[gentoo-user] Upgrading from FX-5200 to a GeForce 6200 512MB

[gentoo-user] Upgrading from FX-5200 to a GeForce 6200 512MB

[Dale]

Hi,

I am thinking of upgrading from a FX-5200 with 128Mb video card to a 
GeForce 6200 with 512MB.  It will be AGP since this is a older rig.  My 
system is something like this:

Mobo:  Abit NF7 2.0
CPU: AMD 2500+  No overclocking
Memory:  2Gbs of 333Mhz.
Monitor:  Gateway 19" running 1280 x 1024

I think my memory is fine, it never uses all of it, or even half of it, 
except for caching stuff.  I may try to get a 3000+ or 3200+ CPU if I 
can run up on a good deal.  I'm thinking of doing the video card first 
because it is cheaper.  I have also noticed that playing movies on here 
is getting a bit slow if I go full screen or close to full screen.   I'm 
bad to download from youtube and then play them locally full screen or 
as close as it will allow.

I do use the nvidia drivers.  Currently:

nvidia-drivers-173.14.25

I'm on that one because I think I need to upgrade my kernel to use the 
latest one that was recently put in the tree.  I'm looking at this card:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814133328

What kind of improvement can I expect from this video card upgrade?  
While I am at it, the CPU upgrade won't make that much difference 
right?  Maybe 20% or so faster or something like that?

Thoughts?  Opinions?

Thanks.

Dale

:-)  :-)

Re: [gentoo-user] Upgrading from FX-5200 to a GeForce 6200 512MB

[Florian Philipp]

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Am 19.10.2010 09:45, schrieb Dale:
> Hi,
> 
> I am thinking of upgrading from a FX-5200 with 128Mb video card to a
> GeForce 6200 with 512MB.  It will be AGP since this is a older rig.  My
> system is something like this:
> 
> Mobo:  Abit NF7 2.0
> CPU: AMD 2500+  No overclocking
> Memory:  2Gbs of 333Mhz.
> Monitor:  Gateway 19" running 1280 x 1024
> 
> I think my memory is fine, it never uses all of it, or even half of it,
> except for caching stuff.  I may try to get a 3000+ or 3200+ CPU if I
> can run up on a good deal.  I'm thinking of doing the video card first
> because it is cheaper.  I have also noticed that playing movies on here
> is getting a bit slow if I go full screen or close to full screen.   I'm
> bad to download from youtube and then play them locally full screen or
> as close as it will allow.
> 
> I do use the nvidia drivers.  Currently:
> 
> nvidia-drivers-173.14.25
> 
> I'm on that one because I think I need to upgrade my kernel to use the
> latest one that was recently put in the tree.  I'm looking at this card:
> 
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814133328
> 
> What kind of improvement can I expect from this video card upgrade? 
> While I am at it, the CPU upgrade won't make that much difference
> right?  Maybe 20% or so faster or something like that?
> 

Hi Dale,

first and foremost, a newer card will allow you to use the newest driver
series (195.*.*) which is always a good thing ;)

It also gives you more texture units. You can use these to transfer more
work to your GPU (mostly scaling and such). Take a look at `man mplayer`
section '-vo gl' for a list of options.
VLC has similar options, I think. I don't know about gstreamer or xine.

I could be wrong but I don't think that adobe-flash uses these options.
That is probably part of the problem why flash is so much slower on
GNU/Linux than on Windows. If my assumption is true, you are better off
buying a faster CPU.

You could also test how gnash performs. Since it uses ffmpeg (AFAIK) it
might be worth a try.

Please take my advices with a big dose of salt. While I still run an old
desktop with nearly identical specs, I almost never use Youtube and
therefore have no experience with that.

Hope this helps,
Florian Philipp


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Re: [gentoo-user] Upgrading from FX-5200 to a GeForce 6200 512MB

[David W Noon]

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On Tue, 19 Oct 2010 09:50:02 +0200, Dale wrote about [gentoo-user]
Upgrading from FX-5200 to a GeForce 6200 512MB:

>I am thinking of upgrading from a FX-5200 with 128Mb video card to a 
>GeForce 6200 with 512MB.  It will be AGP since this is a older rig.

From where does one obtain an AGP card these days?  I have 4
motherboards with AGP or AGP Pro slots, and I'm damned if I can find
decent video cards for them.

>Monitor:  Gateway 19" running 1280 x 1024

Why do you need a slick card on a monitor of that age, or are you
upgrading the monitor too?

Last week bought a Hanns.G HH251 24" monitor that does Full HD. I plan
to install it today, after I have calculated the mode lines for the
X.Org configuration.  I'll report back when it is running, if anybody is
interested.

Incidentally, is anybody interested in a mode line calculator program?
I'll be writing it later today, and I'll make it open source if there
is any interest.
-- 
Regards,

Dave  [RLU #314465]
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
dwnoon@ntlworld.com (David W Noon)
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

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Re: [gentoo-user] Upgrading from FX-5200 to a GeForce 6200 512MB

[Dale]

David W Noon wrote:
> On Tue, 19 Oct 2010 09:50:02 +0200, Dale wrote about [gentoo-user]
> Upgrading from FX-5200 to a GeForce 6200 512MB:
>
>    
>> I am thinking of upgrading from a FX-5200 with 128Mb video card to a
>> GeForce 6200 with 512MB.  It will be AGP since this is a older rig.
>>      
>  From where does one obtain an AGP card these days?  I have 4
> motherboards with AGP or AGP Pro slots, and I'm damned if I can find
> decent video cards for them.
>
>    
>> Monitor:  Gateway 19" running 1280 x 1024
>>      
> Why do you need a slick card on a monitor of that age, or are you
> upgrading the monitor too?
>    

There is a link in the original message to where I found this one.  They 
had more cords to that are AGP.  I may get a monitor one day but not 
sure what king. I like the CRT's for my puter tho.


> Last week bought a Hanns.G HH251 24" monitor that does Full HD. I plan
> to install it today, after I have calculated the mode lines for the
> X.Org configuration.  I'll report back when it is running, if anybody is
> interested.
>
> Incidentally, is anybody interested in a mode line calculator program?
> I'll be writing it later today, and I'll make it open source if there
> is any interest.
>    

Dale

:-)  :-)

Re: [gentoo-user] Upgrading from FX-5200 to a GeForce 6200 512MB

[Dale]

Florian Philipp wrote:
> Am 19.10.2010 09:45, schrieb Dale:
>    
>> Hi,
>>
>> I am thinking of upgrading from a FX-5200 with 128Mb video card to a
>> GeForce 6200 with 512MB.  It will be AGP since this is a older rig.  My
>> system is something like this:
>>
>> Mobo:  Abit NF7 2.0
>> CPU: AMD 2500+  No overclocking
>> Memory:  2Gbs of 333Mhz.
>> Monitor:  Gateway 19" running 1280 x 1024
>>
>> I think my memory is fine, it never uses all of it, or even half of it,
>> except for caching stuff.  I may try to get a 3000+ or 3200+ CPU if I
>> can run up on a good deal.  I'm thinking of doing the video card first
>> because it is cheaper.  I have also noticed that playing movies on here
>> is getting a bit slow if I go full screen or close to full screen.   I'm
>> bad to download from youtube and then play them locally full screen or
>> as close as it will allow.
>>
>> I do use the nvidia drivers.  Currently:
>>
>> nvidia-drivers-173.14.25
>>
>> I'm on that one because I think I need to upgrade my kernel to use the
>> latest one that was recently put in the tree.  I'm looking at this card:
>>
>> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814133328
>>
>> What kind of improvement can I expect from this video card upgrade?
>> While I am at it, the CPU upgrade won't make that much difference
>> right?  Maybe 20% or so faster or something like that?
>>
>>      
> Hi Dale,
>
> first and foremost, a newer card will allow you to use the newest driver
> series (195.*.*) which is always a good thing ;)
>
> It also gives you more texture units. You can use these to transfer more
> work to your GPU (mostly scaling and such). Take a look at `man mplayer`
> section '-vo gl' for a list of options.
> VLC has similar options, I think. I don't know about gstreamer or xine.
>
> I could be wrong but I don't think that adobe-flash uses these options.
> That is probably part of the problem why flash is so much slower on
> GNU/Linux than on Windows. If my assumption is true, you are better off
> buying a faster CPU.
>
> You could also test how gnash performs. Since it uses ffmpeg (AFAIK) it
> might be worth a try.
>
> Please take my advices with a big dose of salt. While I still run an old
> desktop with nearly identical specs, I almost never use Youtube and
> therefore have no experience with that.
>
> Hope this helps,
> Florian Philipp
>
>    

This particular card I think uses the latest 260.* drivers.  That's 
according to the nvidia site but sometimes that is not correct either.

Anyway, I always download the videos off youtube or where ever and then 
watch them with smplayer locally.  It generally works better for the 
most part.  I just have the slow DSL so it skips a bit on some if I 
don't download it first.  I do need a faster CPU but want to get the 
card first.  I do sometimes max out the CPU when watching a video but I 
think most of the time it is the card that is just getting old and needs 
a new one that is a little faster at least.  For the price, I was going 
to get a card that is a good bit faster.

You are right about the flash thingy.  It is a lot slower on this rig.  
It even slows scrolling down the web pages.  It sort of ticks me off 
sometimes.  It is slow on my brothers system to tho.  He has windoze XP 
still.  I'm working on putting Linux on there.

Work on the CPU next I hope.  ;-)

Dale

:-)  :-)

Re: [gentoo-user] Upgrading from FX-5200 to a GeForce 6200 512MB

[András Csányi]

On 19 October 2010 13:38, David W Noon <dwnoon@ntlworld.com> wrote:
> On Tue, 19 Oct 2010 09:50:02 +0200, Dale wrote about [gentoo-user]
> Upgrading from FX-5200 to a GeForce 6200 512MB:
>
>>I am thinking of upgrading from a FX-5200 with 128Mb video card to a
>>GeForce 6200 with 512MB.  It will be AGP since this is a older rig.
>
> From where does one obtain an AGP card these days?  I have 4
> motherboards with AGP or AGP Pro slots, and I'm damned if I can find
> decent video cards for them.

A month ago I bought new video card and I was totaly surprised because
the store pricelist were AGP cards. Few year ago I spoke with my
former boss that to buy AGP video card is impossible. It looks like we
were wrong... :)

-- 
- -
--  Csanyi Andras (Sayusi Ando)  -- http://sayusi.hu --
http://facebook.com/andras.csanyi
--  ""Trust in God and keep your gunpowder dry!" - Cromwell

Re: [gentoo-user] Upgrading from FX-5200 to a GeForce 6200 512MB

[Florian Philipp]

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Am 19.10.2010 14:23, schrieb Dale:
> Florian Philipp wrote:
>> Am 19.10.2010 09:45, schrieb Dale:
>>   
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> I am thinking of upgrading from a FX-5200 with 128Mb video card to a
>>> GeForce 6200 with 512MB.  It will be AGP since this is a older rig.  My
>>> system is something like this:
>>>
>>> Mobo:  Abit NF7 2.0
>>> CPU: AMD 2500+  No overclocking
>>> Memory:  2Gbs of 333Mhz.
>>> Monitor:  Gateway 19" running 1280 x 1024
>>>
>>> I think my memory is fine, it never uses all of it, or even half of it,
>>> except for caching stuff.  I may try to get a 3000+ or 3200+ CPU if I
>>> can run up on a good deal.  I'm thinking of doing the video card first
>>> because it is cheaper.  I have also noticed that playing movies on here
>>> is getting a bit slow if I go full screen or close to full screen.   I'm
>>> bad to download from youtube and then play them locally full screen or
>>> as close as it will allow.
>>>
>>> I do use the nvidia drivers.  Currently:
>>>
>>> nvidia-drivers-173.14.25
>>>
>>> I'm on that one because I think I need to upgrade my kernel to use the
>>> latest one that was recently put in the tree.  I'm looking at this card:
>>>
>>> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814133328
>>>
>>> What kind of improvement can I expect from this video card upgrade?
>>> While I am at it, the CPU upgrade won't make that much difference
>>> right?  Maybe 20% or so faster or something like that?
>>>
>>>      
>> Hi Dale,
>>
>> first and foremost, a newer card will allow you to use the newest driver
>> series (195.*.*) which is always a good thing ;)
>>
>> It also gives you more texture units. You can use these to transfer more
>> work to your GPU (mostly scaling and such). Take a look at `man mplayer`
>> section '-vo gl' for a list of options.
>> VLC has similar options, I think. I don't know about gstreamer or xine.
>>
>> I could be wrong but I don't think that adobe-flash uses these options.
>> That is probably part of the problem why flash is so much slower on
>> GNU/Linux than on Windows. If my assumption is true, you are better off
>> buying a faster CPU.
>>
>> You could also test how gnash performs. Since it uses ffmpeg (AFAIK) it
>> might be worth a try.
>>
>> Please take my advices with a big dose of salt. While I still run an old
>> desktop with nearly identical specs, I almost never use Youtube and
>> therefore have no experience with that.
>>
>> Hope this helps,
>> Florian Philipp
>>
>>    
> 
> This particular card I think uses the latest 260.* drivers.  That's
> according to the nvidia site but sometimes that is not correct either.
> 
> Anyway, I always download the videos off youtube or where ever and then
> watch them with smplayer locally.  It generally works better for the
> most part.  I just have the slow DSL so it skips a bit on some if I
> don't download it first.  I do need a faster CPU but want to get the
> card first.  I do sometimes max out the CPU when watching a video but I
> think most of the time it is the card that is just getting old and needs
> a new one that is a little faster at least.  For the price, I was going
> to get a card that is a good bit faster.
> 
[...]

Ah, in that case tweaking your mplayer config might really help. Look at
the man page for options (-vo gl:...).

You really have to try every option and sometimes reasonable
combinations. I've found that even if the man page says it is a slow
option, sometimes it's the fastest. As I've said before, you will reach
the maximum number of texture units in your card, therefore certain
options will not work together but the man page tells you how many
texture units each option needs. With that info it should be easy to
tweak your settings.

To get you going, try mplayer -vo gl:yuv=2:lscale=1:cscale=1 <file>
Don't forget to test it in fullscreen mode.

You can later apply these options either in /etc/mplayer/mplayer.conf or
in ~/.mplayer/config like this: "vo=gl:yuv=2:lscale=1:cscale=1"

Hope this helps,
Florian Philipp


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Re: [gentoo-user] Upgrading from FX-5200 to a GeForce 6200 512MB

[Peter Humphrey]

On Tuesday 19 October 2010 12:38:35 David W Noon wrote:

> Incidentally, is anybody interested in a mode line calculator
> program? I'll be writing it later today, and I'll make it open
> source if there is any interest.

Someone posted a link to one of those just the other day.

-- 
Rgds
Peter.          Linux Counter 5290, 1994-04-23.

Re: [gentoo-user] Upgrading from FX-5200 to a GeForce 6200 512MB

[Paul Hartman]

On Tue, Oct 19, 2010 at 8:44 AM, Peter Humphrey
<peter@humphrey.ukfsn.org> wrote:
> On Tuesday 19 October 2010 12:38:35 David W Noon wrote:
>
>> Incidentally, is anybody interested in a mode line calculator
>> program? I'll be writing it later today, and I'll make it open
>> source if there is any interest.
>
> Someone posted a link to one of those just the other day.

Maybe it was me mentioning x11-apps/amlc

:)

Re: [gentoo-user] Upgrading from FX-5200 to a GeForce 6200 512MB

[Paul Hartman]

On Tue, Oct 19, 2010 at 2:45 AM, Dale <rdalek1967@gmail.com> wrote:
> I am thinking of upgrading from a FX-5200 with 128Mb video card to a GeForce
> 6200 with 512MB.  It will be AGP since this is a older rig.  My system is
> something like this:
>
> Mobo:  Abit NF7 2.0
> CPU: AMD 2500+  No overclocking
> Memory:  2Gbs of 333Mhz.
> Monitor:  Gateway 19" running 1280 x 1024

Based on the selection at Newegg, I would highly recommend going with
one of the Radeon HD 3650 or 4650 cards which only cost a little more
than the one you're looking at. HD3650 is going to be 5x faster than
GeForce 6200 and HD4650 probably 10x faster.

I think your motherboard supports AGP 8x, and I'm not sure if there
are any power supply considerations or other features (number of DVI
heads, etc) but anyway that's my 2 cents. :)

I am an Nvidia video card guy through and through, but in this case
the AGP Nvidia cards on offer there are ancient and slow compared to
their ATI counterparts.

Re: [gentoo-user] Upgrading from FX-5200 to a GeForce 6200 512MB

[Dale]

Paul Hartman wrote:
> On Tue, Oct 19, 2010 at 2:45 AM, Dale<rdalek1967@gmail.com>  wrote:
>    
>> I am thinking of upgrading from a FX-5200 with 128Mb video card to a GeForce
>> 6200 with 512MB.  It will be AGP since this is a older rig.  My system is
>> something like this:
>>
>> Mobo:  Abit NF7 2.0
>> CPU: AMD 2500+  No overclocking
>> Memory:  2Gbs of 333Mhz.
>> Monitor:  Gateway 19" running 1280 x 1024
>>      
> Based on the selection at Newegg, I would highly recommend going with
> one of the Radeon HD 3650 or 4650 cards which only cost a little more
> than the one you're looking at. HD3650 is going to be 5x faster than
> GeForce 6200 and HD4650 probably 10x faster.
>
> I think your motherboard supports AGP 8x, and I'm not sure if there
> are any power supply considerations or other features (number of DVI
> heads, etc) but anyway that's my 2 cents. :)
>
> I am an Nvidia video card guy through and through, but in this case
> the AGP Nvidia cards on offer there are ancient and slow compared to
> their ATI counterparts.
>
>    

I'm a nvidia guy.  I'm not big on ATI at all.  Just sort of not my cup 
of tea.  I have read they have better Linux support than a long time ago 
but they came in a little to late for me.

I just wish that thing had a bigger heat sink on it with fans.  I may 
change that thing pretty quick.

Thanks.

Dale

:-)  :-)

Re: [gentoo-user] Upgrading from FX-5200 to a GeForce 6200 512MB

[Paul Hartman]

On Tue, Oct 19, 2010 at 3:27 PM, Dale <rdalek1967@gmail.com> wrote:
> Paul Hartman wrote:
>>
>> On Tue, Oct 19, 2010 at 2:45 AM, Dale<rdalek1967@gmail.com>  wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> I am thinking of upgrading from a FX-5200 with 128Mb video card to a
>>> GeForce
>>> 6200 with 512MB.  It will be AGP since this is a older rig.  My system is
>>> something like this:
>>>
>>> Mobo:  Abit NF7 2.0
>>> CPU: AMD 2500+  No overclocking
>>> Memory:  2Gbs of 333Mhz.
>>> Monitor:  Gateway 19" running 1280 x 1024
>>>
>>
>> Based on the selection at Newegg, I would highly recommend going with
>> one of the Radeon HD 3650 or 4650 cards which only cost a little more
>> than the one you're looking at. HD3650 is going to be 5x faster than
>> GeForce 6200 and HD4650 probably 10x faster.
>>
>> I think your motherboard supports AGP 8x, and I'm not sure if there
>> are any power supply considerations or other features (number of DVI
>> heads, etc) but anyway that's my 2 cents. :)
>>
>> I am an Nvidia video card guy through and through, but in this case
>> the AGP Nvidia cards on offer there are ancient and slow compared to
>> their ATI counterparts.
>>
>>
>
> I'm a nvidia guy.  I'm not big on ATI at all.  Just sort of not my cup of
> tea.  I have read they have better Linux support than a long time ago but
> they came in a little to late for me.
>
> I just wish that thing had a bigger heat sink on it with fans.  I may change
> that thing pretty quick.
>
> Thanks.

Okay then :) To return to your original question, I think going from
FX-5200 to Geforce 6200 should probably give you something like 15%
performance improvement. I don't think either card is new enough to be
supported by vdpau so there won't be anything gained there.

6200 uses the current drivers (260.xx) whereas the 5200 is on the
legacy drivers (173.xx), maybe there are additional 3D effects
supported by the newer chipset/drivers. There's a humongous matrix of
nvidia chipset and model numbers somewhere on the internet that
explains the differences but I can't seem to find it at the moment. My
Google-fu is failing me. :)

Re: [gentoo-user] Upgrading from FX-5200 to a GeForce 6200 512MB

[Adam Carter]

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There's a humongous matrix of

> nvidia chipset and model numbers somewhere on the internet that
> explains the differences but I can't seem to find it at the moment. My
> Google-fu is failing me. :)
>
>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_NVIDIA_graphics_processing_units

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Re: [gentoo-user] Upgrading from FX-5200 to a GeForce 6200 512MB

[Dale]

Paul Hartman wrote:
> On Tue, Oct 19, 2010 at 3:27 PM, Dale<rdalek1967@gmail.com>  wrote:
>    
>> Paul Hartman wrote:
>>      
>>> On Tue, Oct 19, 2010 at 2:45 AM, Dale<rdalek1967@gmail.com>    wrote:
>>>
>>>        
>>>> I am thinking of upgrading from a FX-5200 with 128Mb video card to a
>>>> GeForce
>>>> 6200 with 512MB.  It will be AGP since this is a older rig.  My system is
>>>> something like this:
>>>>
>>>> Mobo:  Abit NF7 2.0
>>>> CPU: AMD 2500+  No overclocking
>>>> Memory:  2Gbs of 333Mhz.
>>>> Monitor:  Gateway 19" running 1280 x 1024
>>>>
>>>>          
>>> Based on the selection at Newegg, I would highly recommend going with
>>> one of the Radeon HD 3650 or 4650 cards which only cost a little more
>>> than the one you're looking at. HD3650 is going to be 5x faster than
>>> GeForce 6200 and HD4650 probably 10x faster.
>>>
>>> I think your motherboard supports AGP 8x, and I'm not sure if there
>>> are any power supply considerations or other features (number of DVI
>>> heads, etc) but anyway that's my 2 cents. :)
>>>
>>> I am an Nvidia video card guy through and through, but in this case
>>> the AGP Nvidia cards on offer there are ancient and slow compared to
>>> their ATI counterparts.
>>>
>>>
>>>        
>> I'm a nvidia guy.  I'm not big on ATI at all.  Just sort of not my cup of
>> tea.  I have read they have better Linux support than a long time ago but
>> they came in a little to late for me.
>>
>> I just wish that thing had a bigger heat sink on it with fans.  I may change
>> that thing pretty quick.
>>
>> Thanks.
>>      
> Okay then :) To return to your original question, I think going from
> FX-5200 to Geforce 6200 should probably give you something like 15%
> performance improvement. I don't think either card is new enough to be
> supported by vdpau so there won't be anything gained there.
>
> 6200 uses the current drivers (260.xx) whereas the 5200 is on the
> legacy drivers (173.xx), maybe there are additional 3D effects
> supported by the newer chipset/drivers. There's a humongous matrix of
> nvidia chipset and model numbers somewhere on the internet that
> explains the differences but I can't seem to find it at the moment. My
> Google-fu is failing me. :)
>
>
>    

One thing I was hoping is that the newer drivers would work better.  I 
would think they only update what they have to for new kernels and 
such.  That is my hope.  It does seem to get slower as time goes on but 
I'm not sure how much that is the drivers and how much that is to do 
with the new KDE4.  I'm sure KDE4 has a good bit to do with it too.

That is about the fastest card I could find that was AGP tho.  I may 
look around and see what else I can find to tho.

Dale

:-)  :-)

Re: [gentoo-user] Upgrading from FX-5200 to a GeForce 6200 512MB

[Dale]

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Adam Carter wrote:
> There's a humongous matrix of
>
>     nvidia chipset and model numbers somewhere on the internet that
>     explains the differences but I can't seem to find it at the moment. My
>     Google-fu is failing me. :)
>
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_NVIDIA_graphics_processing_units


Nice link.  I didn't even think of looking on that site.  I guess one 
good thing to go by is the processing power and memory.  After all, 
that's what makes it all work faster.  Looks like I'm still getting a 
pretty old card but I don't play any hard core games or anything.  
Playing videos is about as much load as the card will see with me.  I do 
play Kpatience tho.  Love my card games.

Thanks.

Dale

:-)  :-)

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Re: [gentoo-user] Upgrading from FX-5200 to a GeForce 6200 512MB

[Dale]

Florian Philipp wrote:
> Am 19.10.2010 14:23, schrieb Dale:
>    
>> Florian Philipp wrote:
>>      
>>> Am 19.10.2010 09:45, schrieb Dale:
>>>
>>>        
>>>> Hi,
>>>>
>>>> I am thinking of upgrading from a FX-5200 with 128Mb video card to a
>>>> GeForce 6200 with 512MB.  It will be AGP since this is a older rig.  My
>>>> system is something like this:
>>>>
>>>> Mobo:  Abit NF7 2.0
>>>> CPU: AMD 2500+  No overclocking
>>>> Memory:  2Gbs of 333Mhz.
>>>> Monitor:  Gateway 19" running 1280 x 1024
>>>>
>>>> I think my memory is fine, it never uses all of it, or even half of it,
>>>> except for caching stuff.  I may try to get a 3000+ or 3200+ CPU if I
>>>> can run up on a good deal.  I'm thinking of doing the video card first
>>>> because it is cheaper.  I have also noticed that playing movies on here
>>>> is getting a bit slow if I go full screen or close to full screen.   I'm
>>>> bad to download from youtube and then play them locally full screen or
>>>> as close as it will allow.
>>>>
>>>> I do use the nvidia drivers.  Currently:
>>>>
>>>> nvidia-drivers-173.14.25
>>>>
>>>> I'm on that one because I think I need to upgrade my kernel to use the
>>>> latest one that was recently put in the tree.  I'm looking at this card:
>>>>
>>>> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814133328
>>>>
>>>> What kind of improvement can I expect from this video card upgrade?
>>>> While I am at it, the CPU upgrade won't make that much difference
>>>> right?  Maybe 20% or so faster or something like that?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>          
>>> Hi Dale,
>>>
>>> first and foremost, a newer card will allow you to use the newest driver
>>> series (195.*.*) which is always a good thing ;)
>>>
>>> It also gives you more texture units. You can use these to transfer more
>>> work to your GPU (mostly scaling and such). Take a look at `man mplayer`
>>> section '-vo gl' for a list of options.
>>> VLC has similar options, I think. I don't know about gstreamer or xine.
>>>
>>> I could be wrong but I don't think that adobe-flash uses these options.
>>> That is probably part of the problem why flash is so much slower on
>>> GNU/Linux than on Windows. If my assumption is true, you are better off
>>> buying a faster CPU.
>>>
>>> You could also test how gnash performs. Since it uses ffmpeg (AFAIK) it
>>> might be worth a try.
>>>
>>> Please take my advices with a big dose of salt. While I still run an old
>>> desktop with nearly identical specs, I almost never use Youtube and
>>> therefore have no experience with that.
>>>
>>> Hope this helps,
>>> Florian Philipp
>>>
>>>
>>>        
>> This particular card I think uses the latest 260.* drivers.  That's
>> according to the nvidia site but sometimes that is not correct either.
>>
>> Anyway, I always download the videos off youtube or where ever and then
>> watch them with smplayer locally.  It generally works better for the
>> most part.  I just have the slow DSL so it skips a bit on some if I
>> don't download it first.  I do need a faster CPU but want to get the
>> card first.  I do sometimes max out the CPU when watching a video but I
>> think most of the time it is the card that is just getting old and needs
>> a new one that is a little faster at least.  For the price, I was going
>> to get a card that is a good bit faster.
>>
>>      
> [...]
>
> Ah, in that case tweaking your mplayer config might really help. Look at
> the man page for options (-vo gl:...).
>
> You really have to try every option and sometimes reasonable
> combinations. I've found that even if the man page says it is a slow
> option, sometimes it's the fastest. As I've said before, you will reach
> the maximum number of texture units in your card, therefore certain
> options will not work together but the man page tells you how many
> texture units each option needs. With that info it should be easy to
> tweak your settings.
>
> To get you going, try mplayer -vo gl:yuv=2:lscale=1:cscale=1<file>
> Don't forget to test it in fullscreen mode.
>
> You can later apply these options either in /etc/mplayer/mplayer.conf or
> in ~/.mplayer/config like this: "vo=gl:yuv=2:lscale=1:cscale=1"
>
> Hope this helps,
> Florian Philipp
>
>    

I'll look into that in a bit.  Sort of having a so so day today.  Those 
options may help tho.  I mostly play mp4's tho.  They can be pretty big.

Dale

:-)  :-)

Re: [gentoo-user] Upgrading from FX-5200 to a GeForce 6200 512MB

[Adam Carter]

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> Nice link.  I didn't even think of looking on that site.  I guess one good
> thing to go by is the processing power and memory.  After all, that's what
> makes it all work faster.  Looks like I'm still getting a pretty old card
> but I don't play any hard core games or anything.  Playing videos is about
> as much load as the card will see with me.  I do play Kpatience tho.  Love
> my card games.
>
>
I would have thought you would have no problems at all with your current
system. IIRC I had no problem with full screen SD video using mplayer on a
Athlon 2200 with a crappy integrated 440MX video... what's the CPU
utilization when you're playing the full screen video?

I'm just thinking changing the card might not make any difference.

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Re: [gentoo-user] Upgrading from FX-5200 to a GeForce 6200 512MB

[Dale]

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Adam Carter wrote:
>
>     Nice link.  I didn't even think of looking on that site.  I guess
>     one good thing to go by is the processing power and memory.  After
>     all, that's what makes it all work faster.  Looks like I'm still
>     getting a pretty old card but I don't play any hard core games or
>     anything.  Playing videos is about as much load as the card will
>     see with me.  I do play Kpatience tho.  Love my card games.
>
>
> I would have thought you would have no problems at all with your 
> current system. IIRC I had no problem with full screen SD video using 
> mplayer on a Athlon 2200 with a crappy integrated 440MX video... 
> what's the CPU utilization when you're playing the full screen video?
>
> I'm just thinking changing the card might not make any difference.

The CPU is usually at about 40 or 50% or so.  Sometimes it goes higher 
but I can usually watch a video while emerge is running as far as CPU 
time goes, although emerge takes longer that way.

I'm wondering if the card may be getting hot and slowing down because of 
that?  i replaced the heat sink a good while back and I got more than 
enough cooling on the case.  The heat sink has a fan and maybe it is not 
turning or something.  I did blow out the dust a while back and I do 
have filters over the intakes to help some.

Dale

:-)  :-)

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Re: [gentoo-user] Upgrading from FX-5200 to a GeForce 6200 512MB

[Paul Hartman]

On Tue, Oct 19, 2010 at 11:12 PM, Dale <rdalek1967@gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm wondering if the card may be getting hot and slowing down because of
> that?  i replaced the heat sink a good while back and I got more than enough
> cooling on the case.  The heat sink has a fan and maybe it is not turning or
> something.  I did blow out the dust a while back and I do have filters over
> the intakes to help some.

Some Nvidia cards can go into a slow-motion mode when they overheat, I
had that happen on mine (it was a 6000 or 7000 series, I think) when
the fan died and I didn't realize it. The slowdown was dramatic in
those cases. It would usually happen if I was playing a game or a
video, suddenly it would go 2 frames per second. I'd stop the
game/video, and even things like opening a window were slow. After a
minute or two, everything would be back to normal speed. Eventually I
learned that the card was protecting itself by switching to an
ultra-slow mode to try to fight the overheating.

nvidia-settings may be able to show you the temperature and speeds on
your card. You might need to add:

Option "coolbits" "1"

to the device section in your xorg.conf to get it to show you some of
those options if they aren't initially visible.

Re: [gentoo-user] Upgrading from FX-5200 to a GeForce 6200 512MB

[Dale]

Paul Hartman wrote:
> On Tue, Oct 19, 2010 at 11:12 PM, Dale<rdalek1967@gmail.com>  wrote:
>    
>> I'm wondering if the card may be getting hot and slowing down because of
>> that?  i replaced the heat sink a good while back and I got more than enough
>> cooling on the case.  The heat sink has a fan and maybe it is not turning or
>> something.  I did blow out the dust a while back and I do have filters over
>> the intakes to help some.
>>      
> Some Nvidia cards can go into a slow-motion mode when they overheat, I
> had that happen on mine (it was a 6000 or 7000 series, I think) when
> the fan died and I didn't realize it. The slowdown was dramatic in
> those cases. It would usually happen if I was playing a game or a
> video, suddenly it would go 2 frames per second. I'd stop the
> game/video, and even things like opening a window were slow. After a
> minute or two, everything would be back to normal speed. Eventually I
> learned that the card was protecting itself by switching to an
> ultra-slow mode to try to fight the overheating.
>
> nvidia-settings may be able to show you the temperature and speeds on
> your card. You might need to add:
>
> Option "coolbits" "1"
>
> to the device section in your xorg.conf to get it to show you some of
> those options if they aren't initially visible.
>
>    

I appear to have another issue to deal with right now.  This is weird.  
When I type in any nvclock command, I get something like this:

root@smoker / # nvclock -i
*** buffer overflow detected ***: nvclock terminated
======= Backtrace: =========
/lib/libc.so.6(__fortify_fail+0x50)[0xb75af850]
/lib/libc.so.6(+0xe18aa)[0xb75ad8aa]
/lib/libc.so.6(+0xe0f78)[0xb75acf78]
/lib/libc.so.6(__overflow+0x4a)[0xb753670a]
/lib/libc.so.6(_IO_vfprintf+0x50b9)[0xb750db39]
/lib/libc.so.6(__vsprintf_chk+0xa7)[0xb75ad027]
/lib/libc.so.6(__sprintf_chk+0x2d)[0xb75acf6d]
nvclock[0x8057317]
[0x30322e34]
======= Memory map: ========
08048000-08060000 r-xp 00000000 08:16 311032     /usr/bin/nvclock
08060000-08061000 r--p 00017000 08:16 311032     /usr/bin/nvclock
08061000-08062000 rw-p 00018000 08:16 311032     /usr/bin/nvclock
09369000-0938a000 rw-p 00000000 00:00 0          [heap]
b731f000-b733b000 r-xp 00000000 08:16 2070143    
/usr/lib/gcc/i686-pc-linux-gnu/4.4.3/libgcc_s.so.1
b733b000-b733c000 r--p 0001b000 08:16 2070143    
/usr/lib/gcc/i686-pc-linux-gnu/4.4.3/libgcc_s.so.1
b733c000-b733d000 rw-p 0001c000 08:16 2070143    
/usr/lib/gcc/i686-pc-linux-gnu/4.4.3/libgcc_s.so.1
b7360000-b7370000 rw-s dc300000 00:0d 8375       /dev/nvidia0
b7370000-b7470000 rw-s dc700000 00:0d 8375       /dev/nvidia0
b7470000-b74a0000 rw-s dc000000 00:0d 8375       /dev/nvidia0
b74a0000-b74a1000 rw-p 00000000 00:00 0
b74a1000-b74a5000 r-xp 00000000 08:16 242258     /usr/lib/libXdmcp.so.6.0.0
b74a5000-b74a6000 r--p 00003000 08:16 242258     /usr/lib/libXdmcp.so.6.0.0
b74a6000-b74a7000 rw-p 00004000 08:16 242258     /usr/lib/libXdmcp.so.6.0.0
b74a7000-b74a9000 r-xp 00000000 08:16 179499     /usr/lib/libXau.so.6.0.0
b74a9000-b74aa000 r--p 00001000 08:16 179499     /usr/lib/libXau.so.6.0.0
b74aa000-b74ab000 rw-p 00002000 08:16 179499     /usr/lib/libXau.so.6.0.0
b74ab000-b74ac000 rw-p 00000000 00:00 0
b74ac000-b74ae000 r-xp 00000000 08:16 3019384    /lib/libdl-2.11.2.so
b74ae000-b74af000 r--p 00001000 08:16 3019384    /lib/libdl-2.11.2.so
b74af000-b74b0000 rw-p 00002000 08:16 3019384    /lib/libdl-2.11.2.so
b74b0000-b74ca000 r-xp 00000000 08:16 2178229    /usr/lib/libxcb.so.1.1.0
b74ca000-b74cb000 r--p 00019000 08:16 2178229    /usr/lib/libxcb.so.1.1.0
b74cb000-b74cc000 rw-p 0001a000 08:16 2178229    /usr/lib/libxcb.so.1.1.0
b74cc000-b760c000 r-xp 00000000 08:16 3018521    /lib/libc-2.11.2.so
b760c000-b760e000 r--p 0013f000 08:16 3018521    /lib/libc-2.11.2.so
b760e000-b760f000 rw-p 00141000 08:16 3018521    /lib/libc-2.11.2.so
b760f000-b7612000 rw-p 00000000 00:00 0
b7612000-b7620000 r-xp 00000000 08:16 623393     /usr/lib/libXext.so.6.4.0
b7620000-b7621000 r--p 0000d000 08:16 623393     /usr/lib/libXext.so.6.4.0
b7621000-b7622000 rw-p 0000e000 08:16 623393     /usr/lib/libXext.so.6.4.0
b7622000-b773e000 r-xp 00000000 08:16 2143515    /usr/lib/libX11.so.6.3.0
b773e000-b773f000 r--p 0011b000 08:16 2143515    /usr/lib/libX11.so.6.3.0
b773f000-b7742000 rw-p 0011c000 08:16 2143515    /usr/lib/libX11.so.6.3.0
b774f000-b7751000 rw-s dc680000 00:0d 8375       /dev/nvidia0
b7751000-b7761000 rw-s dc610000 00:0d 8375       /dev/nvidia0
b7761000-b7763000 rw-s dc601000 00:0d 8375       /dev/nvidia0
b7763000-b7764000 rw-s dc100000 00:0d 8375       /dev/nvidia0
b7764000-b7765000 rw-s dc101000 00:0d 8375       /dev/nvidia0
b7765000-b7766000 rw-p 00000000 00:00 0
b7766000-b7767000 r-xp 00000000 00:00 0          [vdso]
b7767000-b7783000 r-xp 00000000 08:16 3019734    /lib/ld-2.11.2.so
b7783000-b7784000 r--p 0001b000 08:16 3019734    /lib/ld-2.11.2.so
b7784000-b7785000 rw-p 0001c000 08:16 3019734    /lib/ld-2.11.2.so
bfe28000-bfe49000 rw-p 00000000 00:00 0          [stack]
Aborted
root@smoker / #


I guess I'll have to take the side off the case and use the infrared 
thingy and look to see if the fan is turning.   I'm not sure what is 
going on with the buffer overflow error tho.

Dale

:-)  :-)

Re: [gentoo-user] Upgrading from FX-5200 to a GeForce 6200 512MB

[Paul Hartman]

On Wed, Oct 20, 2010 at 1:25 PM, Dale <rdalek1967@gmail.com> wrote:
> I appear to have another issue to deal with right now.  This is weird.  When
> I type in any nvclock command, I get something like this:
>
> root@smoker / # nvclock -i
> *** buffer overflow detected ***: nvclock terminated

Seems like maybe that is glibc stopping you from running a program
with a (potential) buffer overflow. You can set an environment
variable to make it stop doing that and let you run the program
anyway, assuming you don't want to edit nvclock's source code to fix
the problem. :)

Try:

MALLOC_CHECK_=0 nvclock -i

("man malloc" for more info)

Re: [gentoo-user] Upgrading from FX-5200 to a GeForce 6200 512MB

[Dale]

Paul Hartman wrote:
> MALLOC_CHECK_=0 nvclock -i

It appears that it is more serious than that setting can overcome.  Same 
error as before.  I'm running glibc-2.11.2.  Anyone having a similar 
issue with that version?

Try to fix one thing and find something else broke.  lol

Dale

:-)  :-)