[gentoo-amd64] OpenGL trouble (?)

[gentoo-amd64] OpenGL trouble (?)

[Thierry de Coulon]

Hello,

So I've set up my opteron box and now (almost( everything is working, I've 
transfered my mail directory (this usually means I'm ready to start working 
with the machine :)

I had some problems installing the nvidia driver - I have a 6600GT card and 
the driver that emerge would installed was apparently too old.
So I backed up everything at tried the "officiel" Nvidia driver, and it 
works... mostly

I've a series of games that run with OpenGL. AFAIK all are 32 bit only. The 
following work perfectly:

- prBoom (Doom II)
- Unreal
- Unreal Tournament
- Quake
- Quake 2
- Quake 3
- Return to casle Wolfenstein
- Creatures 3
- X-Plane 8.32

However, I still have problems with these:
- Soldier of fortune: I can play but it will crash if I try to save, or at the 
end of the level
- Quake 4 (crashes at the beginning, when you go to the entrence door. This is 
an automatic way point where the game autosaves).
- Doom 3 (crashes after the opening animation)


All these crashes seem to be directly related to an I/O access, or possibly a 
sound access?. It totaly freezes the computer (hard reset necessary). It's 
not the most important problem but I still wonder where it comes from: nvidia 
driver? controler driver? amd64bit problem?

The problem is NOT Gentoo specific and can be reproduced on the same machine 
when installing a 32bit distribution. Happens with SuSE 64 as well. Why it 
occurs in SOF but not in RTCW I don't understand.

-- 
The problem with the world is stupidity. Not saying there should be a
capital punishment for stupidity, but why don't we just take the
safety labels off of everything and let the problem solve itself?
Frank Zappa
-- 
gentoo-amd64@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-amd64] OpenGL trouble (?)

[Hemmann, Volker Armin]

On Sunday 19 February 2006 18:20, Thierry de Coulon wrote:
> Hello,
>
> So I've set up my opteron box and now (almost( everything is working, I've
> transfered my mail directory (this usually means I'm ready to start working
> with the machine :)
>
> I had some problems installing the nvidia driver - I have a 6600GT card and
> the driver that emerge would installed was apparently too old.
> So I backed up everything at tried the "officiel" Nvidia driver, and it
> works... mostly

so, instead of using /etc/portage/package.unmask you installed the driver 
directly?

I tell you what: that is really stupid.

Really, really stupid.

You DESERVE problems, if you did this.

Why?

Because: when you update the driver sometimes the nvidia driver forgets some 
files somewhere - resulting in direct rendering not working.

Even worse: some apps don't compile with the nvidia opengl libs and headers - 
so if you do it the gentoo way you could just 'eselect set opengl xorg-x11' 
and compile the app, but when you did it the nvidia way: congratulations, you 
can reinstall X now.

btw: I really do not understand why gentoo still uses the old drivers: they 
suck.

But that does not excuse using the nvidia installing method.


For your problems:
usually it helps replacing the sdl lib or openal with 'the systems one' or the 
ones in the emul-packages.
-- 
gentoo-amd64@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-amd64] OpenGL trouble (?)

[Kyle Liddell]

On Sun, Feb 19, 2006 at 06:20:58PM +0100, Thierry de Coulon wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I had some problems installing the nvidia driver - I have a 6600GT card and 
> the driver that emerge would installed was apparently too old.
> So I backed up everything at tried the "officiel" Nvidia driver, and it 
> works... mostly

I think (in general) the "stable" nvidia drivers in portage are useless, so even if you're not using ~amd64, you should at least have the "unstable" nvidia drivers, as they are way more stable than the "stable" ones.


Kyle Liddell
-- 
gentoo-amd64@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-amd64] OpenGL trouble (?)

[Thierry de Coulon]

On Sunday 19 February 2006 21.13, Hemmann, Volker Armin wrote:
>
> I tell you what: that is really stupid.
>
> Really, really stupid.

maybe

> You DESERVE problems, if you did this.
>
> Why?
>
> Because: when you update the driver sometimes the nvidia driver forgets
> some files somewhere - resulting in direct rendering not working.
>
> Even worse: some apps don't compile with the nvidia opengl libs and headers
> - so if you do it the gentoo way you could just 'eselect set opengl
> xorg-x11' and compile the app, but when you did it the nvidia way:
> congratulations, you can reinstall X now.

Nope - because I did know what I was doing and have a backup copy of my 
install before the nvidia driver :)

> btw: I really do not understand why gentoo still uses the old drivers: they
> suck.
>
> But that does not excuse using the nvidia installing method.

The answer is simple: it was (or seemed to be) the only way to get 3D 
acceleration. I followed the Gentoo nvidia how-to and all I could get were 
incompatible drivers

> For your problems:
> usually it helps replacing the sdl lib or openal with 'the systems one' or
> the ones in the emul-packages.

It would perhaps be a little more helpful of you told me how...  What are "the 
systems one"? Where do I find them?

Thierry

-- 
The problem with the world is stupidity. Not saying there should be a
capital punishment for stupidity, but why don't we just take the
safety labels off of everything and let the problem solve itself?
Frank Zappa
-- 
gentoo-amd64@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-amd64] OpenGL trouble (?)

[Hemmann, Volker Armin]

On Sunday 19 February 2006 22:42, Thierry de Coulon wrote:

> It would perhaps be a little more helpful of you told me how...  What are
> "the systems one"? Where do I find them?
>

find / -iname '*openal*'
find / -iname '*sdl*'

or look directly into /emul and /usr/lib 
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Re: [gentoo-amd64] OpenGL trouble (?)

[Jürgen Schinker]

On Sun, February 19, 2006 21:13, Hemmann, Volker Armin wrote:
> On Sunday 19 February 2006 18:20, Thierry de Coulon wrote:
>
>> Hello,
>>
>>
>> So I've set up my opteron box and now (almost( everything is working,
>> I've
>> transfered my mail directory (this usually means I'm ready to start
>> working with the machine :)
>>
>> I had some problems installing the nvidia driver - I have a 6600GT card
>> and the driver that emerge would installed was apparently too old. So I
>> backed up everything at tried the "officiel" Nvidia driver, and it
>> works... mostly
>
> so, instead of using /etc/portage/package.unmask you installed the driver
>  directly?
>
>
Yeah but a lot user run in this trap...
and at least it was the only way to get my resolution running
i use 1920x1200 native...and 3D opengl
so tell me how do i get rid of all this nvidia-fetch stuff...

and then how to convert to a only Gentoo way

and put a red warning on the howto install nvidia on Gentoo to
never ever use the Nvidia-scripts

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gentoo-amd64@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-amd64] OpenGL trouble (?)

[Thierry de Coulon]

On Tuesday 21 February 2006 10.50, Jürgen Schinker wrote:
>
> Yeah but a lot user run in this trap...
> and at least it was the only way to get my resolution running
> i use 1920x1200 native...and 3D opengl
> so tell me how do i get rid of all this nvidia-fetch stuff...
>
> and then how to convert to a only Gentoo way
>
> and put a red warning on the howto install nvidia on Gentoo to
> never ever use the Nvidia-scripts

I gave a lot of thinking to this and came up with the following:

a) I removed the nvidia stuff (running the installer with --remove I think, or 
look at the docs). No problem here.
b) emerge would not propose me anything else, but if you unmask nvidia-glx it 
does (THIS should be put in red).
c) there are other things to unmask. I added the following to 
package.keywords:

media-video/nvidia-glx
media-video/nvidia-kernel
app-admin/eselect
=app-admin/eselect-opengl-1.0.3

and then I was able to emerge the last driver.

I don't know if the fact of installing/uninstalling the nvidia stuff broke 
something - does not seem to have so far.

I find the whole dealing with masked packages is badly explained - probably by 
people who know the stuff so well they can't explain it clearly for newbies.

I had no time to look if that cured the problems with the games that crashed - 
I doubt it will - but where the nvidia driver worked the Gentoo version does 
as well.

I don't know if the nvidia how-to I read was outdated, but it never said 
anything about unmaking anything, nor about eselct stuff.

Thierry

-- 
The problem with the world is stupidity. Not saying there should be a
capital punishment for stupidity, but why don't we just take the
safety labels off of everything and let the problem solve itself?
Frank Zappa
-- 
gentoo-amd64@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-amd64] OpenGL trouble (?)

[Bob Sanders]

Kyle Liddell, mused, then expounded:
> 
> I think (in general) the "stable" nvidia drivers in portage are useless, so even if you're not using ~amd64, you should at least have the "unstable" nvidia drivers, as they are way more stable than the "stable" ones.
>

You are incorrect and correct. Because Nvidia removed the code for the older Gfx cards,
they cannot use the newer drivers.  Almost every pre-R5xxxx card needs the older driver,
the exception is the M4000 series.

However, as he has a 6600, he needs to be running the latest driver, thus in his
/etc/portage/package.keywords, needs -

media-video/nvidia-kernel ~amd64
media-video/nvidia-glx ~amd64
app-admin/eselect-opengl ~amd64
app-admin/eselect ~amd64

Bob
-  
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Re: [gentoo-amd64] OpenGL trouble (?)

[Ian Hastie]

On Tue, 21 Feb 2006 07:47:01 -0800
Bob Sanders <rsanders@sgi.com> wrote:

> You are incorrect and correct. Because Nvidia removed the code for
> the older Gfx cards, they cannot use the newer drivers.  Almost every
> pre-R5xxxx card needs the older driver, the exception is the M4000
> series.

This is what NVIDIA say in their README file...

"Support for "legacy" GPUs has been removed from the unified driver.
These legacy GPUs will continue to be maintained through special legacy
GPU driver releases. Please see Appendix A for a list of legacy GPUs."

Doesn't seem as if they have done this though.

-- 
Ian.

EOM
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