XF86-VIDEO-NV driver does not recognize ports on NVIDIA graphics card.

H

huskers

I have an old graphics card (6200LE) which is not supported by Nvidia post xorg-server-1.18. I switched to an open-source driver, and all was well until I upgraded my monitor to an LG 32" QHD early this year.

The open-source driver does not recognize my panel dimensions and switches to 1024 x 768 resolution. When xrandr is executed I get "xrandr: Failed to get the size of gamma for output default". I tried various options like reinstalling all the drivers and changing various options on xorg.conf but with no results. I'm trying if I can at least 1080P resolution on this instance of Freebsd-13. Xorg log shows it recognizes the card, but it does not show the ports.

I have two ports 1. VGA 2. DVI


To check out if I could replicate the issue with the Nvidia driver, I did a fresh install on a new partition with Freebsd-12 with the last version of xorg-server-1.18 and Nvidia drivers; when I ran xrandr, the response showed all the ports, and I was able to get a resolution of 1920x1080. This is fine with me.

Trying to find what I'm missing for open source nv driver that is preventing it from not recognizing my display ports.

Let me know what additional info I need to share to help drive triaging the issue.
 
nv(4) is an old and limited driver which is deprecated upstream since 2010 and wasn't ever meant for serious use:
nvidia said:
Historically, NVIDIA developed and maintained the xf86-video-nv X driver, primarily as a very minimal driver that works "well enough" to give users accelerated X rendering from the time they install their Linux distribution until the time they install the NVIDIA driver available from nvidia.com
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It's highly probable it just doesn't support higher resolutions.

Unfortunately there isn't a decent alternative driver available on FreeBSD for nvidia cards. Linux and NetBSD have nouveau which works ok, although not with the same performance as official drivers.
 
huskers said:
To check out if I could replicate the issue with the Nvidia driver, I did a fresh install on a new partition with Freebsd-12 with the last version of xorg-server-1.18 and Nvidia drivers;
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The oldest supported card on the latest x11/nvidia-driver is a GTX-750 I believe, that's several generations after the GeForce 6200 series.

sko said:
Geforce 6 Series is still supported by the 304 branch of the nvidia driver: https://www.nvidia.com/Download/driverResults.aspx/123712/en-us
x11/nvidia-driver-304
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Isn't that 304 driver broken due to changes to xserver? The 340 and 390 versions should still work, but those don't appear to support the Geforce 6200 anymore.
 
SirDice said:
The oldest supported card on the latest x11/nvidia-driver is a GTX-750 I believe, that's several generations after the GeForce 6200 series.


Isn't that 304 driver broken due to changes to xserver? The 340 and 390 versions should still work, but those don't appear to support the Geforce 6200 anymore.
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SirDice - Yes, you are right in stating 304 broke due to changes to xorg-server from 1.20 to address security issues and also how devices were being recognized. The last working version of xorg is 1.18.

sko - I did notice updates being made to the 304 branches, but it does not work with 1.20 xorg-server. It does work with 1.18, and I presume it is to support anyone still manually building with necessary updates on 1.18. I have not come across anyone manually building patches for 1.18 to keep it running. I did notice a few on the Linux side (mint, if I recollect) where members trying to keep the Nvidia driver afloat.
 
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huskers said:
SirDice - Yes, you are right in stating 304 broke due to changes to xorg-server from 1.20 to address security issues and also how devices were being recognized. The last working version of xorg is 1.18.

sko - I did notice updates being made to the 304 branches, but it does not work with 1.20 xorg-server. It does work with 1.18, and I presume it is to support anyone still manually building with necessary updates on 1.18. I have not come across anyone manually building patches for 1.18 to keep it running. I did notice a few on the Linux side (mint, if I recollect) where members trying to keep the Nvidia driver afloat.
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Thanks, I wasn't aware that this branch is broken.

I don't know if this may be still worth a PR for e.g. a "xorg-legacy" port with either version 1.18 patched for possible breakage in dependencies or 1.20 minus the commits that break older graphics drivers.
Given that the GPUs that aren't supported by the 340 branch are 15+ years old and supported predecessor hardware within the same (or higher) performance region can be found dirt-cheap, I don't think this is (developer-)time well spent.


Phishfry

I'm running a GT 710 for the very same reason in my workstation in the office - it's the last/'latest' card available with a 4-lane PCIe interface (the x6 and x8 ports are occupied by an NVMe HBA and a quad port NIC) and 4 display outputs.
Although that card still works perfectly fine with the 470 driver:
Code: 
# nvidia-smi -q | grep -e Name -e 'Driver Vers'
Driver Version                            : 470.86
Product Name                              : NVIDIA GeForce GT 710
 
sko said:
Thanks, I wasn't aware that this branch is broken.

I don't know if this may be still worth a PR for e.g. a "xorg-legacy" port with either version 1.18 patched for possible breakage in dependencies or 1.20 minus the commits that break older graphics drivers.
Given that the GPUs that aren't supported by the 340 branch are 15+ years old and supported predecessor hardware within the same (or higher) performance region can be found dirt-cheap, I don't think this is (developer-)time well spent.
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It may be worth it for some, as even used cards that are 5+ yrs old(< 10) still call for a premium on craigslist.
 
sko said:
aren't 5-10 years old chipsets all covered by version 340 and later drivers?
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They were NOT available at "Dirt Cheap" prices on CL at least in my area, though they seem to be falling as GPU card prices continue the downward trend.
 
When I compare the Xorg log between xorg-server 1.18 vs 1.21 what I noticed is nvidia driver is able to recognize the monitor and the display port to which it is connected. "NV" driver is recognizing the monitor as a CRT.

Also, nvidia driver is able to override the panel size from 1024 x 768 resolution to 1080P resolution vs "nv" driver states panel size cannot be overridden.

what options can be set in xorg.conf file for xorg server to override panel size?
 
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