Unified Nvidia graphics driver for (open)BeOS

NOTE PLEASE:
You use this software at your own risk! Although I don't expect it to damage your PC, videocard or Monitor, I cannot guarantee this!

Supported cards (as far as is known):

• TNT 1/2;
• TNT 2-M64;
• Vanta/Aladdin TNT2;
• GeForce 256;
• GeForce 2 MX/Ti/GTS/Go;
• GeForce 2 Integrated GPU (Nforce);
• GeForce 3 (Ti);
• GeForce 4 MX/Ti/Go;
• GeForce 4 Integrated GPU (Nforce 2);
• GeForce FX 5200/5600/5700/5800/5900/5950/Go;
• Quadro (2/4/FX/Go);
• Some GeForce PCIe cards.

Features:

• Hardware cursor support (on both heads on dualhead cards);
• Full 2D acceleration;
• Full BWindowScreen support (used for hardware pageflipping, scrolling/panning and acceleration in applications/games);
• DPMS support for analog connected screens (on both heads on dualhead cards);
• B_YCbCr422 hardware overlay support on both TNT and GeForce series cards (overlay follows head in dualhead stretch/switch modes);
• Dualhead support on GeForce dualhead cards (use Mark Watson's 'Dualhead Setup' from BeBits for now);
• DVI and laptop panel (widescreen) support;
• Basic AGP mode support on AGP cards, using the new (seperate) (open)BeOS AGP busmanager;
• Coldstart support for analog connected screens on most cards except TNT1, GeForce 6600 and GeForce 6800.

• If the driver does not load make sure you enabled 'assign IRQ to VGA card' in your system BIOS;
• If the driver still seems to create 'random' trouble make sure you have a fully functional VGA BIOS, or system BIOS for embedded cards (check for updates on the manufacturor's site). Make sure you mail me if you still have trouble but also if this version fixed that!
• If on a laptop the internal panel doesn't work when you connect an external monitor, make sure you set 'output device selection' to 'internal' (instead of 'auto') in the system BIOS if it has such an option. If you have this symptom on a normal card, or on a laptop without that BIOS option then you are probably out of luck for dualhead support.

Installation:

Settings:

The driver uses a file named nv.settings to determine how to use your card. After installation this file will be located at home/config/settings/kernel/drivers/. How you should setup this file depends on what you want to do with the driver. While it has a 'failsave' default configuration, you might be able to do better than that... Anyway, read the nifty details below.

Note: The driver only reads this file during it's initialisation. This means that you have to reboot in order to let changes take effect.



nv.settings driver configuration:

• usebios:
  The name of this item may be somewhat misleading, it might be changed in the future. It actually tells the driver if it should coldstart the card or not. The driver will rely on the VGA BIOS to have coldstarted the card before BeOS booted if you specify 'true'.
  To make things look even more complex the driver might actually use the BIOS to determine your cards specifications on *both* possible settings.
  • false:
    If you specify usebios false the driver will attempt to coldstart the card, which is the preferred way of doing it because of the better tuned setup if all is right. Unfortunately there's not enough info available to make this work reliably, so it's not used by default. This setting would enable you to use your nVidia card as a secondary card in your system. Be advised though that BeOS officially does not (yet) support multiple VGA cards, so you need special software in order to be able to actually use it (a video consumer node for instance).
  • true: (default setting)
    Specify usebios true unless you want to try to use a nVidia card as a secondary card in your system.
  Notes:
  • On driverversion 0.23 and before usebios had no effect at all. The cards were never coldstarted;
  • Coldstarting should work on most cards except TNT1, GeForce 6600 and GeForce 6800;
  • Coldstarting will not yet work with laptop- and DVI panels;
  • Coldstarting should fix the 'bandwidth trouble' existing on some GeForce2 cards.
• memory: (disabled by default)
  This option enables you to override the 'memory amount autodetection' of the driver. If autodetection is working incorrect, you can manually set the amount this way. You could also lower the amount of RAM to a lower value than actually there to test with for instance overlay use in applications. So this option is probably mostly of interest to developers. Specify the RAM amount in Mb (use only 'whole' numbers!).
  This option is disabled by default (preceded by a '#').
  
• hardcursor:
  A hardcursor is nessesary for DirectWindow windowed mode support.
  • false:
    If you have trouble with the hardcursor (on one or both of the heads), select hardcursor false. Make sure you let me know about the hardcursor trouble also: this should not happen!
  • true: (default setting)
    A software cursor 'flickers' a bit sometimes because it has to be redrawn constantly. So hardcursor true is the preferred setting. For DirectWindow windowed mode functionality you need to use this setting also (Chart demo app for instance).
• logmask: (set to minimal by default)
  The logmask option is very handy to track down trouble in the driver. You should only enable this if you are doing so, otherwise keep it turned off because it slows down your system. (All lines have a '#' preceding 'logmask' by default.) Logging creates a logfile called nv.accelerant.0.log in your ~ (home) folder. A second logfile may get created depending on how the driver is used (on cloning; for BWindowScreen for example). The second file is called nv.accelerant.1.log, and it will also be in your home folder.
  Note:
  • You may only enable *one* logmask-line. The value you place after it (hexadecimal 32bit) determines what will be logged. The first 7 digits determine the part of the driver that will be logging, the last single digit determines the level of logging (like 'all messages', or only 'error messages').
• dumprom:
  Dumprom is another 'tool' for bug-tracking purposes.
  • false: (default setting)
    Keep it set to dumprom false, unless you want the driver to dump the contents of your VGA BIOS ROM in a file.
  • true:
    dumprom true lets the driver dump a copy of your VGA BIOS in a file called nv.rom in your ~ (home) folder.
• switchhead:
  The driver always autodetects which output should be used as primary one, but you can let the driver 'invert' the outcome of that detection with this option (only for dualhead cards).
  • false: (default setting)
    Keep it set to switchhead false, unless you feel you want the card's other output to be used as primary one. Note that if a single connected screen is found, that screen will be the driver's primary output with this setting.
  • true:
    switchhead true lets the driver 'invert' the output assignments for all modes. Use only when you have two screens connected, otherwise the one connected screen will remain black as the other (not connected) output is being used.
    
  Note:
  • If the driver determines it cannot use a digital panel despite it being physically connected and powered on, using the switchhead option will not fix this. This is no fault in your card or the panel, but happens only because the driver relies on certain functions inside your cards BIOS to behave in a certain way.
• force_pci:
  On AGP cards you can block the use of AGP mode transfers.
  • false: (default setting)
    Keep this option set to force_pci false, unless the graphics card or motherboard has trouble using AGP.
  • true:
    force_pci true prevents the graphicsdriver from activating AGP mode, so it will be using PCI mode like it has always been in the past. The downside of this is that this comes at a performance penalty if your motherboard supports the AGP 'fastwrite' (FW) option, which won't be utilized with this setting.
  Note:
  • If you have trouble using AGP mode, you should prefer tweaking the AGP busmanager settings file as it might well enable you to use a 'lesser' AGP mode instead of falling back to PCI mode alltogether.
• unhide_fw:
  This option is only used if your card is running in AGP mode. It's a real tweak option. It's officially unsupported, and it's unknown if it can do harm to your card or system. It exists because using it can speedup unaccelerated graphics a lot. Think about video playback or playing quake2 in software rendering mode...
  • false: (default setting)
    Keep this option set to unhide_fw false unless you are certain you want to try the 'unsupported' graphics speedup. NV15, NV18, NV28 and NV34 cards for example probably don't need it as they officially support the AGP FW (fastwrites) feature already. On cards supporting FW by default the unhide_fw option has no effect.
  • true:
    If you have an older card that officially doesn't support the AGP FW feature, you could possibly get this feature anyway by setting unhide_fw true. For instance (some) NV11 cards work nicely with AGP FW enabled this way and unaccelerated graphics speedup considerably. Please make sure that at the first sign of trouble (system hanging, displaying artifacts, etc) you disable this feature here again, or you might risk destroying your card and/or AGP slot.
• pgm_panel:
  This option only has an effect if you have a laptop panel or DVI panel connected. It's existing because it's currently impossible to setup the driver in a way every single panel outthere is happy about it.
  • false:
    If you select pgm_panel false the driver will not program the panel's pixelclock (refreshrate). Instead it relies on your cardBIOS to have done that correctly. While this is probably the case, it might introduce some displaying errors every now and then.
  • true: (default setting)
    With the pgm_panel true setting, the driver will fix your panel's refreshrate to 60Hz. While this should be working on all panels outthere, some panels are particular picky about refreshrates below 60.0Hz (they shut off), and some other panels are particular picky about refreshrates above 60.0Hz (they shut off). While the driver requests the hardware to set 60.0Hz, this isn't exactly possible, so the actual setting is bound to be a tiny bit below or above 60.0Hz.

(Page last updated on November 1, 2004)