used on dual link DVI DFPs,
the driver must perform additional checks to ensure that the correct
pixels are sent on the correct link. For some of these checks, the
driver will invalidate the mode timings; for other checks, the driver
will implicitly modify the mode timings to meet the GPU's dual link
DVI requirements. This token disables this dual link DVI checking.
o "NoDisplayPortBandwidthCheck": for mode timings used on DisplayPort
devices, the driver must verify that the DisplayPort link can be
configured to carry enough bandwidth to support a given mode's pixel
clock. For example, some DisplayPort-to-VGA adapters only support 2
DisplayPort lanes, limiting the resolutions they can display. This
token disables this DisplayPort bandwidth check.
o "AllowNon3DVisionModes": modes that are not optimized for NVIDIA 3D
Vision are invalidated, by default, when 3D Vision (stereo mode 10)
or 3D Vision Pro (stereo mode 11) is enabled. This token allows the
use of non-3D Vision modes on a 3D Vision monitor. (Stereo behavior
of non-3D Vision modes on 3D Vision monitors is undefined.)
o "AllowNonEdidModes": if a mode is not listed in a display device's
EDID mode list, then the NVIDIA X driver will discard the mode if the
EDID 1.3 "GTF Supported" flag is unset, if the EDID 1.4 "Continuous
Frequency" flag is unset, or if the display device is connected to
the GPU by a digital protocol (e.g., DVI, DP, etc). This token
disables these checks for non-EDID modes.
Examples:
Option "ModeValidation" "NoMaxPClkCheck"
disable the maximum pixel clock check when validating modes on all display
devices.
Option "ModeValidation" "CRT-0: NoEdidModes, NoMaxPClkCheck;
GPU-0.DFP-0: NoVesaModes"
do not use EDID modes and do not perform the maximum pixel clock check on
CRT-0, and do not use VESA modes on DFP-0 of GPU-0.
Option "ColorSpace" "string"
This option sets the color space for all or a subset of the connected flat
panels.
The option string is a semicolon-separated list of device specific
options. Each option can optionally be prepended with a display device
name and a GPU specifier.
"<dpy-0>: <tok>; <dpy-1>: <tok>; ..."
Possible arguments:
o "RGB": sets color space to RGB. RGB color space supports two valid
color ranges; full and limited. By default, full color range is set
when the color space is RGB.
o "YCbCr444": sets color space to YCbCr 4:4:4. YCbCr supports only
limited color range. It is not possible to set this color space if
the GPU or display is not capable of limited range.
If the ColorSpace option is not specified, or is incorrectly specified,
then the color space is set to RGB by default.
Examples:
Option "ColorSpace" "YCbCr444"
set the color space to YCbCr 4:4:4 on all flat panels.
Option "ColorSpace" "GPU-0.DFP-0: YCbCr444"
set the color space to YCbCr 4:4:4 on DFP-0 of GPU-0.
Option "ColorRange" "string"
This option sets the color range for all or a subset of the connected flat
panels.
The option string is a semicolon-separated list of device specific
options. Each option can optionally be prepended with a display device
name and a GPU specifier.
"<dpy-0>: <tok>; <dpy-1>: <tok>; ..."
The set of legal ColorRange values depends upon the selected color space.
Possible arguments:
o "Full": sets color range to full range. By default, full color range
is set when the color space is RGB.
o "Limited": sets color range to limited range. YUV supports only
limited color range. Consequently, limited range is selected by the
driver when color space is set to YUV, and can not be changed.
If the ColorRange option is not specified, or is incorrectly specified,
then an appropriate default value is selected based on the selected color
space.
Examples:
Option "ColorRange" "Limited"
set the color range to limited on all flat panels.
Option "ColorRange" "GPU-0.DFP-0: Limited"
set the color range to limited on DFP-0 of GPU-0.
Option "ModeDebug" "boolean"
This option causes the X driver to print verbose details about mode
validation to the X log file. Note that this option is applied globally:
setting this option to TRUE will enable verbose mode validation logging
for all NVIDIA X screens in the X server.
Option "UseEvents" "boolean"
Enables the use of system events in some cases when the X driver is
waiting for the hardware. The X driver can briefly spin through a tight
loop when waiting for the hardware. With this option the X driver instead
sets an event handler and waits for the hardware through the 'poll()'
system call.
When this option is set for an X screen, it will be applied to all X
screens running on the same GPU.
Default: the use of the events is disabled.
Option "FlatPanelProperties" "string"
This option requests particular properties for all or a subset of the
connected flat panels.
The option string is a semicolon-separated list of comma-separated
property=value pairs. Each list of property=value pairs can optionally be
prepended with a flat panel name and GPU specifier.
"<DFP-0>: <property=value>, <property=value>; <DFP-1>:
<property=value>; ..."
Recognized properties:
o "Dithering": controls the flat panel dithering configuration;
possible values are: 'Auto' (the driver will decide when to dither),
'Enabled' (the driver will always dither, if possible), and
'Disabled' (the driver will never dither).
o "DitheringMode": controls the flat panel dithering mode; possible
values are: 'Auto' (the driver will choose possible default mode),
'Dynamic-2x2' (a 2x2 dithering pattern is updated for every frame),
'Static-2x2' (a 2x2 dithering pattern remains constant throughout the
frames), and 'Temporal' (a pseudo-random dithering algorithm is
used).
Examples:
Option "FlatPanelProperties" "DitheringMode = Static-2x2"
set the flat panel dithering mode to Static-2x2 on all flat panels.
Option "FlatPanelProperties" "GPU-0.DFP-0: Dithering = Disabled;
DFP-1: Dithering = Enabled, DitheringMode = Static-2x2"
set dithering to disabled on DFP-0 on GPU-0, set DFP-1's dithering to
enabled and dithering mode to static 2x2.
Option "ProbeAllGpus" "boolean"
When the NVIDIA X driver initializes, it probes all GPUs in the system,
even if no X screens are configured on them. This is done so that the X
driver can report information about all the system's GPUs through the
NV-CONTROL X extension. This option can be set to FALSE to disable this
behavior, such that only GPUs with X screens configured on them will be
probed.
Note that disabling this option may affect configurability through
nvidia-settings, since the X driver will not know about GPUs that aren't
currently being used or the display devices attached to them.
Default: all GPUs in the system are probed.
Option "DynamicTwinView" "boolean"
Enable or disable support for dynamically configuring TwinView on this X
screen. When DynamicTwinView is enabled (the default), the refresh rate of
a mode (reported through XF86VidMode or XRandR) does not correctly report
the refresh rate, but instead is a unique number such that each MetaMode
has a different value. This is to guarantee that MetaModes can be uniquely
identified by XRandR.
When DynamicTwinView is disabled, the refresh rate reported through XRandR
will be accurate, but NV-CONTROL clients such as nvidia-settings will not
be able to dynamically manipulate the X screen's MetaModes. TwinView can
still be configured from the X config file when DynamicTwinView is
disabled.
Default: DynamicTwinView is enabled.
Option "IncludeImplicitMetaModes" "boolean"
When the X server starts, a mode pool is created per display device,
containing all the mode timings that the NVIDIA X driver determined to be
valid for the display device. However, the only MetaModes that are made
available to the X server are the ones explicitly requested in the X
configuration file.
It is convenient for fullscreen applications to be able to change between
the modes in the mode pool, even if a given target mode was not explicitly
requested in the X configuration file.
To facilitate this, the NVIDIA X driver will implicitly add MetaModes for
all modes in the primary display device's mode pool. This makes all the
modes in the mode pool available to full screen applications that use the
XF86VidMode extension or RandR 1.0/1.1 requests.
Further, to make sure that fullscreen applications have a reasonable set
of MetaModes available to them, the NVIDIA X driver will also add implicit
MetaModes for common resolutions: 1920x1200, 1920x1080, 1600x1200,
1280x1024, 1280x720, 1024x768, 800x600, 640x480. For these common
resolution implicit MetaModes, the common resolution will be the
ViewPortIn, and nvidia-auto-select will be the mode. The ViewPortOut will
be configured such that the ViewPortIn is aspect scaled within the mode.
Each common resolution implicit MetaMode will be added if there is not
already a MetaMode with that resolution, and if the resolution is not
larger than the nvidia-auto-select mode of the display device. See Chapter
13 for details of the relationship between ViewPortIn, ViewPortOut, and
the mode within a MetaMode.
The IncludeImplicitMetaModes X configuration option can be used to disable
the addition of implicit MetaModes. Or, it can be used to alter how
implicit MetaModes are added. The option can have either a boolean value
or a comma-separated list of token=value pairs, where the possible tokens
are:
o "DisplayDevice": specifies the display device for which the implicit
MetaModes should be created. Any name that can be used to identify a
display device can be used here; see Appendix C for details.
o "Mode": specifies the name of the mode to use with the common
resolution-based implicit MetaModes. The default is
"nvidia-auto-select". Any mode in the display device's mode pool can
be used here.
o "Scaling": specifies how the ViewPortOut should be configured between
the ViewPortIn and the mode for the common resolution-based implicit
MetaModes. Possible values are "Scaled", "Aspect-Scaled", or
"Centered". The default is "Aspect-Scaled".
o "UseModePool": specifies whether modes from the display device's mode
pool should be used to create implicit MetaModes. The default is
"true".
o "UseCommonResolutions": specifies whether the common resolution list
should be used to create implicit MetaModes. The default is "true".
o "Derive16x9Mode": specifies whether to create an implicit MetaMode
with a resolution whose aspect ratio is 16:9, using the width of
nvidia-auto-select. E.g., using a 2560x1600 monitor, this would
create an implicit MetaMode of 2560x1440. The default is "true".
o "ExtraResolutions": a comma-separated list of additional resolutions
to use for creating implicit MetaModes. These will be created in the
same way as the common resolution implicit MetaModes: the resolution
will be used as the ViewPortIn, the nvidia-auto-select mode will be
used as the mode, and the ViewPortOut will be computed to aspect
scale the resolution within the mode. Note that the list of
resolutions must be enclosed in parentheses, so that the commas are
not interpreted as token=value pair separators.
Some examples:
Option "IncludeImplicitMetaModes" "off"
Option "IncludeImplicitMetaModes" "on" (the default)
Option "IncludeImplicitMetaModes" "DisplayDevice = DVI-I-2,
Scaling=Aspect-Scaled, UseModePool = false"
Option "IncludeImplicitMetaModes" "ExtraResolutions = ( 2560x1440, 320x200
), DisplayDevice = DVI-I-0"
Option "IndirectMemoryAccess" "boolean"
Some graphics cards have more video memory than can be mapped at once by
the CPU (generally at most 256 MB of video memory can be CPU-mapped). On
graphics cards based on G80 and higher, this option allows the driver to:
o place more pixmaps in video memory, which will improve hardware
rendering performance but may slow down software rendering;
o allocate buffers larger than 256 MB, which is necessary to reach the
maximum buffer size on newer GPUs.
On some systems, up to 3 gigabytes of virtual address space may be
reserved in the X server for indirect memory access. This virtual memory
does not consume any physical resources. Note that the amount of reserved
memory may be limited on 32-bit platforms, so some problems with large
buffer allocations can be resolved by switching to a 64-bit operating
system.
When this option is set for an X screen, it will be applied to all X
screens running on the same GPU.
Default: on (indirect memory access will be used, when available).
Option "OnDemandVBlankInterrupts" "boolean"
Normally, VBlank interrupts are generated on every vertical refresh of
every display device connected to the GPU(s) installed in a given system.
This experimental option enables on-demand VBlank control, allowing the
driver to enable VBlank interrupt generation only when it is required.
This can help conserve power.
When this option is set for an X screen, it will be applied to all X
screens running on the same GPU.
Default: off (on-demand VBlank control is disabled).
Option "AllowSHMPixmaps" "boolean"
This option controls whether applications can use the MIT-SHM X extension
to create pixmaps whose contents are shared between the X server and the
client. These pixmaps prevent the NVIDIA driver from performing a number
of optimizations and degrade performance in many circumstances.
Disabling this option disables only shared memory pixmaps. Applications
can still use the MIT-SHM extension to transfer data to the X server
through shared memory using XShmPutImage.
Default: off (shared memory pixmaps are not allowed).
Option "InitializeWindowBackingPixmaps" "boolean"
This option controls whether the NVIDIA X Driver initializes newly created
redirected windows using the contents of their parent window if the X
server doesn't do it. Leaving redirected windows uninitialized may cause
new windows to flash with black or random colors when some compositing
managers are running.
This option will have no effect on X servers that already initialize
redirected window contents. In most distributions, the X server is patched
to skip that initialization. In this case, it is recommended to leave this
option on for a better user experience.
Default: on (redirected windows are initialized).
Option "AllowIndirectGLXProtocol" "boolean"
There are two ways that GLX applications can render on an X screen: direct
and indirect. Direct rendering is generally faster and more featureful,
but indirect rendering may be used in more configurations. Direct
rendering requires that the application be running on the same machine as
the X server, and that the OpenGL library have sufficient permissions to
access the kernel driver. Indirect rendering works with remote X11
connections as well as unprivileged clients like those in a chroot with no
access to device nodes.
For those who wish to disable the use of indirect GLX protocol on a given
X screen, setting the "AllowIndirectGLXProtocol" to a true value will
cause GLX CreateContext requests with the "direct" parameter set to
"False" to fail with a BadValue error.
Starting with X.Org server 1.16, there are also command-line switches to
enable or disable use of indirect GLX contexts. "-iglx" disables use of
indirect GLX protocol, and "+iglx" enables use of indirect GLX protocol.
+iglx is the default in server 1.16, but as of this writing it is expected
that in the next major release -iglx will be the default.
The NVIDIA GLX implementation will prohibit creation of indirect GLX
contexts if the AllowIndirectGLXProtocol option is set to False, or the
-iglx switch was passed to the X server (X.Org server 1.16 or higher), or
the X server defaulted to '-iglx'.
Default: enabled (indirect protocol is allowed, unless disabled by the
server).
Option "AllowUnofficialGLXProtocol" "boolean"
By default, the NVIDIA GLX implementation will not expose GLX protocol for
GL commands if the protocol is not considered complete. Protocol could be
considered incomplete for a number of reasons. The implementation could
still be under development and contain known bugs, or the protocol
specification itself could be under development or going through review.
If users would like to test the server-side portion of such protocol when
using indirect rendering, they can enable this option. If any X screen
enables this option, it will enable protocol on all screens in the server.
When an NVIDIA GLX client is used, the related environment variable
"__GL_ALLOW_UNOFFICIAL_PROTOCOL" will need to be set as well to enable
support in the client.
Option "PanAllDisplays" "boolean"
When this option is enabled, all displays in the current MetaMode will pan
as the pointer is moved. If disabled, only the displays whose panning
domain contains the pointer (at its new location) are panned.
Default: enabled (all displays are panned when the pointer is moved).
Option "GvoDataFormat" "string"
This option controls the initial configuration of SDI (GVO) device's
output data format.
Valid Values
---------------------------------------------------------------------
R8G8B8_To_YCrCb444
R8G8B8_To_YCrCb422
X8X8X8_To_PassThru444
When this option is set for an X screen, it will be applied to all X
screens running on the same GPU.
Default: R8G8B8_To_YCrCb444.
Option "GvoSyncMode" "string"
This option controls the initial synchronization mode of the SDI (GVO)
device.
Value Behavior
-------------- ---------------------------------------------------
FreeRunning The SDI output will be synchronized with the
timing chosen from the SDI signal format list.
GenLock SDI output will be synchronized with the external
sync signal (if present/detected) with pixel
accuracy.
FrameLock SDI output will be synchronized with the external
sync signal (if present/detected) with frame
accuracy.
When this option is set for an X screen, it will be applied to all X
screens running on the same GPU.
Default: FreeRunning (Will not lock to an input signal).
Option "GvoSyncSource" "string"
This option controls the initial synchronization source (type) of the SDI
(GVO) device. Note that the GvoSyncMode should be set to either GenLock or
FrameLock for this option to take effect.
Value Behavior
-------------- ---------------------------------------------------
Composite Interpret sync source as composite.
SDI Interpret sync source as SDI.
When this option is set for an X screen, it will be applied to all X
screens running on the same GPU.
Default: SDI.
Option "Interactive" "boolean"
This option controls the behavior of the driver's watchdog, which attempts
to detect and terminate GPU programs that get stuck, in order to ensure
that the GPU remains available for other processes. GPU compute
applications, however, often have long-running GPU programs, and killing
them would be undesirable. If you are using GPU compute applications and
they are getting prematurely terminated, try turning this option off.
When this option is set for an X screen, it will be applied to all X
screens running on the same GPU.
Default: on. The driver will attempt to detect and terminate GPU programs
that cause excessive delays for other processes using the GPU.
Option "BaseMosaic" "boolean"
This option can be used to extend a single X screen transparently across
display outputs on each GPU. This is like SLI Mosaic mode except that it
does not require a video bridge connected to the graphics cards. Due to
this Base Mosaic does not guarantee there will be no tearing between the
display boundaries. Base Mosaic is supported on all G80 and higher SLI
configurations up to three display devices. It is also supported on Quadro
FX 380, Quadro FX 580 and all G80 or higher non-mobile NVS cards on all
available display devices.
Use this in conjunction with the MetaModes X configuration option to
specify the combination of mode(s) used on each display. nvidia-xconfig
can be used to configure Base Mosaic via a command like 'nvidia-xconfig
--base-mosaic --metamodes=METAMODES' where the METAMODES string specifies
the desired grid configuration. For example, to configure four DFPs in a
2x2 configuration, each running at 1920x1024, with two DFPs connected to
two cards, the command would be:
nvidia-xconfig --base-mosaic --metamodes="GPU-0.DFP-0: 1920x1024+0+0,
GPU-0.DFP-1: 1920x1024+1920+0, GPU-1.DFP-0: 1920x1024+0+1024, GPU-1.DFP-1:
1920x1024+1920+1024"
Option "ConstrainCursor" "boolean"
When this option is enabled, the mouse cursor will be constrained to the
region of the desktop that is visible within the union of all displays'
panning domains in the current MetaMode. When it is disabled, it may be
possible to move the cursor to regions of the X screen that are not
visible on any display.
Note that if this would make display's panning domain is inaccessible (in
other words, if the union of all panning domains is disjoint), then the
cursor will not be constrained, so that it is still possible to move the
cursor to each display.
This option has no effect if the X server doesn't support cursor
constraint. This support was added in X.Org server version 1.10 (see "Q.
How do I interpret X server version numbers?" in Chapter 7).
Default: on, if the X server supports it. The cursor will be constrained
to the panning domain of each monitor, when possible.
Option "UseHotplugEvents" "boolean"
When this option is enabled, the NVIDIA X driver will generate RandR
display changed events when displays are plugged into or unplugged from an
NVIDIA GPU. Some desktop environments will listen for these events and
dynamically reconfigure the desktop when displays are added or removed.
Disabling this option suppresses the generation of these RandR events for
non-DisplayPort displays, i.e., ones connected via VGA, DVI, or HDMI.
Hotplug events cannot be suppressed for displays connected via
DisplayPort.
Note that probing the display configuration (e.g. with xrandr or
nvidia-settings) may cause RandR display changed events to be generated,
regardless of whether this option is enabled or disabled. Additionally,
some VGA ports are incapable of hotplug detection: on such ports, the
addition or removal of displays can only be detected by re-probing the
display configuration.
Default: on. The driver will generate RandR events when displays are added
or removed.
Option "ConnectToAcpid" "boolean"
The ACPI daemon (acpid) receives information about ACPI events like
AC/Battery power, docking, etc. acpid will deliver these events to the
NVIDIA X driver via a UNIX domain socket connection. By default, the
NVIDIA X driver will attempt to connect to acpid to receive these events.
Set this option to "off" to prevent the NVIDIA X driver from connecting to
acpid. Default: on (the NVIDIA X driver will attempt to connect to acpid).
Option "AcpidSocketPath" "string"
The NVIDIA X driver attempts to connect to the ACPI daemon (acpid) via a
UNIX domain socket. The default path to this socket is
"/var/run/acpid.socket". Set this option to specify an alternate path to
acpid's socket. Default: "/var/run/acpid.socket".
Option "EnableACPIHotkeys" "boolean"
The NVIDIA Linux X driver can detect mobile display change hotkey events
either through ACPI or by periodically checking the GPU hardware state.
While checking the GPU hardware state is generally sufficient to detect
display change hotkey events, ACPI hotkey event delivery is preferable.
However, X servers prior to X.Org xserver-1.2.0 (see "Q. How do I
interpret X server version numbers?" in Chapter 7) have a bug that cause
the X server to crash when the X server receives an ACPI hotkey event
(freedesktop.org bug 8776). The NVIDIA Linux X driver will key off the X
server ABI version to determine if the X server in use has this bug (X
servers with ABI 1.1 or later do not).
Since some X servers may have an earlier ABI but have a patch to fix the
bug, the "EnableACPIHotkeys" option can be specified to override the
NVIDIA X driver's default decision to enable or disable ACPI display
change hotkey events.
When running on a mobile system, search for "ACPI display change hotkey
events" in your X log to see the NVIDIA X driver's decision.
Default: the NVIDIA X driver will decide whether to enable ACPI display
change hotkey events based on the X server ABI.
Option "EnableACPIBrightnessHotkeys" "boolean"
Enable or disable handling of ACPI brightness change hotkey events.
Default: enabled
Option "3DVisionUSBPath" "string"
When NVIDIA 3D Vision is enabled, the X driver searches through the usbfs
to find the connected USB dongle. Set this option to specify the sysfs
path of the dongle, from which the X driver will infer the usbfs path.
Example:
Option "3DVisionUSBPath" "/sys/bus/usb/devices/1-1"
Option "3DVisionProConfigFile" "string"
NVIDIA 3D VisionPro provides various configuration options and pairs
various glasses to sync to the hub. It is convenient to store this
configuration information to re-use when X restarts. Filename provided in
this option is used by NVIDIA X driver to store this information. Ensure
that X server has read and write access permissions to the filename
provided. Default: No configuration is stored.
Example:
Option "3DVisionProConfigFile" "/etc/nvidia_3d_vision_pro_config_filename"
Option "3DVisionDisplayType" "integer"
When NVIDIA 3D Vision is enabled with a non 3D Vision ready display, use
this option to specify the display type.
Value Behavior
-------------- ---------------------------------------------------
1 Assume it is a CRT.
2 Assume it is a DLP.
3 Assume it is a DLP TV and enable the checkerboard
output.
Default: 1
Example:
Option "3DVisionDisplayType" "1"
Option "3DVisionProHwButtonPairing" "boolean"
When NVIDIA 3D Vision Pro is enabled, use this option to disable hardware
button based pairing. Single click button on the hub to enter into pairing
mode which pairs single pair of glasses at a time. Double click button on
the hub to enter into a pairing mode which pairs multiple pairs of glasses
at a time.
Default: True
Example:
Option "3DVisionProHwButtonPairing" "False"
Option "3DVisionProHwSinglePairingTimeout" "integer"
When NVIDIA 3D Vision Pro and hardware button based pairing are enabled,
use this option to set timeout in seconds for pairing single pair of
glasses.
Default: 6
Example:
Option "3DVisionProHwSinglePairingTimeout" "10"
Option "3DVisionProHwMultiPairingTimeout" "integer"
When NVIDIA 3D Vision Pro and hardware button based pairing is enabled,
use this option to set timeout in seconds for pairing multiple pairs of
glasses.
Default: 10
Example:
Option "3DVisionProHwMultiPairingTimeout" "10"
Option "3DVisionProHwDoubleClickThreshold" "integer"
When NVIDIA 3D Vision Pro and hardware button based pairing is enabled,
use this option to set the threshold for detecting double click event of
the button. Threshold is time in ms. within which user has to click the
button twice to generate double click event.
Default: 1000 ms
Example:
Option "3DVisionProHwDoubleClickThreshold" "1500"
Option "DisableBuiltin3DVisionEmitter" "boolean"
This option can be used to disable the NVIDIA 3D Vision infrared emitter
that is built into some 3D Vision ready display panels. This can be useful
when an external NVIDIA 3D Vision emitter needs to be used with such a
panel.
Default: False
Example:
Option "DisableBuiltin3DVisionEmitter" "True"
______________________________________________________________________________
Appendix C. Display Device Names
______________________________________________________________________________
A "display device" refers to a hardware device capable of displaying an image.
Most NVIDIA GPUs can drive multiple display devices simultaneously.
Many X configuration options can be used to separately configure each display
device in use by the X screen. To address an individual display device, you
can use one of several names that are assigned to it.
For example, the "ModeValidation" X configuration option by default applies to
all display devices on the X screen. E.g.,
Option "ModeValidation" "NoMaxPClkCheck"
You can use a display device name qualifier to configure each display device's
ModeValidation separately. E.g.,
Option "ModeValidation" "DFP-0: NoMaxPClkCheck; CRT-1: NoVesaModes"
The description of each X configuration option in Appendix B provides more
detail on the available syntax for each option.
The available display device names vary by GPU. To find all available names
for your configuration, start the X server with verbose logging enabled (e.g.,
`startx -- -logverbose 5`, or enable the "ModeDebug" X configuration option
with `nvidia-xconfig --mode-debug` and restart the X server).
The X log (normally /var/log/Xorg.0.log) will contain a list of what display
devices are valid for the GPU. E.g.,
(--) NVIDIA(0): Valid display device(s) on Quadro 6000 at PCI:10:0:0
(--) NVIDIA(0): CRT-0
(--) NVIDIA(0): CRT-1
(--) NVIDIA(0): DELL U2410 (DFP-0) (connected)
(--) NVIDIA(0): NEC LCD1980SXi (DFP-1) (connected)
The X log will also contain a list of which display devices are assigned to
the X screen. E.g.,
(II) NVIDIA(0): Display device(s) assigned to X screen 0:
(II) NVIDIA(0): CRT-0
(II) NVIDIA(0): CRT-1
(II) NVIDIA(0): DELL U2410 (DFP-0)
(II) NVIDIA(0): NEC LCD1980SXi (DFP-1)
Note that when multiple X screens are configured on the same GPU, the NVIDIA X
driver assigns different display devices to each X screen. On X servers that
support RandR 1.2 or later, the NVIDIA X driver will create an RandR output
for each display device assigned to an X screen.
The X log will also report a list of "Name Aliases" for each display device.
E.g.,
(--) NVIDIA(0): Name Aliases for NEC LCD1980SXi (DFP-1):
(--) NVIDIA(0): DFP
(--) NVIDIA(0): DFP-1
(--) NVIDIA(0): DPY-3
(--) NVIDIA(0): DVI-I-3
(--) NVIDIA(0): DPY-EDID-373091cb-5c07-6430-54d2-1112efd64b44
These aliases can be used interchangeably to refer to the same display device
in any X configuration option, or in NV-CONTROL protocol that uses similar
strings, such as NV_CTRL_STRING_CURRENT_METAMODE_VERSION_2 (available through
the nvidia-settings command line as `nvidia-settings --query
CurrentMetaMode`).
Each alias has different properties that may affect which alias is appropriate
to use. The possible alias names are:
o A "type"-based name (e.g., "DFP-1"). This name is a unique index plus a
display device type name, though in actuality the "type name" is selected
based on the protocol through which the X driver communicates to the
display device. If the X driver communicates using VGA, then the name is
"CRT"; if the driver communicates using TMDS, LVDS, or DP, then the name
is "DFP"; if the driver communicates using S-Video, composite video, or
component video, then the name is "TV".
This may cause confusion in some cases (e.g., a digital flat panel
connected via VGA will have the name "CRT"), but this name alias is
provided for backwards compatibility with earlier NVIDIA driver releases.
Also for backwards compatibility, an alias is provided that uses the
"type name" without an index. This name alias will match any display
device of that type: it is not unique across the X screen.
Note that the index in this type-based name is based on which physical
connector is used. If you reconnect a display device to a different
connector on the GPU, the type-based name will be different.
o A connector-based name (e.g., "DVI-I-3"). This name is a unique index
plus a name that is based on the physical connector through which the
display device is connected to the GPU. E.g., "VGA-1", "DVI-I-0",
"DVI-D-3", "LVDS-1", "DP-2", "HDMI-3", "eDP-6". On X servers that support
RandR 1.2 or later, this name is also used as the RandR output name.
Note that the index in this connector-based name is based on which
physical connector is used. If you reconnect a display device to a
different connector on the GPU, the connector-based name will be
different.
When Mosaic is enabled, this name is prefixed with a GPU identifier to
make it unique. For example, a Mosaic configuration with two DisplayPort
devices might have two different outputs with names "GPU-0.DP-0" and
"GPU-1.DP-0", respectively.
o An EDID-based name (e.g.,
"DPY-EDID-373091cb-5c07-6430-54d2-1112efd64b44"). This name is a SHA-1
hash, formatted in canonical UUID 8-4-4-4-12 format, of the display
device's EDID. This name will be the same regardless of which physical
connector on the GPU you use, but it will not be unique if you have
multiple display devices with the same EDID.
o An NV-CONTROL target ID-based name (e.g., "DPY-3"). The NVIDIA X driver
will assign a unique ID to each display device on the entire X server.
These IDs are not guaranteed to be persistent from one run of the X
server to the next, so is likely not convenient for X configuration file
use. It is more frequently used in communication with NV-CONTROL clients
such as nvidia-settings.
When DisplayPort 1.2 branch devices are present, display devices will be
created with type- and connector-based names that are based on how they are
connected to the branch device tree. For example, if a connector named DP-2
has a branch device attached and a DisplayPort device is connected to the
branch device's first downstream port, a display device named "DP-2.1" might
be created. If another branch device is connected between the first branch
device and the display device, the name might be "DP-2.1.1".
Any display device name can have an optional GPU qualifier prefix. E.g.,
"GPU-0.DVI-I-3". This is useful in Mosaic configurations: type- and
connector-based display device names are only unique within a GPU, so the GPU
qualifier is used to distinguish between identically named display devices on
different GPUs. For example:
Option "MetaModes" "GPU-0.CRT-0: 1600x1200, GPU-1.CRT-0: 1024x768"
If no GPU is specified for a particular display device name, the setting will
apply to any devices with that name across all GPUs.
______________________________________________________________________________
Appendix D. GLX Support
______________________________________________________________________________
This release supports GLX 1.4.
Additionally, the following GLX extensions are supported on appropriate GPUs:
o GLX_EXT_visual_info
o GLX_EXT_visual_rating
o GLX_SGIX_fbconfig
o GLX_SGIX_pbuffer
o GLX_ARB_get_proc_address
o GLX_SGI_video_sync
o GLX_SGI_swap_control
o GLX_ARB_multisample
o GLX_NV_float_buffer
o GLX_ARB_fbconfig_float
o GLX_NV_swap_group
o GLX_NV_video_out
o GLX_EXT_texture_from_pixmap
o GLX_NV_copy_image
o GLX_ARB_create_context
o GLX_EXT_import_context
o GLX_EXT_fbconfig_packed_float
o GLX_EXT_framebuffer_sRGB
o GLX_NV_present_video
o GLX_NV_multisample_coverage
o GLX_EXT_swap_control
o GLX_NV_video_capture
o GLX_ARB_create_context_profile
For a description of these extensions, see the OpenGL extension registry at
http://www.opengl.org/registry/
Some of the above extensions exist as part of core GLX 1.4 functionality,
however, they are also exported as extensions for backwards compatibility.
Unofficial GLX protocol support exists in NVIDIA's GLX client and GLX server
implementations for the following OpenGL extensions:
o GL_ARB_geometry_shader4
o GL_ARB_shader_objects
o GL_ARB_texture_buffer_object
o GL_ARB_vertex_buffer_object
o GL_ARB_vertex_shader
o GL_EXT_bindable_uniform
o GL_EXT_compiled_vertex_array
o GL_EXT_geometry_shader4
o GL_EXT_gpu_shader4
o GL_EXT_texture_buffer_object
o GL_NV_geometry_program4
o GL_NV_vertex_program
o GL_NV_parameter_buffer_object
o GL_NV_vertex_program4
Until the GLX protocol for these OpenGL extensions is finalized, using these
extensions through GLX indirect rendering will require the
AllowUnofficialGLXProtocol X configuration option, and the
__GL_ALLOW_UNOFFICIAL_PROTOCOL environment variable in the environment of the
client application. Unofficial protocol requires the use of NVIDIA GLX
libraries on both the client and the server. Note: GLX protocol is used when
an OpenGL application indirect renders (i.e., runs on one computer, but
submits protocol requests such that the rendering is performed on another
computer). The above OpenGL extensions are fully supported when doing direct
rendering.
GLX visuals and FBConfigs are only available for X screens with depths 16, 24,
or 30.
______________________________________________________________________________
Appendix E. Dots Per Inch
______________________________________________________________________________
DPI (Dots Per Inch), also known as PPI (Pixels Per Inch), is a property of an
X screen that describes the physical size of pixels. Some X applications, such
as xterm, can use the DPI of an X screen to determine how large (in pixels) to
draw an object in order for that object to be displayed at the desired
physical size on the display device.
The DPI of an X screen is computed by dividing the size of the X screen in
pixels by the size of the X screen in inches:
DPI = SizeInPixels / SizeInInches
Since the X screen stores its physical size in millimeters rather than inches
(1 inch = 25.4 millimeters):
DPI = (SizeInPixels * 25.4) / SizeInMillimeters
The NVIDIA X driver reports the size of the X screen in pixels and in
millimeters. On X.Org 6.9 or newer, when the XRandR extension resizes the X
screen in pixels, the NVIDIA X driver computes a new size in millimeters for
the X screen, to maintain a constant DPI (see the "Physical Size" column of
the `xrandr -q` output as an example). This is done because a changing DPI can
cause interaction problems for some applications. To disable this behavior,
and instead keep the same millimeter size for the X screen (and therefore have
a changing DPI), set the ConstantDPI option to FALSE (see Appendix B for
details).
You can query the DPI of your X screen by running:
% xdpyinfo | grep -B1 dot
which should generate output like this:
dimensions: 1280x1024 pixels (382x302 millimeters)
resolution: 85x86 dots per inch
The NVIDIA X driver performs several steps during X screen initialization to
determine the DPI of each X screen:
o If the display device provides an EDID, and the EDID contains information
about the physical size of the display device, that is used to compute
the DPI, along with the size in pixels of the first mode to be used on
the display device.
Note that in some cases, the physical size information stored in a
display device's EDID may be unreliable. This could result in a display
device's DPI being computed incorrectly, potentially leading to undesired
consequences such as fonts that are scaled larger or smaller than
expected. These issues can be worked around by manually setting a DPI
using the "DPI" X configuration option, or by disabling the use of the
EDID's physical size information for computing DPI by setting the
"UseEdidDpi" X configuration option to "FALSE"'. See Appendix B for
details.
If multiple display devices are used by this X screen, then the NVIDIA X
screen will choose which display device to use. You can override this
with the "UseEdidDpi" X configuration option: you can specify a
particular display device to use; e.g.:
Option "UseEdidDpi" "DFP-1"
or disable EDID-computed DPI by setting this option to false:
Option "UseEdidDpi" "FALSE"
EDID-based DPI computation is enabled by default when an EDID is
available.
o If the "-dpi" commandline option to the X server is specified, that is
used to set the DPI (see `X -h` for details). This will override the
"UseEdidDpi" option.
o If the "DPI" X configuration option is specified (see Appendix B for
details), that will be used to set the DPI. This will override the
"UseEdidDpi" option.
o If none of the above are available, then the "DisplaySize" X config file
Monitor section information will be used to determine the DPI, if
provided; see the xorg.conf or XF86Config man pages for details.
o If none of the above are available, the DPI defaults to 75x75.
You can find how the NVIDIA X driver determined the DPI by looking in your X
log file. There will be a line that looks something like the following:
(--) NVIDIA(0): DPI set to (101, 101); computed from "UseEdidDpi" X config
option
Note that the physical size of the X screen, as reported through `xdpyinfo` is
computed based on the DPI and the size of the X screen in pixels.
The DPI of an X screen can be poorly defined when multiple display devices are
enabled on the X screen: those display devices might have different actual
DPIs, yet DPI is advertised from the X server to the X application with X
screen granularity. Solutions for this include:
o Use separate X screens, with one display device on each X screen; see
Chapter 15 for details.
o The RandR X extension version 1.2 and later reports the physical size of
each RandR Output, so applications could possibly choose to render
content at different sizes, depending on which portion of the X screen is
displayed on which display devices. Client applications can also
configure the reported per-RandR Output physical size. See, e.g., the
xrandr(1) '--fbmm' command line option.
o Experiment with different DPI settings to find a DPI that is suitable for
all display devices on the X screen.
______________________________________________________________________________
Appendix F. i2c Bus Support
______________________________________________________________________________
The NVIDIA Linux kernel module now includes i2c (also called I-squared-c,
Inter-IC Communications, or IIC) functionality that allows the NVIDIA Linux
kernel module to export i2c ports found on board NVIDIA cards to the Linux
kernel. This allows i2c devices on-board the NVIDIA graphics card, as well as
devices connected to the VGA and/or DVI ports, to be accessed from kernel
modules or userspace programs in a manner consistent with other i2c ports
exported by the Linux kernel through the i2c framework.
You must have i2c support compiled into the kernel, or as a module, and X must
be running. The i2c framework is made available by Linux 2.4, Linux 2.6 and
newer Linux kernels. Linux kernel documentation covers the kernel and
userspace /dev APIs, which you must use to access NVIDIA i2c ports.
NVIDIA has noted that in some distibutions, i2c support is enabled. However,
the Linux kernel module i2c-core.o (Linux 2.4) or i2c-core.ko (Linux 2.6 or
newer), which provides the export infrastructure, was not shipped. In this
case, you will need to build the i2c support module. For directions on how to
build and install your kernel's i2c support, please refer to your
distribution's documentation for configuring, building, and installing the
kernel and associated modules.
For further information regarding the Linux kernel i2c framework, refer to the
documentation for your kernel, located at .../Documentation/i2c/ within the
kernel source tree.
The following functionality is currently supported:
I2C_FUNC_I2C
I2C_FUNC_SMBUS_QUICK
I2C_FUNC_SMBUS_BYTE
I2C_FUNC_SMBUS_BYTE_DATA
I2C_FUNC_SMBUS_WORD_DATA
______________________________________________________________________________
Appendix G. XvMC Support
______________________________________________________________________________
This release includes support for the XVideo Motion Compensation (XvMC)
version 1.0 API on GeForce 6 series and GeForce 7 series add-in cards, as well
as motherboard chipsets with integrated graphics that have PureVideo support
based on these GPUs. There is a static library, "libXvMCNVIDIA.a", and a
dynamic one, "libXvMCNVIDIA_dynamic.so", which is suitable for dlopening.
XvMC's "IDCT" and "motion-compensation" levels of acceleration, AI44 and IA44
subpictures, and 4:2:0 Surfaces up to 2032x2032 are supported.
libXvMCNVIDIA observes the XVMC_DEBUG environment variable and will provide
some debug output to stderr when set to an appropriate integer value. '0'
disables debug output. '1' enables debug output for failure conditions. '2' or
higher enables output of warning messages.
______________________________________________________________________________
Appendix H. VDPAU Support
______________________________________________________________________________
This release includes support for the Video Decode and Presentation API for
Unix-like systems (VDPAU) on most GeForce 8 series and newer add-in cards, as
well as motherboard chipsets with integrated graphics that have PureVideo
support based on these GPUs.
VDPAU is only available for X screens with depths 16, 24, or 30.
VDPAU supports Xinerama. The following restrictions apply:
o Physical X screen 0 must be driven by the NVIDIA driver.
o VDPAU will only display on physical X screens driven by the NVIDIA
driver, and which are driven by a GPU both compatible with VDPAU, and
compatible with the GPU driving physical X screen 0.
Under Xinerama, VDPAU performs all operations other than display on a single
GPU. By default, the GPU associated with physical X screen 0 is used. The
environment variable VDPAU_NVIDIA_XINERAMA_PHYSICAL_SCREEN may be used to
specify a physical screen number, and then VDPAU will operate on the GPU
associated with that physical screen. This variable should be set to the
integer screen number as configured in the X configuration file. The selected
physical X screen must be driven by the NVIDIA driver.
H1. IMPLEMENTATION LIMITS
VDPAU is specified as a generic API - the choice of which features to support,
and performance levels of those features, is left up to individual
implementations. The details of NVIDIA's implementation are provided below.
VDPVIDEOSURFACE
The maximum supported resolution is 4096x4096.
The following surface formats and get-/put-bits combinations are supported:
o VDP_CHROMA_TYPE_420 (Supported get-/put-bits formats are
VDP_YCBCR_FORMAT_NV12, VDP_YCBCR_FORMAT_YV12)
o VDP_CHROMA_TYPE_422 (Supported get-/put-bits formats are
VDP_YCBCR_FORMAT_UYVY, VDP_YCBCR_FORMAT_YUYV)
VDPBITMAPSURFACE
The maximum supported resolution is 16384x16384 pixels for the GeForce GTX 400
series and newer GPUs, and 8192x8192 pixels for older GPUs.
The following surface formats are supported:
o VDP_RGBA_FORMAT_B8G8R8A8
o VDP_RGBA_FORMAT_R8G8B8A8
o VDP_RGBA_FORMAT_B10G10R10A2
o VDP_RGBA_FORMAT_R10G10B10A2
o VDP_RGBA_FORMAT_A8
Note that VdpBitmapSurfaceCreate's frequently_accessed parameter directly
controls whether the bitmap data will be placed into video RAM (VDP_TRUE) or
system memory (VDP_FALSE). Note that if the bitmap data cannot be placed into
video RAM when requested due to resource constraints, the implementation will
automatically fall back to placing the data into system RAM.
VDPOUTPUTSURFACE
The maximum supported resolution is 16384x16384 pixels for the GeForce GTX 400
series and newer GPUs, and 8192x8192 pixels for older GPUs.
The following surface formats are supported:
o VDP_RGBA_FORMAT_B8G8R8A8
o VDP_RGBA_FORMAT_R10G10B10A2
For all surface formats, the following get-/put-bits indexed formats are
supported:
o VDP_INDEXED_FORMAT_A4I4
o VDP_INDEXED_FORMAT_I4A4
o VDP_INDEXED_FORMAT_A8I8
o VDP_INDEXED_FORMAT_I8A8
For all surface formats, the following get-/put-bits YCbCr formats are
supported:
o VDP_YCBCR_FORMAT_Y8U8V8A8
o VDP_YCBCR_FORMAT_V8U8Y8A8
VDPDECODER
In all cases, VdpDecoder objects solely support 8-bit 4:2:0 streams, and only
support writing to VDP_CHROMA_TYPE_420 surfaces.
The exact set of supported VdpDecoderProfile values depends on the GPU in use.
Appendix A lists which GPUs support which video feature set. An explanation of
each video feature set may be found below. When reading these lists, please
note that VC1_SIMPLE and VC1_MAIN may be referred to as WMV, WMV3, or WMV9 in
other contexts. Partial acceleration means that VLD (bitstream) decoding is
performed on the CPU, with the GPU performing IDCT and motion compensation.
Complete acceleration means that the GPU performs all of VLD, IDCT, and motion
compensation.
VDPAU FEATURE SET A
GPUs with VDPAU feature set A support at least the following VdpDecoderProfile
values, and associated limits:
o VDP_DECODER_PROFILE_MPEG1, VDP_DECODER_PROFILE_MPEG2_SIMPLE,
VDP_DECODER_PROFILE_MPEG2_MAIN:
o Partial acceleration.
o Minimum width or height: 3 macroblocks (48 pixels).
o Maximum width or height: 128 macroblocks (2048 pixels).
o Maximum macroblocks: 8192
o VDP_DECODER_PROFILE_H264_MAIN, VDP_DECODER_PROFILE_H264_HIGH:
o Complete acceleration.
o Minimum width or height: 3 macroblocks (48 pixels).
o Maximum width or height: 128 macroblocks (2048 pixels).
o Maximum macroblocks: 8192
o VDP_DECODER_PROFILE_VC1_SIMPLE, VDP_DECODER_PROFILE_VC1_MAIN,
VDP_DECODER_PROFILE_VC1_ADVANCED:
o Partial acceleration.
o Minimum width or height: 3 macroblocks (48 pixels).
o Maximum width or height: 128 macroblocks (2048 pixels).
o Maximum macroblocks: 8190
VDPAU FEATURE SET B
GPUs with VDPAU feature set B support at least the following VdpDecoderProfile
values, and associated limits:
o VDP_DECODER_PROFILE_MPEG1, VDP_DECODER_PROFILE_MPEG2_SIMPLE,
VDP_DECODER_PROFILE_MPEG2_MAIN:
o Complete acceleration.
o Minimum width or height: 3 macroblocks (48 pixels).
o Maximum width or height: 128 macroblocks (2048 pixels).
o Maximum macroblocks: 8192
o VDP_DECODER_PROFILE_H264_MAIN, VDP_DECODER_PROFILE_H264_HIGH:
o Complete acceleration.
o Minimum width or height: 3 macroblocks (48 pixels).
o Maximum width: 127 macroblocks (2032 pixels).
o Maximum height: 128 macroblocks (2048 pixels).
o Maximum macroblocks: 8190
o VDP_DECODER_PROFILE_VC1_SIMPLE, VDP_DECODER_PROFILE_VC1_MAIN,
VDP_DECODER_PROFILE_VC1_ADVANCED:
o Complete acceleration.
o Minimum width or height: 3 macroblocks (48 pixels).
o Maximum width or height: 128 macroblocks (2048 pixels).
o Maximum macroblocks: 8190
VDPAU FEATURE SETS C AND D
GPUs with VDPAU feature set C or D support at least the following
VdpDecoderProfile values, and associated limits:
o VDP_DECODER_PROFILE_MPEG1, VDP_DECODER_PROFILE_MPEG2_SIMPLE,
VDP_DECODER_PROFILE_MPEG2_MAIN:
o Complete acceleration.
o Minimum width or height: 3 macroblocks (48 pixels).
o Maximum width or height: 128 macroblocks (2048 pixels).
o Maximum macroblocks: 8192
o VDP_DECODER_PROFILE_H264_MAIN, VDP_DECODER_PROFILE_H264_HIGH:
o Complete acceleration.
o Minimum width or height: 3 macroblocks (48 pixels).
o Maximum width or height: 128 macroblocks (2048 pixels).
o Maximum macroblocks: 8192
o VDP_DECODER_PROFILE_VC1_SIMPLE, VDP_DECODER_PROFILE_VC1_MAIN,
VDP_DECODER_PROFILE_VC1_ADVANCED:
o Complete acceleration.
o Minimum width or height: 3 macroblocks (48 pixels).
o Maximum width or height: 128 macroblocks (2048 pixels).
o Maximum macroblocks: 8190
o VDP_DECODER_PROFILE_MPEG4_PART2_SP, VDP_DECODER_PROFILE_MPEG4_PART2_ASP,
VDP_DECODER_PROFILE_DIVX4_QMOBILE, VDP_DECODER_PROFILE_DIVX4_MOBILE,
VDP_DECODER_PROFILE_DIVX4_HOME_THEATER,
VDP_DECODER_PROFILE_DIVX4_HD_1080P, VDP_DECODER_PROFILE_DIVX5_QMOBILE,
VDP_DECODER_PROFILE_DIVX5_MOBILE, VDP_DECODER_PROFILE_DIVX5_HOME_THEATER,
VDP_DECODER_PROFILE_DIVX5_HD_1080P
o Complete acceleration.
o Minimum width or height: 3 macroblocks (48 pixels).
o Maximum width or height: 128 macroblocks (2048 pixels).
o Maximum macroblocks: 8192
The following features are currently not supported:
o GMC (Global Motion Compensation)
o Data partitioning
o reversible VLC
These GPUs also support VDP_VIDEO_MIXER_FEATURE_HIGH_QUALITY_SCALING_L1.
VDPAU FEATURES NOTE 1
GPUs with this note may not support H.264 streams with the following widths:
49, 54, 59, 64, 113, 118, 123, 128 macroblocks (769-784, 849-864, 929-944,
1009-1024, 1793-1808, 1873-1888, 1953-1968, 2033-2048 pixels).
VDPVIDEOMIXER
The maximum supported resolution is 4096x4096.
The video mixer supports all video and output surface resolutions and formats
that the implementation supports.
The video mixer supports at most 4 auxiliary layers.
The following features are supported:
o VDP_VIDEO_MIXER_FEATURE_DEINTERLACE_TEMPORAL
o VDP_VIDEO_MIXER_FEATURE_DEINTERLACE_TEMPORAL_SPATIAL
o VDP_VIDEO_MIXER_FEATURE_INVERSE_TELECINE
o VDP_VIDEO_MIXER_FEATURE_NOISE_REDUCTION
o VDP_VIDEO_MIXER_FEATURE_SHARPNESS
o VDP_VIDEO_MIXER_FEATURE_LUMA_KEY
In order for either VDP_VIDEO_MIXER_FEATURE_DEINTERLACE_TEMPORAL or
VDP_VIDEO_MIXER_FEATURE_DEINTERLACE_TEMPORAL_SPATIAL to operate correctly, the
application must supply at least 2 past and 1 future fields to each
VdpMixerRender call. If those fields are not provided, the VdpMixer will fall
back to bob de-interlacing.
Both regular de-interlacing and half-rate de-interlacing are supported. Both
have the same requirements in terms of the number of past/future fields
required. Both modes should produce equivalent results.
In order for VDP_VIDEO_MIXER_FEATURE_INVERSE_TELECINE to have any effect, one
of VDP_VIDEO_MIXER_FEATURE_DEINTERLACE_TEMPORAL or
VDP_VIDEO_MIXER_FEATURE_DEINTERLACE_TEMPORAL_SPATIAL must be requested and
enabled. Inverse telecine has the same requirement on the minimum number of
past/future fields that must be provided. Inverse telecine will not operate
when "half-rate" de-interlacing is used.
While it is possible to apply de-interlacing algorithms to progressive streams
using the techniques outlined in the VDPAU documentation, NVIDIA does not
recommend doing so. One is likely to introduce more artifacts due to the
inverse telecine process than are removed by detection of bad edits etc.
VDPPRESENTATIONQUEUE
The resolution of VdpTime is approximately 10 nanoseconds. At some arbitrary
point during system startup, the initial value of this clock is synchronized
to the system's real-time clock, as represented by nanoseconds since since Jan
1, 1970. However, no attempt is made to keep the two time-bases synchronized
after this point. Divergence can and will occur.
NVIDIA's VdpPresentationQueue supports two methods for displaying surfaces;
overlay and blit. The overlay method will be used wherever possible, with the
blit method acting as a more general fallback.
Whenever a presentation queue is created, the driver determines whether the
overlay method may ever be used, based on system configuration, and whether
any other application already owns the overlay. If overlay usage is
potentially possible, the presentation queue is marked as owning the overlay.
Whenever a surface is displayed, the driver determines whether the overlay
method may be used for that frame, based on both whether the presentation
queue owns the overlay, and the set of overlay usage limitations below. In
other words, the driver may switch back and forth between overlay and blit
methods dynamically. The most likely cause for dynamic switching is when a
compositing manager is enabled or disabled, and the window becomes redirected
or unredirected.
The following conditions or system configurations will prevent usage of the
overlay path:
o Overlay hardware already in use, e.g. by another VDPAU, GL, or X11
application, or by SDI output.
o Desktop rotation enabled on the given X screen.
o The presentation target window is redirected, due to a compositing
manager actively running.
o The environment variable VDPAU_NVIDIA_NO_OVERLAY is set to a string
representation of a non-zero integer.
o The driver determines that the performance requirements of overlay usage
cannot be met by the current hardware configuration.
Both the overlay and blit methods sync to VBLANK. The overlay path is
guaranteed never to tear, whereas the blit method is classed as "best effort".
When TwinView is enabled, the blit method can only sync to one of the display
devices; this may cause tearing corruption on the display device to which
VDPAU is not syncing. You can use the environment variable
VDPAU_NVIDIA_SYNC_DISPLAY_DEVICE to specify the display device to which VDPAU
should sync. You should set this environment variable to the name of a display
device, for example "CRT-1". Look for the line "Connected display device(s):"
in your X log file for a list of the display devices present and their names.
You may also find it useful to review Chapter 13 "Configuring Twinview" and
the section on Ensuring Identical Mode Timings in Chapter 20.
A VdpPresentationQueue allows a maximum of 8 surfaces to be QUEUED or VISIBLE
at any one time. This limit is per presentation queue. If this limit is
exceeded, VdpPresentationQueueDisplay blocks until an entry in the
presentation queue becomes free.
H2. PERFORMANCE LEVELS
This documentation describes the capabilities of the NVIDIA VDPAU
implementation. Hardware performance may vary significantly between cards. No
guarantees are made, nor implied, that any particular combination of system
configuration, GPU configuration, VDPAU feature set, VDPAU API usage,
application, video stream, etc., will be able to decode streams at any
particular frame rate.
H3. GETTING THE BEST PERFORMANCE FROM THE API
System performance (raw throughput, latency, and jitter tolerance) can be
affected by a variety of factors. One of these factors is how the client
application uses VDPAU; i.e. the number of surfaces allocated for buffering,
order of operations, etc.
NVIDIA GPUs typically contain a number of separate hardware modules that are
capable of performing different parts of the video decode, post-processing,
and display operations in parallel. To obtain the best performance, the client
application must attempt to keep all these modules busy with work at all
times.
Consider the decoding process. At a bare minimum, the application must
allocate one video surface for each reference frame that the stream can use (2
for MPEG or VC-1, a variable stream-dependent number for H.264) plus one
surface for the picture currently being decoded. However, if this minimum
number of surfaces is used, performance may be poor. This is because
back-to-back decodes of non-reference frames will need to be written into the
same video surface. This will require that decode of the second frame wait
until decode of the first has completed; a pipeline stall.
Further, if the video surfaces are being read by the video mixer for
post-processing, and eventual display, this will "lock" the surfaces for even
longer, since the video mixer needs to read the data from the surface, which
prevents any subsequent decode operations from writing to the surface. Recall
that when advanced de-interlacing techniques are used, a history of video
surfaces must be provided to the video mixer, thus necessitating that even
more video surfaces be allocated.
For this reason, NVIDIA recommends the following number of video surfaces be
allocated:
o (num_ref + 3) for progressive content, and no de-interlacing.
o (num_ref + 5) for interlaced content using advanced de-interlacing.
Next, consider the display path via the presentation queue. This portion of
the pipeline requires at least 2 output surfaces; one that is being actively
displayed by the presentation queue, and one being rendered to for subsequent
display. As before, using this minimum number of surfaces may not be optimal.
For some video streams, the hardware may only achieve real-time decoding on
average, not for each individual frame. Using compositing APIs to render
on-screen displays, graphical user interfaces, etc., may introduce extra
jitter and latency into the pipeline. Similarly, system level issues such as
scheduler algorithms and system load may prevent the CPU portion of the driver
from operating for short periods of time. All of these potential issues may be
solved by allocating more output surfaces, and queuing more than one
outstanding output surface into the presentation queue.
The reason for using more than the minimum number of video surfaces is to
ensure that the decoding and post-processing pipeline is not stalled, and
hence is kept busy for the maximum amount of time possible. In contrast, the
reason for using more than the minimum number of output surfaces is to hide
jitter and latency in various GPU and CPU operations.
The choice of exactly how many surfaces to allocate is a resource usage v.s.
performance trade-off; Allocating more than the minimum number of surfaces
will increase performance, but use proportionally more video RAM. This may
cause allocations to fail. This could be particularly problematic on systems
with a small amount of video RAM. A stellar application would automatically
adjust to this by initially allocating the bare minimum number of surfaces
(failures being fatal), then attempting to allocate more and more surfaces,
provided the allocations kept succeeding, up to the suggested limits above.
The video decoder's memory usage is also proportional to the maximum number of
reference frames specified at creation time. Requesting a larger number of
reference frames can significantly increase memory usage. Hence it is best for
applications that decode H.264 to request only the actual number of reference
frames specified in the stream, rather than e.g. hard-coding a limit of 16, or
even the maximum number of surfaces allowable by some specific H.264 level at
the stream's resolution.
Note that the NVIDIA implementation correctly implements all required
interlocks between the various pipelined hardware modules. Applications never
need worry about correctness (providing their API usage is legal and
sensible), but simply have to worry about performance.
H4. ADDITIONAL NOTES
Note that output and bitmap surfaces are not cleared to any specific value
upon allocation. It is the application's responsibility to initialize all
surfaces prior to using them as input to any function. Video surfaces are
cleared to black upon allocation.
H5. DEBUGGING AND TRACING
The VDPAU wrapper library supports tracing VDPAU function calls, and their
parameters. This tracing is controlled by the following environment variables:
VDPAU_TRACE
Enables tracing. Set to 1 to trace function calls. Set to 2 to trace all
arguments passed to the function.
VDPAU_TRACE_FILE
Filename to write traces to. By default, traces are sent to stderr. This
variable may either contain a plain filename, or a reference to an
existing open file-descriptor in the format "&N" where N is the file
descriptor number.
The VDPAU wrapper library is responsible for determining which vendor-specific
driver to load for a given X11 display/screen. At present, it hard-codes
"nvidia" as the driver. The environment variable VDPAU_DRIVER may be set to
override this default. The actual library loaded will be
libvdpau_${VDPAU_DRIVER}.so. Setting VDPAU_DRIVER to "trace" is not advised.
The NVIDIA VDPAU driver can emit some diagnostic information when an error
occurs. To enable this, set the environment variable VDPAU_NVIDIA_DEBUG. A
value of 1 will request a small diagnostic that will enable NVIDIA engineers
to locate the source of the problem. A value of 3 will request that a complete
stack backtrace be printed, which provide NVIDIA engineers with more detailed
information, which may be needed to diagnose some problems.
H6. MULTI-THREADING
VDPAU supports multiple threads actively executing within the driver, subject
to certain limitations.
If any object is being created or destroyed, the VDPAU driver will become
single-threaded. This includes object destruction during preemption cleanup.
Otherwise, up to one thread may actively execute VdpDecoderRender per
VdpDecoder object, and up to one thread may actively execute any other
rendering API per VdpDevice (or child) object. Note that the driver enforces
these restrictions internally; applications are not required to implement the
rules outlined above.
Finally, some of the "query" or "get" APIs may actively execute irrespective
of the number of rendering threads currently executing.
______________________________________________________________________________
Appendix I. Audio Support
______________________________________________________________________________
Many NVIDIA GPUs support embedding an audio stream in HDMI and DisplayPort
signals. In most cases, the GPU contains a standard HD-Audio controller, for
which there is a standard ALSA driver. For more details on how to configure
and use the ALSA driver with NVIDIA hardware, please see
ftp://download.nvidia.com/XFree86/gpu-hdmi-audio-document/gpu-hdmi-audio.html.
______________________________________________________________________________
Appendix J. Tips for New Linux Users
______________________________________________________________________________
This installation guide assumes that the user has at least a basic
understanding of Linux techniques and terminology. In this section we provide
tips that the new user may find helpful. While the these tips are meant to
clarify and assist users in installing and configuring the NVIDIA Linux
Driver, it is by no means a tutorial on the use or administration of the Linux
operating system. Unlike many desktop operating systems, it is relatively easy
to cause irreparable damage to your Linux system. If you are unfamiliar with
the use of Linux, we strongly recommend that you seek a tutorial through your
distributor before proceeding.
J1. THE COMMAND PROMPT
While newer releases of Linux bring new desktop interfaces to the user, much
of the work in Linux takes place at the command prompt. If you are familiar
with the Windows operating system, the Linux command prompt is analogous to
the Windows command prompt, although the syntax and use varies somewhat. All
of the commands in this section are performed at the command prompt. Some
systems are configured to boot into console mode, in which case the user is
presented with a prompt at login. Other systems are configured to start the X
window system, in which case the user must open a terminal or console window
in order to get a command prompt. This can usually be done by searching the
desktop menus for a terminal or console program. While it is customizable, the
basic prompt usually consists of a short string of information, one of the
characters '#', '$', or '%', and a cursor (possibly flashing) that indicates
where the user's input will be displayed.
J2. NAVIGATING THE DIRECTORY STRUCTURE
Linux has a hierarchical directory structure. From anywhere in the directory
structure, the 'ls' command will list the contents of that directory. The
'file' command will print the type of files in a directory. For example,
% file filename
will print the type of the file 'filename'. Changing directories is done with
the 'cd' command.
% cd dirname
will change the current directory to 'dirname'. From anywhere in the directory
structure, the command 'pwd' will print the name of the current directory.
There are two special directories, '.' and '..', which refer to the current
directory and the next directory up the hierarchy, respectively. For any
commands that require a file name or directory name as an argument, you may
specify the absolute or the relative paths to those elements. An absolute path
begins with the "/" character, referring to the top or root of the directory
structure. A relative path begins with a directory in the current working
directory. The relative path may begin with '.' or '..'. Elements of a path
are separated with the "/" character. As an example, if the current directory
is '/home/jesse' and the user wants to change to the '/usr/local' directory,
he can use either of the following commands to do so:
% cd /usr/local
or
% cd ../../usr/local
J3. FILE PERMISSIONS AND OWNERSHIP
All files and directories have permissions and ownership associated with them.
This is useful for preventing non-administrative users from accidentally (or
maliciously) corrupting the system. The permissions and ownership for a file
or directory can be determined by passing the -l option to the 'ls' command.
For example:
% ls -l
drwxr-xr-x 2 jesse users 4096 Feb 8 09:32 bin
drwxrwxrwx 10 jesse users 4096 Feb 10 12:04 pub
-rw-r--r-- 1 jesse users 45 Feb 4 03:55 testfile
-rwx------ 1 jesse users 93 Feb 5 06:20 myprogram
-rw-rw-rw- 1 jesse users 112 Feb 5 06:20 README
%
The first character column in the first output field states the file type,
where 'd' is a directory and '-' is a regular file. The next nine columns
specify the permissions (see paragraph below) of the element. The second field
indicates the number of files associated with the element, the third field
indicates the owner, the fourth field indicates the group that the file is
associated with, the fifth field indicates the size of the element in bytes,
the sixth, seventh and eighth fields indicate the time at which the file was
last modified and the ninth field is the name of the element.
As stated, the last nine columns in the first field indicate the permissions
of the element. These columns are grouped into threes, the first grouping
indicating the permissions for the owner of the element ('jesse' in this
case), the second grouping indicating the permissions for the group associated
with the element, and the third grouping indicating the permissions associated
with the rest of the world. The 'r', 'w', and 'x' indicate read, write and
execute permissions, respectively, for each of these associations. For
example, user 'jesse' has read and write permissions for 'testfile', users in
the group 'users' have read permission only, and the rest of the world also
has read permissions only. However, for the file 'myprogram', user 'jesse' has
read, write and execute permissions (suggesting that 'myprogram' is a program
that can be executed), while the group 'users' and the rest of the world have
no permissions (suggesting that the owner doesn't want anyone else to run his
program). The permissions, ownership and group associated with an element can
be changed with the commands 'chmod', 'chown' and 'chgrp', respectively. If a
user with the appropriate permissions wanted to change the user/group
ownership of 'README' from jesse/users to joe/admin, he would do the
following:
# chown joe README
# chgrp admin README
The syntax for chmod is slightly more complicated and has several variations.
The most concise way of setting the permissions for a single element uses a
triplet of numbers, one for each of user, group and world. The value for each
number in the triplet corresponds to a combination of read, write and execute
permissions. Execute only is represented as 1, write only is represented as 2,
and read only is represented as 4. Combinations of these permissions are
represented as sums of the individual permissions. Read and execute is
represented as 5, where as read, write and execute is represented as 7. No
permissions is represented as 0. Thus, to give the owner read, write and
execute permissions, the group read and execute permissions and the world no
permissions, a user would do as follows:
% chmod 750 myprogram
J4. THE SHELL
The shell provides an interface between the user and the operating system. It
is the job of the shell to interpret the input that the user gives at the
command prompt and call upon the system to do something in response. There are
several different shells available, each with somewhat different syntax and
capabilities. The two most common flavors of shells used on Linux stem from
the Bourne shell ('sh') and the C-shell ('csh') Different users have
preferences and biases towards one shell or the other, and some certainly make
it easier (or at least more intuitive) to do some things than others. You can
determine your current shell by printing the value of the 'SHELL' environment
variable from the command prompt with
% echo $SHELL
You can start a new shell simply by entering the name of the shell from the
command prompt:
% csh
or
% sh
and you can run a program from within a specific shell by preceding the name
of the executable with the name of the shell in which it will be run:
% sh myprogram
The user's default shell at login is determined by whoever set up his account.
While there are many syntactic differences between shells, perhaps the one
that is encountered most frequently is the way in which environment variables
are set.
J5. SETTING ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
Every session has associated with it environment variables, which consist of
name/value pairs and control the way in which the shell and programs run from
the shell behave. An example of an environment variable is the 'PATH'
variable, which tells the shell which directories to search when trying to
locate an executable file that the user has entered at the command line. If
you are certain that a command exists, but the shell complains that it cannot
be found when you try to execute it, there is likely a problem with the 'PATH'
variable. Environment variables are set differently depending on the shell
being used. For the Bourne shell ('sh'), it is done as:
% export MYVARIABLE="avalue"
for the C-shell, it is done as:
% setenv MYVARIABLE "avalue"
In both cases the quotation marks are only necessary if the value contains
spaces. The 'echo' command can be used to examine the value of an environment
variable:
% echo $MYVARIABLE
Commands to set environment variables can also include references to other
environment variables (prepended with the "$" character), including
themselves. In order to add the path '/usr/local/bin' to the beginning of the
search path, and the current directory '.' to the end of the search path, a
user would enter
% export PATH=/usr/local/bin:$PATH:.
in the Bourne shell, and
% setenv PATH /usr/local/bin:${PATH}:.
in C-shell. Note the curly braces are required to protect the variable name in
C-shell.
J6. EDITING TEXT FILES
There are several text editors available for the Linux operating system. Some
of these editors require the X window system, while others are designed to
operate in a console or terminal. It is generally a good thing to be competent
with a terminal-based text editor, as there are times when the files necessary
for X to run are the ones that must be edited. Three popular editors are 'vi',
'pico' and 'emacs', each of which can be started from the command line,
optionally supplying the name of a file to be edited. 'vi' is arguably the
most ubiquitous as well as the least intuitive of the three. 'pico' is
relatively straightforward for a new user, though not as often installed on
systems. If you don't have 'pico', you may have a similar editor called
'nano'. 'emacs' is highly extensible and fairly widely available, but can be
somewhat unwieldy in a non-X environment. The newer versions each come with
online help, and offline help can be found in the manual and info pages for
each (see the section on Linux Manual and Info pages). Many programs use the
'EDITOR' environment variable to determine which text editor to start when
editing is required.
J7. ROOT USER
Upon installation, almost all distributions set up the default administrative
user with the username 'root'. There are many things on the system that only
'root' (or a similarly privileged user) can do, one of which is installing the
NVIDIA Linux Driver. WE MUST EMPHASIZE THAT ASSUMING THE IDENTITY OF 'root' IS
INHERENTLY RISKY AND AS 'root' IT IS RELATIVELY EASY TO CORRUPT YOUR SYSTEM OR
OTHERWISE RENDER IT UNUSABLE. There are three ways to become 'root'. You may
log in as 'root' as you would any other user, you may use the switch user
command ('su') at the command prompt, or, on some systems, use the 'sudo'
utility, which allows users to run programs as 'root' while keeping a log of
their actions. This last method is useful in case a user inadvertently causes
damage to the system and cannot remember what he has done (or prefers not to
admit what he has done). It is generally a good practice to remain 'root' only
as long as is necessary to accomplish the task requiring 'root' privileges
(another useful feature of the 'sudo' utility).
J8. BOOTING TO A DIFFERENT RUNLEVEL
Runlevels in Linux dictate which services are started and stopped
automatically when the system boots or shuts down. The runlevels typically
range from 0 to 6, with runlevel 5 typically starting the X window system as
part of the services (runlevel 0 is actually a system halt, and 6 is a system
reboot). It is good practice to install the NVIDIA Linux Driver while X is not
running, and it is a good idea to prevent X from starting on reboot in case
there are problems with the installation (otherwise you may find yourself with
a broken system that automatically tries to start X, but then hangs during the
startup, preventing you from doing the repairs necessary to fix X). Depending
on your network setup, runlevels 1, 2 or 3 should be sufficient for installing
the Driver. Level 3 typically includes networking services, so if utilities
used by the system during installation depend on a remote filesystem, Levels 1
and 2 will be insufficient. If your system typically boots to a console with a
command prompt, you should not need to change anything. If your system
typically boots to the X window system with a graphical login and desktop, you
must both exit X and change your default runlevel.
On most distributions, the default runlevel is stored in the file
'/etc/inittab', although you may have to consult the guide for your own
distribution. The line that indicates the default runlevel appears as
id:n:initdefault:
or similar, where "n" indicates the number of the runlevel. '/etc/inittab'
must be edited as root. Please read the sections on editing files and root
user if you are unfamiliar with this concept. Also, it is recommended that you
create a copy of the file prior to editing it, particularly if you are new to
Linux text editors, in case you accidentally corrupt the file:
# cp /etc/inittab /etc/inittab.original
The line should be edited such that an appropriate runlevel is the default (1,
2, or 3 on most systems):
id:3:initdefault:
After saving the changes, exit X. After the Driver installation is complete,
you may revert the default runlevel to its original state, either by editing
the '/etc/inittab' again or by moving your backup copy back to its original
name.
Different distributions provide different ways to exit X. On many systems, the
'init' utility will change the current runlevel. This can be used to change to
a runlevel in which X is not running.
# init 3
There are other methods by which to exit X. Please consult your distribution.
J9. LINUX MANUAL AND INFO PAGES
System manual or info pages are usually installed during installation. These
pages are typically up-to-date and generally contain a comprehensive listing
of the use of programs and utilities on the system. Also, many programs
include the --help option, which usually prints a list of common options for
that program. To view the manual page for a command, enter
% man commandname
at the command prompt, where commandname refers to the command in which you
are interested. Similarly, entering
% info commandname
will bring up the info page for the command. Depending on the application, one
or the other may be more up-to-date. The interface for the info system is
interactive and navigable. If you are unable to locate the man page for the
command you are interested in, you may need to add additional elements to your
'MANPATH' environment variable. See the section on environment variables.
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