Better or worse performance with new graphic-cards?

crataegus · #1 3rd May 2006, 11:22 AM

I made the following experiences with different ATI and nvidia graphic cards:

Installing a quite old GeForce-2 MX-400 everything runs quite OK. It runs nativeley with the included nv-drivers and there is no problem with installing the nvidia-drivers provided by livna-repo.
glxgears: 1500 fps (5500 with closed window)
blender: 187 ops/s in drawing benchmark

Another quite old graphic-card, ATI Radeon 7500, shows even better results and also has no problems with installing any drivers ...just because it isn't supported by ATI's fglrx and it uses the radeon-driver included in FC5. No additional installation at all.
glxgears: 1800 fps (6800 with closed window)
blender: 259 ops/s in drawing benchmark

Now I tested those "better" cards: ATI Radeon 9200, nvidia GeForce 6600. The results don't satisfy me at all, for they are much slower:

Radeon 9200:
glxgears: 130 fps (300 with closed window)
blender: 28 ops/s in drawing benchmark
This ist quite ugly! fglrx is loaded and installed properly, I also let the aticonfig do the "--initial" configuration of my xorg.conf (SE-Linux is disabled on my system). The radeon-driver also shows similar slow framerates.

Even worse the nvidia GeForce 6600:
no glxgears and no blender benchmark just because the glx drivers don't do their jobs. And this card is not able to start X with the "normal" nv-driver. You have to install the kmod-nvidia and glx-driver from livna before getting any graphical content on your monitor.

I really did a lot of forum-search and try-and-error-jobs, edited the xorg.conf and disabled SE-Linux. Am I too stupid to install a better graphic-card and make it working better than my good old Radeon 7500?

Does anybody here get higher framerates or blender-drawing-benchmarks than mentioned above with any of those latest ATI or nvidia cards? For me the power of my Radeon 7500 is satisfying ...just thought of getting even better with new cards ;-)

Any hints or suggestions?

Seve · #2 3rd May 2006, 06:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by crataegus

Even worse the nvidia GeForce 6600:
no glxgears and no blender benchmark just because the glx drivers don't do their jobs. And this card is not able to start X with the "normal" nv-driver. You have to install the kmod-nvidia and glx-driver from livna before getting any graphical content on your monitor.

I really did a lot of forum-search and try-and-error-jobs, edited the xorg.conf and disabled SE-Linux. Am I too stupid to install a better graphic-card and make it working better than my good old Radeon 7500?

Does anybody here get higher framerates or blender-drawing-benchmarks than mentioned above with any of those latest ATI or nvidia cards? For me the power of my Radeon 7500 is satisfying ...just thought of getting even better with new cards ;-)

Any hints or suggestions?

Hello:
Dunno if this will help you as it is not the GeForce 6600 card, however it should give you somewhat of an idea of how a better card is performing:
$ /sbin/lspci | grep -i nvidia
03:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation GeForce 7800 GTX (rev a1)
06:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation GeForce 7800 GTX (rev a1)
With SLI disabled:
Blender - drawing benchmark : 20363 ops/s
$ glxgears
100344 frames in 5.0 seconds = 20068.644 FPS
111372 frames in 5.0 seconds = 22274.319 FPS
111362 frames in 5.0 seconds = 22272.294 FPS
111420 frames in 5.0 seconds = 22283.870 FPS
$ uname -r
2.6.16-1.2096_FC5smp
$ rpm -aq | grep kmod
kmod-nvidia-smp-1.0.8756-1.2.6.16_1.2096_FC5
$ rpm -aq | grep blender
blender-2.41-3.fc5

Seve

crataegus · #3 3rd May 2006, 09:35 PM

Hi Seve!

Thanx for your answer, your benchmark looks amazing ...and yes, I think it's worth it going on with trying to get my GeForce 6600 to work. Perhaps you have any good ideas?

Here is what I did so far:

1. I never installed nvidia-drivers from tarball, but installed the rpms from livna-repo.
2. At startup the module starts running
3. SE-Linux is deactivated
4. dri is commented in xorg.conf
5. xorg-extract:
Section "Module"
Load "dbe"
Load "extmod"
Load "fbdevhw"
Load "record"
Load "freetype"
Load "type1"
Load "glx"
EndSection
Section "Device"

#Option "SWcursor" # [<bool>]
#Option "HWcursor" # [<bool>]
#Option "NoAccel" # [<bool>]
#Option "ShadowFB" # [<bool>]
#Option "UseFBDev" # [<bool>]
#Option "Rotate" # [<str>]
#Option "VideoKey" # <i>
#Option "FlatPanel" # [<bool>]
#Option "FPDither" # [<bool>]
#Option "CrtcNumber" # <i>
#Option "FPScale" # [<bool>]
#Option "FPTweak" # <i>
Identifier "Videocard0"
Driver "nvidia"
VendorName "nVidia"
BoardName "nVidia GeForce 6600"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "Videocard0"
Monitor "Monitor0"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 24
Modes "1280x1024"
EndSubSection

6. glxinfo shows:
name of display: :0.0
Xlib: extension "GLX" missing on display ":0.0".
Xlib: extension "GLX" missing on display ":0.0".
Xlib: extension "GLX" missing on display ":0.0".
Error: couldn't find RGB GLX visual

visual x bf lv rg d st colorbuffer ax dp st accumbuffer ms cav
id dep cl sp sz l ci b ro r g b a bf th cl r g b a ns b eat
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Xlib: extension "GLX" missing on display ":0.0".
Xlib: extension "GLX" missing on display ":0.0".
0x21 24 tc 1 0 0 c . . 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 None
Xlib: extension "GLX" missing on display ":0.0".
Xlib: extension "GLX" missing on display ":0.0".
0x22 24 dc 1 0 0 c . . 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 None

7. glxgears
Xlib: extension "GLX" missing on display ":0.0".
Error: couldn't get an RGB, Double-buffered visual

8. cat /var/log/Xorg.0.log
[...]
(EE) NVIDIA(0): Failed to initialize the GLX module; please check in your X
(EE) NVIDIA(0): log file that the GLX module has been loaded in your X
(EE) NVIDIA(0): server, and that the module is the NVIDIA GLX module. If
(EE) NVIDIA(0): you continue to encounter problems, Please try
(EE) NVIDIA(0): reinstalling the NVIDIA driver.
[...]

Working on an AMD Athlon XP 2400 with an installed GigaByte GeForce 6600
/sbin/lspci | grep -i nvidia:
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation NV43 [GeForce 6600/GeForce 6600 GT] (rev a2)

Seve · #4 4th May 2006, 12:53 AM

Hello:
Not sure why you have the GLX error?
Make sure that you have xorg-x11-server-sdk and glx-utils installed and try installing the driver from livna again.
Seve

Zigzagcom · #5 4th May 2006, 01:54 AM

Here is my 6600GT with the window closed:

2.6.16-1.2107_FC5
kmod-nvidia-1.0.8756-2.2.6.16_1.2107_FC5

61185 frames in 5.0 seconds = 12236.914 FPS
62358 frames in 5.0 seconds = 12471.441 FPS
63043 frames in 5.0 seconds = 12608.522 FPS
61648 frames in 5.0 seconds = 12329.472 FPS

02:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation NV43 [GeForce 6600/GeForce 6600 GT] (rev a2)

crataegus · #6 4th May 2006, 06:36 AM

# rpm -q xorg-x11-server-sdk glx-utils
xorg-x11-server-sdk-1.0.1-9.fc5
glx-utils-6.4.2-6

... will keep on trying and report my results ...

crataegus · #7 4th May 2006, 05:04 PM

$ glxgears
19332 frames in 5.0 seconds = 3866.380 FPS
26935 frames in 5.0 seconds = 5386.920 FPS
36654 frames in 5.0 seconds = 7330.784 FPS ...now window closed:
36624 frames in 5.0 seconds = 7324.624 FPS
36614 frames in 5.0 seconds = 7322.753 FPS

blender drawing-benchmark: 998 ops/s

Wow, finally I got it!
I didn't find the exact reason but installed everything from scratch again. Perhaps I made some mistake while trial-and-error in configfiles. Thanx a lot for all of your positive input!

The only thing that is a little bit curious is my mouse-curse which is flickering in "sandbox-mode". Do you also experience this?