Hi Everyone
I'm not sure if this has been done to death or not, but i can not get the 4496
and 5328 versions of the NVidia kernel to work on the 2.6.1 version of (you
guessed it) Linux.
I've googled about but not really found any great stuff. I did find this:
http://www.kerneltrap.org/node/view/1804
and from there the link to http://minion.de
I've tried it with both versions of the driver, with both versions of the
drivers Makefile (Makefile.nvidia and Makefile.kbuild).
With the installer and with just make install (make kernel_module_install).
The message i get is that the module is the wrong format.
The files that i can get to appear in:
/lib/modules/2.6.1/kernel/drivers/video are nvidia.ko & nvidia.o
Originally i thought they were the same file, but they have different sizes
(afterall)
chakkerz@stormcrow:/lib/modules/2.6.1/kernel/drivers/video$ ls -l
total 4648
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root root 2376880 Jan 21 12:14 nvidia.ko
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root root 2376702 Jan 21 12:15 nvidia.o
so: i've tried unpatched, patched, old and new drivers, installer and make,
make in the installers root, and it's sub director usr/src/nv ... oh yes, and
different versions of the patch.
could someone please tell me where to find out how to make this work, because
linux without GUI is little use to me.
In case it matters:
This is an AMD Athlon XP 2800+ on a Gigabyte GA-7N400 Pro2 MoBo (nforce2). The
FFX is an Abit Siluro GeForce 4 Ti4200 OTES. 2 sticks of 256 Corsair DDR in
dual channel. The kernel compiles i tried were with AGPGART integrated (and
the nforce/nforce2 also integrated) as well as AGPGART as a module. Most of
the stuff i tried with AGPGART as a module.
--
with kind regards,
Christian Unger
"You don't need eyes to see, you need vision" (Faithless - Reverence)
Mobile: 0402 268904
Internet: http://naiv.sourceforge.net
NAIV Status:
Stable Testing Development
0.2.3r2 0.3.0 0.3.1 - File Handling
"May there be mercy on man and machine for their sins" (Animatrix)
On Thu, Jan 22, 2004 at 10:12:17AM +1100, Christian Unger wrote:
> I'm not sure if this has been done to death or not, but i can not get the 4496
> and 5328 versions of the NVidia kernel to work on the 2.6.1 version of (you
> guessed it) Linux.
Complain to nVidia.
--
Tomasz Torcz Only gods can safely risk perfection,
[email protected] it's a dangerous thing for a man. -- Alia
> Complain to nVidia.
yeah i did think about that, except
"
NVIDIA provides superior 3D graphics processors to the computer industry's
leading add-in card manufacturers and PC OEMs. We do not sell any products
directly to end users so we do not have a staff dedicated to end-user
technical support. If you are having a problem with any NVIDIA-based product,
please contact either the PC or board manufacturer of your product.
"
So who writes the drivers??
--
with kind regards,
Christian Unger
"You don't need eyes to see, you need vision" (Faithless - Reverence)
Mobile: 0402 268904
Internet: http://naiv.sourceforge.net
NAIV Status:
Stable Testing Development
0.2.3r2 0.3.0 0.3.1 - File Handling
"May there be mercy on man and machine for their sins" (Animatrix)
El Thu, 22 Jan 2004 10:12:17 +1100 Christian Unger <[email protected]> escribi?:
Have you tried to contact Nvidia? If lots of people ask them for the
drivers they'll develop them faster, me thinks...
On Wednesday 21 January 2004 05:12 pm, Christian Unger wrote:
> Hi Everyone
>
> I'm not sure if this has been done to death or not, but i can not get the
> 4496 and 5328 versions of the NVidia kernel to work on the 2.6.1 version of
> (you guessed it) Linux.
>
> I've googled about but not really found any great stuff. I did find this:
>
> http://www.kerneltrap.org/node/view/1804
> and from there the link to http://minion.de
Did you try the installers from http://www.sh.nu/download/nvidia/ ?
http://minion.de refers to them, and they appear to work fine here.
>
> I've tried it with both versions of the driver, with both versions of the
> drivers Makefile (Makefile.nvidia and Makefile.kbuild).
>
> With the installer and with just make install (make kernel_module_install).
> The message i get is that the module is the wrong format.
Wrong (or no) module-init-tools? Mine currently is
module-init-tools-3.0-0.pre5.2mdk from the Mandrake cooker, although I've not
had trouble for some time with any version. The nvidia.ko file is the one
that will load under a 2.6 kernel. The wrong format message sounds like you
don't have module-init-tools installed, although I would expect getting your
nvidia card to run would be the least of your problems.
You could also switch over in your XFConfig-4 to the nv driver that is part of
the kernel build. That should get your system running with X, letting you
solve the nvidia driver problems later.
> The files that i can get to appear in:
> /lib/modules/2.6.1/kernel/drivers/video are nvidia.ko & nvidia.o
> Originally i thought they were the same file, but they have different sizes
> (afterall)
> chakkerz@stormcrow:/lib/modules/2.6.1/kernel/drivers/video$ ls -l
> total 4648
> -rw-rw-r-- 1 root root 2376880 Jan 21 12:14 nvidia.ko
> -rw-rw-r-- 1 root root 2376702 Jan 21 12:15 nvidia.o
>
> so: i've tried unpatched, patched, old and new drivers, installer and make,
> make in the installers root, and it's sub director usr/src/nv ... oh yes,
> and different versions of the patch.
>
> could someone please tell me where to find out how to make this work,
> because linux without GUI is little use to me.
>
> In case it matters:
> This is an AMD Athlon XP 2800+ on a Gigabyte GA-7N400 Pro2 MoBo (nforce2).
> The FFX is an Abit Siluro GeForce 4 Ti4200 OTES. 2 sticks of 256 Corsair
> DDR in dual channel. The kernel compiles i tried were with AGPGART
> integrated (and the nforce/nforce2 also integrated) as well as AGPGART as a
> module. Most of the stuff i tried with AGPGART as a module.
What messages do you get about what is going wrong? What happens when you so
a modprobe nvidia? What does your log file from XFree show?
Paul
About module-init-tools ... dunno ... never heard of it, I'm on Slackware 9.1
so ... dunno ... Not sure. But like you say, if i could not initalize modules
the nvidia module should be the least of my worries, plus everything loads in
2.4.22
>
> What messages do you get about what is going wrong? What happens when you
> so a modprobe nvidia? What does your log file from XFree show?
on make install i get:
FATAL: Error inserting nvidia (/lib/modules/2.6.1/kernel/drivers/video/
nvidia.ko): Invalid module format
That's the same thing that modprobe nvidia gets.
I'll check the nv thing out.
One interesting error / warning i get during boot is this (from /var/log/
syslog) :
Jan 22 10:43:08 stormcrow kernel: nvidia: version magic '2.6.1 preempt K7
gcc-3.2' should be '2.6.1 preempt K7 gcc-3.3'
Jan 22 10:46:15 stormcrow kernel: nvidia: version magic '2.6.1 preempt K7
gcc-3.2' should be '2.6.1 preempt K7 gcc-3.3'
Not sure what to make of this. I know that 4496 had issues with the gcc
version i was running a while backed, and i had to hack the installer script
to ignore that (though i'm sure there is a switch for this stuff ... i was
over reading at that point).
As for the XFree log ... i don't have that one ...
--
with kind regards,
Christian Unger
"You don't need eyes to see, you need vision" (Faithless - Reverence)
Mobile: 0402 268904
Internet: http://naiv.sourceforge.net
NAIV Status:
Stable Testing Development
0.2.3r2 0.3.0 0.3.1 - File Handling
"May there be mercy on man and machine for their sins" (Animatrix)
On Wednesday 21 January 2004 06:05 pm, Christian Unger wrote:
> About module-init-tools ... dunno ... never heard of it, I'm on Slackware
> 9.1 so ... dunno ... Not sure. But like you say, if i could not initalize
> modules the nvidia module should be the least of my worries, plus
> everything loads in 2.4.22
The 2.6 kernel needs new tools to load the kernel modules, because they have a
different format (not just a different extension with .ko).
module-init-tools provides those necessary upgrades, and also aids in
creating /etc/modprobe.conf, which is used instead of /etc/modules.conf under
the 2.6 kernels for loading modules on startup. If you don't have
module-init-tools, then I'm not surprised you are having problems. You
probably need an updated mkinitrd as well if you are using an initrd on
system startup.
They should be at http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/rusty/modules/
You probably want to read a document that summarized the changes that happened
in 2.6, which is where the link above was located. It is
http://www.linux.org.uk/~davej/docs/post-halloween-2.6.txt
Not knowing much about Slackware, I couldn't give you much help about where
the best place to get your tools from might be, except for the source above.
> > What messages do you get about what is going wrong? What happens when
> > you so a modprobe nvidia? What does your log file from XFree show?
>
> on make install i get:
> FATAL: Error inserting nvidia (/lib/modules/2.6.1/kernel/drivers/video/
> nvidia.ko): Invalid module format
>
> That's the same thing that modprobe nvidia gets.
> I'll check the nv thing out.
>
> One interesting error / warning i get during boot is this (from /var/log/
> syslog) :
> Jan 22 10:43:08 stormcrow kernel: nvidia: version magic '2.6.1 preempt K7
> gcc-3.2' should be '2.6.1 preempt K7 gcc-3.3'
> Jan 22 10:46:15 stormcrow kernel: nvidia: version magic '2.6.1 preempt K7
> gcc-3.2' should be '2.6.1 preempt K7 gcc-3.3'
>
> Not sure what to make of this. I know that 4496 had issues with the gcc
> version i was running a while backed, and i had to hack the installer
> script to ignore that (though i'm sure there is a switch for this stuff ...
> i was over reading at that point).
>
> As for the XFree log ... i don't have that one ...
/var/log/XFree86.0.log would be the place. I don't think there will be
anything interesting there until you get your module-init-tools installed.
I hope this has helped.
Paul
On Wednesday 21 January 2004 19:24, Paul Misner wrote:
> On Wednesday 21 January 2004 06:05 pm, Christian Unger wrote:
> > About module-init-tools ... dunno ... never heard of it, I'm on Slackware
> > 9.1 so ... dunno ... Not sure. But like you say, if i could not initalize
> > modules the nvidia module should be the least of my worries, plus
> > everything loads in 2.4.22
Slackware 9.1 comes with module-init-tools in anticipation of 2.6. did you run
a full install or select by hand?
--
Rob Couto
[email protected]
Rules for computing success:
1) Attitude is no substitute for competence.
2) Ease of use is no substitute for power.
3) Safety matters; use a static-free hammer.
--
torsdagen den 22 januari 2004 00.28 skrev Christian Unger:
> > Complain to nVidia.
>
> yeah i did think about that, except
> "
> NVIDIA provides superior 3D graphics processors to the computer industry's
> leading add-in card manufacturers and PC OEMs. We do not sell any products
> directly to end users so we do not have a staff dedicated to end-user
> technical support. If you are having a problem with any NVIDIA-based product,
> please contact either the PC or board manufacturer of your product.
> "
>
> So who writes the drivers??
NVidia does. Check the download link for Linux/FreeBSD drivers and in particular the link to the Nvidial Linux forum.
-- robin
Hi. I also have an Nvidia Ti4200, running on Fedora Core with the
2.6.2-rc1 kernel. The easiest way to get the driver installed was to
grab a pre-built no-fuss installer from
http://www.sh.nu/download/nvidia/linux-2.6/ and after you build your new
kernel, boot into it, kill X and make sure it stays dead by modifying
/etc/inittab by changing
respawn:/etc/X11/prefdm -nodaemon
to
# x:5:respawn:/etc/X11/prefdm -nodaemon
(save) and type init q ...if X wasn't dead before, it is now. You
should now be able to install the driver (where ever you put it) by just
running >sh <drivername>
Assuming your XF86Config is still setup to deal with the binary nVidia
driver, when you uncomment the line in the /etc/inittab file and re-run
init q, X should start with an nvidia splash screen. Please be aware
that there are problems with agpgart on via chipsets (I don't have one,
I'm quoting from the minion page). And there is a procedure for getting
mesa (and optionally glut) installed alongside the binary nvidia driver
(and a bit more if you want tv with overscan).
> Hi, i have this drive working great for me.
> I aply a patch, then i recompile the source.
> If you prefer, i can send the source for you.
>
Well ... i've applied the patch and downloaded the pre-patched drivers,
sacrificed a virgin, installed the module loading stuff (just in case) and
still no joy.
So i think the fault is not with NVidia. or the patch. Maybe it's a flaw in
Slackware 9.1, or i'm just too thick.
I did get X to work with nv, but since i have a dodgy old monitor i can't get
the vertical alignment right (there probably is a way to do it -- SAX in SuSE
does the trick).
--
with kind regards,
Christian Unger
"You don't need eyes to see, you need vision" (Faithless - Reverence)
Mobile: 0402 268904
Internet: http://naiv.sourceforge.net
NAIV Status:
Stable Testing Development
0.2.3r2 0.3.0 0.3.1 - File Handling
"May there be mercy on man and machine for their sins" (Animatrix)
On approximately Wed, Jan 21, 2004 at 06:24:10PM -0600, Paul Misner wrote:
> On Wednesday 21 January 2004 06:05 pm, Christian Unger wrote:
> > About module-init-tools ... dunno ... never heard of it, I'm on Slackware
> > 9.1 so ... dunno ... Not sure. But like you say, if i could not initalize
> > modules the nvidia module should be the least of my worries, plus
> > everything loads in 2.4.22
>
> The 2.6 kernel needs new tools to load the kernel modules, because they have a
> different format (not just a different extension with .ko).
> module-init-tools provides those necessary upgrades, and also aids in
> creating /etc/modprobe.conf, which is used instead of /etc/modules.conf under
> the 2.6 kernels for loading modules on startup. If you don't have
> module-init-tools, then I'm not surprised you are having problems. You
> probably need an updated mkinitrd as well if you are using an initrd on
> system startup.
>
> They should be at http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/rusty/modules/
>
> You probably want to read a document that summarized the changes that happened
> in 2.6, which is where the link above was located. It is
> http://www.linux.org.uk/~davej/docs/post-halloween-2.6.txt
>
> Not knowing much about Slackware, I couldn't give you much help about where
> the best place to get your tools from might be, except for the source above.
>
> > > What messages do you get about what is going wrong? What happens when
> > > you so a modprobe nvidia? What does your log file from XFree show?
> >
> > on make install i get:
> > FATAL: Error inserting nvidia (/lib/modules/2.6.1/kernel/drivers/video/
> > nvidia.ko): Invalid module format
> >
> > That's the same thing that modprobe nvidia gets.
> > I'll check the nv thing out.
> >
My guess is you need to have a "built" kernel tree. Basically just
build the kernel, install, reboot, then without touching the kernel
tree you built rebuild the nvidia driver. I hope that makes sense.
--
Josh McKinney | Webmaster: http://joshandangie.org
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
| They that can give up essential liberty
Linux, the choice -o) | to obtain a little temporary safety deserve
of the GNU generation /\ | neither liberty or safety.
_\_v | -Benjamin Franklin
On Thursday 22 January 2004 23:12, Kieran wrote:
> How strange. I run slack 9.1 and 2.6.1, just grabbed the 4496
> pre-patched file from http://www.sh.nu/download/nvidia/ and installed it
> as I would on 2.4. Works a charm.
Hmm ... that does worry me a little then ... as there then is absolutely NO
reason for it not to work.
Maybe the virgin was not pure enough ... :)
Would you be able to possibly mail me a copy of your kernel configuration
file. In case i mucked something in it up .... i can't imagine what ... but
still if you could forward me a copy of the file, i'll try that.
--
with kind regards,
Christian Unger
"You don't need eyes to see, you need vision" (Faithless - Reverence)
Mobile: 0402 268904
Internet: http://naiv.sourceforge.net
NAIV Status:
Stable Testing Development
0.2.3r2 0.3.0 0.3.1 - File Handling
"May there be mercy on man and machine for their sins" (Animatrix)
How strange. I run slack 9.1 and 2.6.1, just grabbed the 4496
pre-patched file from http://www.sh.nu/download/nvidia/ and installed it
as I would on 2.4. Works a charm.
> Well ... i've applied the patch and downloaded the pre-patched drivers,
> sacrificed a virgin, installed the module loading stuff (just in case) and
> still no joy.
>
> So i think the fault is not with NVidia. or the patch. Maybe it's a flaw in
> Slackware 9.1, or i'm just too thick.
>
> I did get X to work with nv, but since i have a dodgy old monitor i can't get
> the vertical alignment right (there probably is a way to do it -- SAX in SuSE
> does the trick).
>
Thu, 22 Jan 2004 @ 22:52 +1100, Christian Unger said:
> Well ... i've applied the patch and downloaded the pre-patched drivers,
> sacrificed a virgin, installed the module loading stuff (just in case) and
> still no joy.
>
> So i think the fault is not with NVidia. or the patch. Maybe it's a flaw in
> Slackware 9.1, or i'm just too thick.
I have no problem myself.
I use the driver *.run files that have been patched to work with 2.6
kernels.
I don't have to build a thing, I just install them like I would under
kernel 2.4.
If you look at the minion website, there is a mirror in the download
list, and that mirror has install packages modified for 2.6.
It's completely automatic.
Maybe you should try that.
It will fail when it goes to the nvidia website to find precompiled glue
code, and then proceed to build the glue locally.
--
UNIX/Perl/C/Pizza____________________s h a n n o n@wido !SPAM maker.com
Thu, 22 Jan 2004 @ 12:12 +0000, Kieran said:
> How strange. I run slack 9.1 and 2.6.1, just grabbed the 4496
> pre-patched file from http://www.sh.nu/download/nvidia/ and installed it
> as I would on 2.4. Works a charm.
How's the performance?
I have found the 4496 and 5328 drivers lowered my performance.
5328 is supposed to be faster mip-mapping and faster when running with
vertical blank sync, but I didn't see it myself. It also caused quite a
few sound artifacts from my Live! sound card.
Anyone done a driver-by-driver benchmark?
I got tired of it, but here's the performance order on my system from
fastest to slowest:
4620
3xxx (last stable 3xxx driver)
4496
5328
Mostly what I look for are not benchmark numbers, but notable hesitation
in programs and interactive response, and side effects like bad sound
artifacts.
--
UNIX/Perl/C/Pizza____________________s h a n n o n@wido !SPAM maker.com
Are there any known issues with pci_alloc_consistent() allocating more
than 1MB?
One of our developers seems to recall a thread but we can't find it...
We are using pci_alloc_consistent() in our 10GbE driver, to allocate
memory for DMA transfers between
host and device.
If we allocate under 1MB, everything works fine. When the allocation is
more than 1 MB, allocation call does not return any failure but some
data corruption seems to take place beyond the 1 MB space.
Is this a known problem? The system is 2-way Itanium, running 2.4.21
kernel.
Thanks in advance, Leonid
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email protected]
> [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of
> Charles Shannon Hendrix
> Sent: Thursday, January 22, 2004 3:48 PM
> To: Linux Kernel
> Subject: Re: Nvidia drivers and 2.6.x kernel
>
>
> Thu, 22 Jan 2004 @ 12:12 +0000, Kieran said:
>
> > How strange. I run slack 9.1 and 2.6.1, just grabbed the 4496
> > pre-patched file from http://www.sh.nu/download/nvidia/ and
> installed it
> > as I would on 2.4. Works a charm.
>
> How's the performance?
>
> I have found the 4496 and 5328 drivers lowered my performance.
>
> 5328 is supposed to be faster mip-mapping and faster when
> running with vertical blank sync, but I didn't see it myself.
> It also caused quite a few sound artifacts from my Live! sound card.
>
> Anyone done a driver-by-driver benchmark?
>
> I got tired of it, but here's the performance order on my
> system from fastest to slowest:
>
> 4620
> 3xxx (last stable 3xxx driver)
> 4496
> 5328
>
> Mostly what I look for are not benchmark numbers, but notable
> hesitation in programs and interactive response, and side
> effects like bad sound artifacts.
>
>
>
>
> --
> UNIX/Perl/C/Pizza____________________s h a n n o n@wido !SPAM
> maker.com
> -
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe
> linux-kernel" in the body of a message to
> [email protected] More majordomo info at
http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
>>>>> "Leonid" == Leonid Grossman <[email protected]> writes:
Leonid> Are there any known issues with pci_alloc_consistent()
Leonid> allocating more than 1MB? One of our developers seems to
Leonid> recall a thread but we can't find it...
[snip]
Leonid> Is this a known problem? The system is 2-way Itanium, running
Leonid> 2.4.21 kernel.
Leonid,
What type of Itanium box? It's possible what you're seeing is caused
by a bug in the IOMMU code, but we would need to know which one (HP,
SGI or someone else's).
Cheers,
Jes
Hi Jes,
> Leonid,
>
> What type of Itanium box? It's possible what you're seeing is
> caused by a bug in the IOMMU code, but we would need to know
> which one (HP, SGI or someone else's).
The problem with pci_alloc_consistent()above 1MB happens on HP rx2600
(this is 2U dual-Itanium 900MHz pci-x 133 box). I don't believe it
happens on 64 bit Opterons. Today we are going to test Dell and SGI
Itanium systems, as well as a bit newer rx 2600 with Itanium-2 1.5GHz -
I'll let you know by the end of the day.
Thanks, Leonid
>
> Cheers,
> Jes
>
On Fri, 2004-01-23 at 07:37, Leonid Grossman wrote:
> Hi Jes,
>
> > Leonid,
> >
> > What type of Itanium box? It's possible what you're seeing is
> > caused by a bug in the IOMMU code, but we would need to know
> > which one (HP, SGI or someone else's).
>
> The problem with pci_alloc_consistent()above 1MB happens on HP rx2600
> (this is 2U dual-Itanium 900MHz pci-x 133 box). I don't believe it
> happens on 64 bit Opterons. Today we are going to test Dell and SGI
> Itanium systems, as well as a bit newer rx 2600 with Itanium-2 1.5GHz -
> I'll let you know by the end of the day.
The iommu code on zx1 boxes is currently limited to consistent
mappings of 64 * PAGE_SIZE. We need to implement the consistent dma
mask interface so that 64bit devices can bypass the iommu and dma as
much as they'd like. If you change your system page size to 64k, you
should be able to get up to 4MB mappings with the current code. Sounds
like we need to do a BUG or something to make it more obvious how this
is failing. It should be a pretty simple update to sba_iommu to make it
start looking at consistent_dma_mask in this path. I'll try to get a
patch sent out for it on 2.6. Thanks,
Alex
Kieran (et al)
Ok i tried the configuration you sent, and after working out that you have a
different motherboard chipset which caused the kernel to hang here whenever i
did anything that involved the hard disk (copy the drivers from my backup
partition to my work partition for instance - to ensure that i was using
"good copies") i even had signs of success.
Mere signs though. I continue being told it's an invalid format:
FATAL: Error inserting nvidia (/lib/modules/2.6.1/kernel/drivers/video/
nvidia.ko): Invalid module format
So ... i'm out of ideas ... i don't get why it ain't doing for me what it is
doing for everyone else. I am wondering IF something screwed up when i
upgraded Slackware 9.1 from 9.0 ... and in the interest of testing that
theory might do a rm -f / later and start from scratch. I haven't decided if
2.6 is worth that much yet though.
--
with kind regards,
Christian Unger
"You don't need eyes to see, you need vision" (Faithless - Reverence)
Mobile: 0402 268904
Internet: http://naiv.sourceforge.net
NAIV Status:
Stable Testing Development
0.2.3r2 0.3.0 0.3.1 - File Handling
"May there be mercy on man and machine for their sins" (Animatrix)
Mon, 26 Jan 2004 @ 10:24 +1100, Christian Unger said:
> So ... i'm out of ideas ... i don't get why it ain't doing for me what it is
> doing for everyone else. I am wondering IF something screwed up when i
> upgraded Slackware 9.1 from 9.0 ... and in the interest of testing that
> theory might do a rm -f / later and start from scratch. I haven't decided if
> 2.6 is worth that much yet though.
nVidia has released drivers supporting kernel 2.6 on their website.
They run nicely for me.
Hmmm... why do people say "they" when talking about a "driver"?
--
shannon "AT" widomaker.com -- ["An Irishman is never drunk as long as he
can hold onto one blade of grass and not fall off the face of the earth."]
Tue, 27 Jan 2004 @ 17:49 -0500, Charles Shannon Hendrix said:
> nVidia has released drivers supporting kernel 2.6 on their website.
>
> They run nicely for me.
Followup note: Running the new nVidia drivers, I see a huge drop in the
size of the X server.
My normal X server virgual memory size was around 260MB. If I played a
game like Infiltration, it would rise to 300MB. After exiting the game,
the virtual size stayed where it was. It never shrunk, and it ate a lot
of swap space too.
Then I upgraded to the new nVidia drivers which support the 2.6 kernel,
and things have changed.
I noticed my system was swapping a lot less, but didn't have time to
look into it.
Today I did.
My X server now hovers around 76MB, virtual size. Loading Infiltration
causes it to grow to around 98MB. When I exit the game, it drops back
down to 76MB virtual.
It also seems to release memory after a program like The Gimp has been
running, though I've done less testing with that. I've observed a
110MB->78MB drop when exiting The Gimp, but didn't record the event.
Wow... I started out on 8-bit micros, and talking about "drops" of 32MB
amazes me sometimes.
Questions:
Is the new driver able to hide the graphics aperature, showing a more
true statistic on memory use?
Was the 2.6 kernel always capable of showing the right thing, and the
new driver being made for 2.6 is just working better?
Why does the virtual memory size shrink now? Could the new driver be
unmapping vitual memory to free it up?
I'm going to ask nVidia, but wanted to post here and also see if anyone
else noticed this.
--
shannon "AT" widomaker.com -- ["Star Wars Moral Number 17: Teddy bears are
dangerous in herds."]