NVIDIA Accelerated Solaris Driver Set README and Installation Guide NVIDIA Corporation Last Updated: 2005/06/17 Most Recent Driver Version: 1.0-7667 __________________________________________________________________________ Preface __________________________________________________________________________ The NVIDIA Accelerated Solaris Driver set brings accelerated 2D functionality and high-performance OpenGL support to Solaris x64/x86 with the use of NVIDIA graphics processing units (GPUs). These drivers provide optimized hardware acceleration for OpenGL and X applications and support nearly all recent NVIDIA graphics chips (please see Appendix A for a complete list of supported chips). TwinView, TV-Out and flat panel displays are also supported. This README describes how to install, configure, and use the NVIDIA Accelerated Solaris Driver Set. Answers to frequently asked questions and problem diagnoses for common issues are also provided. __________________________________________________________________________ Introduction __________________________________________________________________________ This document provides instructions for the installation and use of the NVIDIA Accelerated Solaris Driver Set. Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 walk the user through the process of installing and configuring the driver. Chapter 3 addresses frequently asked questions about the installation process, and Chapter 4 provides solutions to common problems. In case additional information is required, Chapter 5 provides contact information for NVIDIA Solaris driver resources, and Chapter 6 provides a brief listing of external resources. It is assumed that the user has at least a basic understanding of Solaris techniques and terminology. However, Chapter 7 provides details on parts of the installation process that new users may find helpful. Additional information is presented in several Appendices. These include supported hardware and system requirements, comprehensive lists of options for various utilities associated with the driver, setup details for specific configurations, and advanced topics and features. CONTENTS: Preface Introduction I. Installation Instructions 1. Installing the NVIDIA Driver 2. Configuring X for the NVIDIA Driver II. Additional Information 3. Frequently Asked Questions 4. Common Problems 5. Contact Info 6. Additional Resources 7. Tips for New Solaris Users III. Appendices A. Supported NVIDIA Graphics Chips B. Minimum Software Requirements C. Installed Components D. X Config Options E. OpenGL Environment Variable Settings F. Configuring AGP G. Configuring Twinview H. Configuring TV-Out I. Configuring a Laptop J. Programming Modes K. Flipping and UBB L. Swapping boards M. Known Issues N. GLX Support O. Configuring Multiple X Screens on One Card P. Display Device Names Q. The X Composite Extension R. The nvidia-settings Utility S. Support for GLX in Xinerama __________________________________________________________________________ Chapter 1. Installing the NVIDIA Driver __________________________________________________________________________ This chapter provides instructions for installing the NVIDIA driver. Note that after installation, but prior to using the driver, you must complete the steps described in Chapter 2. 1. The file 'NVIDIA-Solaris-x86-1.0-7667.run' is a self extractable package that needs to be installed by the super-user. Become root by running the 'su' command and entering the super-user password. 2. Execute the package file to install the packages that comprise the NVIDIA Solaris Driver Set: # sh NVIDIA-Solaris-x86-1.0-7667.run 3. Reboot: # reboot -- -r The -r option causes a reconfiguration boot. __________________________________________________________________________ Chapter 2. Configuring X for the NVIDIA Driver __________________________________________________________________________ The X configuration file provides a means to configure the X server. This section describes the settings necessary to enable the NVIDIA driver. A comprehensive list of parameters is provided in Appendix D. The Solaris distribution for x64/x86 comes with two X servers: Xsun and X.org. Xsun is the proprietary X server developed by Sun Microsystems. The X.org X server is released by the X.org Foundation. The NVIDIA Accelerated Solaris Driver is enabled with the X.org X server. The installation process puts a sample X.org configuration file in '/etc/X11/xorg.conf.nvidia'. An X.org getconfig rules file, '/usr/X11/lib/X11/getconfig/nvda.cfg', is also installed. This configuration file will automatically choose the NVIDIA X driver if the console device has the NVIDIA kernel driver bound to it. The X.org configuration file is '/etc/X11/xorg.conf'. This document refers to this file as "the X config file". The X.org log file is '/var/log/Xorg.#.log' (where '#' is the server number -- usually 0) This document refers to this file as "the X log file". In order for any changes to be read into the X server, you must edit the file used by the server. It is easy to determine the correct file by searching for the line (==) Using config file: in the X log file. This line indicates the name of the X config file in use. If you do not have a working X config file, there are a few different ways to obtain one. A sample config file is included with the NVIDIA driver package (at '/usr/share/doc/NVIDIA/xorg.conf.nvidia'). Tools for generating a config file (such as 'xorgconfig') are included in the Solaris distributions. Additional information on the X config syntax can be found in the xorgconfig manual page (`man xorg.conf`). If you have a working X config file for a different driver (such as the "nv" or "vesa" driver), then simply edit the file as follows. Remove the line: Driver "nv" (or Driver "vesa") (or Driver "fbdev") and replace it with the line: Driver "nvidia" Remove the following lines: Load "dri" Load "GLCore" In the "Module" section of the file, add the line (if it does not already exist): Load "glx" There are numerous options that may be added to the X config file to tune the NVIDIA X driver. Please see Appendix D for a complete list of these options. Once you have completed these edits to the X config file, you may restart X and begin using the accelerated OpenGL libraries. After restarting X, any OpenGL application should automatically use the new NVIDIA libraries. If you encounter any problems, please see Chapter 4 for common problem diagnoses. __________________________________________________________________________ Chapter 3. Frequently Asked Questions __________________________________________________________________________ This section provides answers to frequently asked questions associated with the NVIDIA Solaris x64/x86 Driver and its installation. Common problem diagnoses can be found in Chapter 4 and tips for new users can be found in Chapter 7. Also, detailed information for specific setups is provided in the Appendices. NVIDIA DRIVER Q. Where should I start when diagnosing display problems? A. One of the most useful tools for diagnosing problems is the X log file in '/var/log'. Lines that begin with "(II)" are information, "(WW)" are warnings, and "(EE)" are errors. You should make sure that the correct config file (i.e. the config file you are editing) is being used; look for the line that begins with: (==) Using config file: Also make sure that the NVIDIA driver is being used, rather than the "nv" or "vesa" driver. Search for (II) LoadModule: "nvidia" Lines from the driver should begin with: (II) NVIDIA(0) Q. How can I increase the amount of data printed in the X log file? A. By default, the NVIDIA X driver prints relatively few messages to stderr and the X log file. If you need to troubleshoot, then it may be helpful to enable more verbose output by using the X command line options -verbose and -logverbose, which can be used to set the verbosity level for the 'stderr' and log file messages, respectively. The NVIDIA X driver will output more messages when the verbosity level is at or above 5 (X defaults to verbosity level 1 for 'stderr' and level 3 for the log file). So, to enable verbose messaging from the NVIDIA X driver to both the log file and 'stderr', you could start X by doing the following % startx -- -verbose 5 -logverbose 5 Q. Why does X use so much memory? A. When measuring any application's memory usage, you must be careful to distinguish between physical system RAM used and virtual mappings of shared resources. For example, most shared libraries exist only once in physical memory but are mapped into multiple processes. This memory should only be counted once when computing total memory usage. In the same way, the video memory on a graphics card or register memory on any device can be mapped into multiple processes. These mappings do not consume normal system RAM. The 'pmap' utility is available in the directory /usr/proc/bin, and is a useful tool in distinguishing between types of memory mappings. For example, while 'prstat' may indicate that X is using several hundred MB of memory, the last line of output from pmap -x: total Kb 337904 335884 53320 - reveals that X is really only using roughly 53MB of system RAM (the "anon" value). Note, also, that X must allocate resources on behalf of X clients (the window manager, your web browser, etc); X's memory usage will increase as more clients request resources such as pixmaps, and decrease as you close X applications. Q. My X server log file contains the message: (WW) NVIDIA(0): You appear to be using the XFree86-DGA extension. Please (WW) NVIDIA(0): be aware that support for this extension will be (WW) NVIDIA(0): removed from the NVIDIA driver in a future driver (WW) NVIDIA(0): release. See the NVIDIA README for details. What is NVIDIA's plan for support of the XFree86-DGA extension? A. Support for the XFree86-DGA extension will be removed from the NVIDIA driver in a future driver release. This means that while the extension will continue to be advertised and XDGASelectInput() will still function properly so that DGA clients can acquire relative pointer motion, DGA entry points such as XDGASetMode() and XDGAOpenFramebuffer() will fail. If you would prefer that DGA support not be removed from the NVIDIA X driver, please feel free to make your concerns known on the Solaris forum on nvnews.net. Q. My kernel log contains messages that are prefixed with "Xid"; what do these messages mean? A. "Xid" messages indicate that a general GPU error occurred, most often due to the driver misprogramming the GPU or to corruption of the commands sent to the GPU. These messages provide diagnostic information that can be used by NVIDIA to aid in debugging reported problems. Q. On what NVIDIA hardware is the EXT_framebuffer_object OpenGL extension supported? A. EXT_framebuffer_object is supported on GeForce FX, Quadro FX, and newer GPUs. __________________________________________________________________________ Chapter 4. Common Problems __________________________________________________________________________ This section provides solutions to common problems associated with the NVIDIA Solaris x64/x86 Driver. Q. My X server fails to start, and my X log file contains the error: (EE) NVIDIA(0): Failed to load the NVIDIA kernel module! The X driver will abort with this error message if the NVIDIA kernel module fails to load or the device files aren't present. If you receive this error, you should check the output of `dmesg` for kernel error messages. If `modinfo` reports that the "nvidia" kernel module is loaded, the device files ('/dev/nvidiactl', '/dev/nvidia0..7', '/dev/fbs/nvidia0..7') may be missing. Q. My X server fails to start, and my X log file contains the error: (EE) NVIDIA(0): Failed to initialize the NVIDIA kernel module! A. Nothing will work if the NVIDIA kernel module does not function properly. If you see anything in the X log file like (EE) NVIDIA(0): Failed to initialize the NVIDIA kernel module! then there is most likely a problem with the NVIDIA kernel module. The NVIDIA kernel module may print error messages indicating a problem -- to view these messages please check the output of `dmesg`, '/var/log/messages', or wherever syslog is directed to place kernel messages. These messages are prepended with "NVRM". Q. My X server fails to start, and my X log file contains the error: (EE) NVIDIA(0): The NVIDIA kernel module does not appear to be receiving (EE) NVIDIA(0): interrupts generated by the NVIDIA graphics device. (EE) NVIDIA(0): Please see the FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS section in (EE) NVIDIA(0): the README for additional information." A. This can be caused by a variety of problems, such as PCI IRQ routing errors, I/O APIC problems or conflicts with other devices sharing the IRQ (or their drivers). If possible, configure your system such that your graphics card does not share its IRQ with other devices (try moving the graphics card to another slot (if applicable), unload/disable the driver(s) for the device(s) sharing the card's IRQ, or remove/disable the device(s)). Q. X starts for me, but OpenGL applications terminate immediately. A. If X starts, but OpenGL causes problems, you most likely have a problem with other libraries in the way, or there are stale symlinks. See Appendix C for details. You should also check that the correct extensions are present; % xdpyinfo should show the "GLX" and "NV-GLX" extensions present. If these two extensions are not present, then there is most likely a problem loading the glx module, or it is unable to implicitly load GLcore. Check your X config file and make sure that you are loading glx (see Chapter 2). If your X config file is correct, then check the X log file for warnings/errors pertaining to GLX. Also check that all of the necessary symlinks are in place (refer to Appendix C). Q. CDE and JDS do not start when TwinView is enabled. A. When in TwinView, the NVIDIA X driver normally provides a Xinerama extension that X clients (such as window managers) can use to to discover the current TwinView configuration. Some window mangers can get confused by this information. Use the following option in the "device" section of the Xorg configuration file to disable this behavior: Option "NoTwinViewXineramaInfo" "1" Q. My system runs, but seems unstable. What is wrong? A. Your stability problems may be AGP-related. See Appendix F for details. Q. OpenGL applications are running slowly A. The application is probably using a different library still on your system, rather than the NVIDIA supplied OpenGL library. Please see Appendix C for details. Q. There are problems running Quake2. A. Quake2 requires some minor setup to get it going. First, in the Quake2 directory, the install creates a symlink called 'libGL.so' that points at 'libMesaGL.so'. This symlink should be removed or renamed. Second, in order to run Quake2 in OpenGL mode, you must type % quake2 +set vid_ref glx +set gl_driver libGL.so Quake2 does not seem to support any kind of full-screen mode, but you can run your X server at the same resolution as Quake2 to emulate full-screen mode. Q. I am using either nForce of nForce2 internal graphics, and I see warnings like this in my X log file: Not using mode "1600x1200" (exceeds valid memory bandwidth usage) A. Integrated graphics have more strict memory bandwidth limitations that limit the resolution and refresh rate of the modes you request. To work around this, you can reduce the maximum refresh rate by lowering the upper value of the VertRefresh range in the 'Monitor' section of your X config file. Though not recommended, you can disable the memory bandwidth test with the NoBandWidthTest X config file option. Q. X takes a long time to start (possibly several minutes). A. Most of the startx delay problems we have found are caused by incorrect data in video BIOSes about what display devices are possibly connected or what i2c port should be used for detection. You can work around these problems with the X config option IgnoreDisplayDevices (please see the description in Appendix D). Q. Fonts are incorrectly sized after installing the NVIDIA driver. A. Incorrectly sized fonts are generally caused by a monitor reporting an incorrect physical size, which causes various X applications to render fonts at the wrong size. You can check what X thinks the physical size of your monitor is, by running: % xdpyinfo | grep dimensions This will report the size in pixels, and in millimeters. If the sizes in millimeters are drastically incorrect, then you can correct this by adding the DisplaySize field to the monitor section of your X config file (see the XF86Config or xorg.conf manual pages for details). You can check what your monitor reports its physical size is by running X with verbose logging: `startx -- -logverbose`. Then, search your X log file for a line that looks like: (II) NVIDIA(0): Max H-Image Size [cm]: horiz.: 36 vert.: 27 (the numbers will be different) The NVIDIA driver uses these values to compute the DPI. __________________________________________________________________________ Chapter 5. Contact Info __________________________________________________________________________ There is an NVIDIA Solaris Driver web forum. You can access it by going to http://www.nvnews.net and following the "Forum" and "Solaris Discussion Area" links. This is the preferable tool for seeking help; users can post questions, answer other users' questions, and search the archives of previous postings. If all else fails, you can contact Sun Microsystems for support at http://sunsolve.sun.com, or your local service provider. __________________________________________________________________________ Chapter 6. Additional Resources __________________________________________________________________________ Resources SunSolve http://sunsolve.sun.com/ XFree86 Video Timings HOWTO http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/XFree86-Video-Timings-HOWTO/index.html The X.org Foundation http://www.x.org/ OpenGL http://www.opengl.org/ __________________________________________________________________________ Chapter 7. Tips for New Solaris Users __________________________________________________________________________ This installation guide assumes that the user has at least a basic understanding of Solaris techniques and terminology. In this section we provide tips that the new user may find helpful. While the these tips are meant to clarify and assist users in installing and configuring the NVIDIA Solaris Driver, it is by no means a tutorial on the use or administration of the Solaris operating system. Unlike many desktop operating systems, it is relatively easy to cause irreperable damage to your Solaris system. If you are unfamiliar with the use of Solaris, we strongly recommend that you seek a tutorial through your distributor before proceeding. THE COMMAND PROMPT While newer releases of Solaris bring new desktop interfaces to the user, much of the work in Solaris takes place at the command prompt. If you are familiar with the Windows operating system, the Solaris command prompt is analogous to the windows command prompt, although the syntax and use varies somewhat. All of the commands in this section are performed at the command prompt. Some systems are configured to boot into console mode, in which case the user is presented with a prompt at login. Other systems are configured to start X windows, in which case the user must open a terminal or console window in order to get a command prompt. This can usually be done by searching the desktop menus for a terminal or console program. While it is customizable, the basic prompt usually consists of a short string of information, one of the characters '#', '$', or '%', and a cursor (possibly flashing) that indicates where the user's input will be displayed. NAVIGATING THE DIRECTORY STRUCTURE Solaris has a hierarchical directory structure. From anywhere in the directory structure, the 'ls' command will list the contents of that directory. the 'file' command will print the type of files in a directory. For example, % file filename will print the type of the file 'filename'. Changing directories is done with the 'cd' command. % cd dirname will change the current directory to 'dirname'. From anywhere in the directory structure, the command 'pwd' will print the name of the current directory. There are two special directories, '.' and '..', which refer to the current directory and the next directory up the hierarchy, respectively. For any commands that require a file name or directory name as an argument, you may specify the absolute or the relative paths to those elements. An absolute path begins with the "/" character, referring to the top or root of the directory structure. A relative path begins with a directory in the current working directory. The relative path may begin with '.' or '..'. Elements of a path are seperated with the "/" character. As an example, if the current directory is '/home/jesse' and the user wants to change to the '/usr/local' directoy, he can use either of the following commands to do so: % cd /usr/local or % cd ../../usr/local FILE PERMISSIONS AND OWNERSHIP All files and directories have permissions and ownership associated with them. This is useful for preventing non-administrative users from accidentally (or maliciously) corrupting the system. The permissions and ownership for a file or directory can be determined by passing the -l option to the 'ls' command. For example: % ls -l drwxr-xr-x 2 jesse users 4096 Feb 8 09:32 bin drwxrwxrwx 10 jesse users 4096 Feb 10 12:04 pub -rw-r--r-- 1 jesse users 45 Feb 4 03:55 testfile -rwx------ 1 jesse users 93 Feb 5 06:20 myprogram -rw-rw-rw- 1 jesse users 112 Feb 5 06:20 README % The first character column in the first output field states the file type, where 'd' is a directory and '-' is a regular file. The next nine colums specify the permissions (see below) of the element. The second field indicates the number of files associated with the element, the third field indicates the owner, the fourth field indicates the group that the file is associated with, the fifth field indicates the size of the element in bytes, the sixth, seventh and eighth fields indicate the time at which the file was last modified and the ninth field is the name of the element. As stated, the last nine columns in the first field indicate the permissions of the element. These colums are grouped into threes, the first grouping indicating the permissions for the owner of the element ('jesse' in this case), the second grouping indicating the permissions for the group associated with the element, and the third grouping indicating the permissions associated with the rest of the world. The 'r', 'w', and 'x' indicate read, write and execute permissions, respectively, for each of these associations. For example, user 'jesse' has read and write permissions for 'testfile', users in the group 'users' have read permission only, and the rest of the world also has read permissions only. However, for the file 'myprogram', user 'jesse' has read, write and execute permissions (suggesting that 'myprogram' is a program that can be executed), while the group 'users' and the rest of the world have no permissions (suggesting that the owner doesn't want anyone else to run his program). The permissions, ownership and group associated with an element can be changed with the commands 'chmod', 'chown' and 'chgrp', respectively. If a user with the appropriate permissions wanted to change the user/group ownership of 'README' from jesse/users to joe/admin, he would do the following: # chown joe README # chgrp admin README The syntax for chmod is slightly more complicated and has several variations. The most concise way of setting the permissions for a single element uses a triplet of numbers, one for each of user, group and world. The value for each number in the triplet corresponds to a combination of read, write and execute permissions. Execute only is represented as 1, write only is represented as 2, and read only is represented as 4. Combinations of these permissions are represented as sums of the individual permissions. Read and execute is represented as 5, where as read, write and execute is represented as 7. No permissions is represented as 0. Thus, to give the owner read, write and execute permissions, the group read and execute permissions and the world no permissions, a user would do as follows: % chmod 750 myprogram THE SHELL The shell provides an interface between the user and the operating system. It is the job of the shell to interpret the input that the user gives at the command prompt and call upon the system to do something in response. There are several different shells available, each with somewhat different syntax and capabilities. The two most common flavors of shells for Solaris distributions stem from the Borne shell ('sh') and the C-shell ('csh') Different users have preferences and biases towards one shell or the other, and some certainly make it easier (or at least more intuitive) to do some things than others. You can determine your current shell by printing the value of the 'SHELL' from the command prompt with % echo $SHELL You can start a new shell simply by entering the name of the shell from the command prompt: % csh or % sh and you can run a program from within a specific shell by preceeding the name of the executable with the name of the shell in which it will be run: % sh myprogram The user's default shell at login is determined by whomever set up his account. While there are many syntactic differences between shells, perhaps the one that is encountered most frequently is the way in which environment variables are set. SETTING EVIRONMENT VARIABLES Every session has associated with it environment variables, which consist of name/value pairs and control the way in which the shell and programs run from the shell behave. An example of and environment variable is the 'PATH' variable, which tells the shell which directories to search when trying to locate an executable file that the user has entered at the command line. If you are certain that a command exists, but the shell complains that it cannot be found when you try to execute it, there is likely a problem with the 'PATH' variable. Environment variables are differently depending on the shell being used. For the Borne shell ('sh'), it is done as: % export MYVARIABLE="avalue" for the C-shell, it is done as: % setenv MYVARIABLE "avalue" In both cases the quotation marks are only necessary if the value contains spaces. The 'echo' command can be used to examine the value of an environment variable: % echo $MYVARIABLE Commands to set environment variables can also include references to other environment variables (prepended with the "$" character), including themselves. In order to add the path '/usr/local/bin' to the beginning of the search path, and the current directory '.' to the end of the search path, a user would enter % export PATH=/usr/local/bin:$PATH:. in the Borne shell, and % setenv PATH /usr/local/bin:${PATH}:. in C-shell. Note the curly braces are required to protect the variable name in C-shell. EDITING TEXT FILES There are several text editors available for the Solaris operating system. Some of these editors require the X Windows system, while others are designed to operate in a console or terminal. It is generally a good thing to be competent with a terminal based editor, as there are times when the files necessary for X to run are the ones that must be edited. Three popular editors are 'vi', 'pico' and 'emacs', each of which can be started from the command line, optionally supplying the name of a file to be edited. 'vi' is arguably the most ubiquitous as well as the least intuitive of the three. 'pico' is relatively straightforward for a new user, though not as often installed on systems. 'emacs' is highly extensible and fairly widely available, but can be somewhat unwieldy in a non-X environment. The newer versions each come with online help, and offline help can be found in the manual and info pages for each (please see the section on Solaris Manual and Info pages). Many programs use the 'EDITOR' environment variable to determine which text editor to start when editing is required. ROOT USER Upon installation, almost all distributions set up the default administrative user with the username 'root'. There are many things on the system that only 'root' (or a similarly priveledged user) can do, one of which is installing the NVIDIA Solaris Driver.There are three ways to become 'root'. You may log in as root as you would any other user, you may use the substitute user command ('su') at the command prompt, or, some systems come with the 'sudo' utility, which allows users to run programs as root while keeping a log of their actions. This last method is useful in case a user inadvertently causes damage to the system and cannot remember what he has done (or prefers not to admit what he has done). It is generally a good practice to remain root only as long as is necessary to accomplish the task requiring root privledges (another useful feature of the 'sudo' utility). STOPPING THE X SERVER It is good practice to install the NVIDIA Solaris Driver while X is not running. To exit X Windows, logout and select the option "Command Line Login" at the login screen. This will stop the X server and start a text session. After this text session exits, the X server and the the graphical login screen are automatically restarted. SOLARIS MANUAL AND INFO PAGES Most distributions install the system manual or info pages by default. These pages are typically up-to-date and generally contain a comprehensive listing of the use of programs and utilities on the system. Also, many implementations of programs traditionally include the --help option, which usually prints out a list of common options to that program. To view the manual page for a command, enter % man commandname at the command prompt, where commandname refers to the command in which you are interested. Similarly, entering % info commandname will bring up the info page for the command. Some distributions may claim that one or the other is more up-to-date. The interface for the info system is interactive and navigable. If you are unable to locate the man page for the command in which you are interested, you may need to add additional elements to your 'MANPATH' environment variable. Please see the section on environment variables. __________________________________________________________________________ Appendix A. Supported NVIDIA Graphics Chips __________________________________________________________________________ NVIDIA chip name Device PCI ID ------------------------------- ------------------------------- Quadro FX 4000 0x004E Quadro FX 1400 0x00CE Quadro FX 3400/4400 0x00F8 Quadro FX 330 0x00FC Quadro NVS 280 PCI-E/Quadro FX 0x00FD 330 Quadro FX 1300 0x00FE Quadro FX 540 0x014E Quadro NVS 0x017A Quadro NVS with AGP8X 0x018A Quadro FX 2000 0x0308 Quadro FX 1000 0x0309 Quadro NVS 280 PCI 0x032A Quadro FX 500/600 PCI 0x032B Quadro FX 3000 0x0338 Quadro FX 700 0x033F Quadro FX Go1000 0x034C Quadro FX 1100 0x034E __________________________________________________________________________ Appendix B. Minimum Software Requirements __________________________________________________________________________ The offical minimum software requirement for the NVIDIA Solaris Driver Set is: - Solaris 10 on x64/x86 __________________________________________________________________________ Appendix C. Installed Components __________________________________________________________________________ The NVIDIA Accelerated Solaris Driver Set consists of the following components: 64-bit libraries: - /usr/X11/lib/NVIDIA/amd64/libGL.so.1 - /usr/X11/lib/NVIDIA/amd64/libGL.so -> libGL.so.1 - /usr/X11/lib/NVIDIA/amd64/libnvidia-tls.so.1 - /usr/X11/lib/NVIDIA/amd64/libnvidia-tls.so -> libnvidia-tls.so.1 - /usr/X11/lib/NVIDIA/amd64/libGLcore.so.1 Symbolic links installed under /usr/lib/amd64 point to the above files 32-bit libraries: - /usr/X11/lib/NVIDIA/libGL.so.1 - /usr/X11/lib/NVIDIA/libGL.so -> libGL.so. - /usr/X11/lib/NVIDIA/libnvidia-tls.so.1 - /usr/X11/lib/NVIDIA/libnvidia-tls.so -> libnvidia-tls.so - /usr/X11/lib/NVIDIA/libGLcore.so.1 Symbolic links installed under /usr/lib point to the above files X module and extension: - /usr/X11/lib/modules/drivers/nvidia_drv.so - /usr/X11/lib/modules/drivers/libglx.so - /usr/X11/lib/modules/drivers/libglx.so.1 Device files: - /dev/nvidia0 -> /dev/fbs/nvidia0 - /dev/fbs/nvidia0 - /dev/nvidiactl -> ../devices/pseudo/nvidia@255:nvidiactl Kernel driver: - nvidia /kernel/drv/amd64 - nvidia /kernel/drv/nvidia - nvidia.conf /kernel/drv/nvidia Header files: - gl.h /usr/include/NVIDIA - glext.h /usr/include/NVIDIA - glx.h /usr/include/NVIDIA - glxext.h /usr/include/NVIDIA Symbolic links installed under /usr/include point to the above files Documentations: - README.txt /usr/share/doc/NVIDIA __________________________________________________________________________ Appendix D. X Config Options __________________________________________________________________________ The following driver options are supported by the NVIDIA X driver. They may be specified either in the Screen or Device sections of the X config file. X Config Options Option "NvAGP" "integer" Configure AGP support. Integer argument can be one of: Value Behavior ----------------------------- ----------------------------- 0 disable agp 1 use NVIDIA's internal AGP support, if possible 2 use AGPGART, if possible 3 use any agp support (try AGPGART, then NVIDIA's AGP) Please note that NVIDIA's internal AGP support cannot work if AGPGART is either statically compiled into your kernel or is built as a module, but loaded into your kernel (some distributions load AGPGART into the kernel at boot up). Default: 3 (the default was 1 until after 1.0-1251). Option "NoLogo" "boolean" Disable drawing of the NVIDIA logo splash screen at X startup. Default: the logo is drawn. Option "RenderAccel" "boolean" Enable or disable hardware acceleration of the RENDER extension. THIS OPTION IS EXPERIMENTAL. ENABLE IT AT YOUR OWN RISK. There is no correctness test suite for the RENDER extension so NVIDIA can not verify that RENDER acceleration works correctly. Default: hardware acceleration of the RENDER extension is disabled. Option "NoRenderExtension" "boolean" Disable the RENDER extension. Other than recompiling it, the X server does not seem to have another way of disabling this. Fortunately, we can control this from the driver so we export this option. This is useful in depth 8 where RENDER would normally steal most of the default colormap. Default: RENDER is offered when possible. Option "UBB" "boolean" Enable or disable Unified Back Buffer on any Quadro based GPUs (Quadro4 NVS excluded); please see Appendix M for a description of UBB. This option has no affect on non-Quadro chipsets. Default: UBB is on for Quadro chipsets. Option "NoFlip" "boolean" Disable OpenGL flipping; please see Appendix K for a description. Default: OpenGL will swap by flipping when possible. Option "DigitalVibrance" "integer" Enables Digital Vibrance Control. The range of valid values are 0 through 255. This feature is not available on products older than GeForce2. Default: 0. Option "Dac8Bit" "boolean" Most Quadro parts by default use a 10 bit color look up table (LUT) by default; setting this option to TRUE forces these graphics chips to use an 8 bit (LUT). Default: a 10 bit LUT is used, when available. Option "Overlay" "boolean" Enables RGB workstation overlay visuals. This is only supported on Quadro4 and Quadro FX chips (Quadro4 NVS excluded) in depth 24. This option causes the server to advertise the SERVER_OVERLAY_VISUALS root window property and GLX will report single and double buffered, Z-buffered 16 bit overlay visuals. The transparency key is pixel 0x0000 (hex). There is no gamma correction support in the overlay plane. This feature requires XFree86 version 4.1.0 or newer, or the Xorg X server. NV17/18 based Quadros (i.e. 500/550 XGL) have additional restrictions, namely, overlays are not supported in TwinView mode or with virtual desktops larger than 2046x2047 in any dimension (eg. it will not work in 2048x1536 modes). Quadro 7xx/9xx and Quadro FX will offer overlay visuals in these modes (TwinView, or virtual desktops larger than 2046x2047), but the overlay will be emulated with a substantial performance penalty. RGB workstation overlays are not supported when the Composite extension is enabled. Default: off. Option "CIOverlay" "boolean" Enables Color Index workstation overlay visuals with identical restrictions to Option "Overlay" above. The server will offer visuals both with and without a transparency key. These are depth 8 PseudoColor visuals. Enabling Color Index overlays on X servers older than XFree86 4.3 will force the RENDER extension to be disabled due to bugs in the RENDER extension in older X servers. Color Index workstation overlays are not supported when the Composite extension is enabled. Default: off. Option "TransparentIndex" "integer" When color index overlays are enabled, use this option to choose which pixel is used for the transparent pixel in visuals featuring transparent pixels. This value is clamped between 0 and 255 (Note: some applications such as Alias's Maya require this to be zero in order to work correctly). Default: 0. Option "OverlayDefaultVisual" "boolean" When overlays are used, this option sets the default visual to an overlay visual thereby putting the root window in the overlay. This option is not recommended for RGB overlays. Default: off. Option "RandRRotation" "boolean" Enable rotation support for the XRandR extension. This allows use of the XRandR X server extension for configuring the screen orientation through rotation. This feature is supported on GeForce2 or better hardware using depth 24. This requires an Xorg X 6.8.1 or newer X server. This feature does not work with hardware overlays, emulated overlays will be used instead at a substantial performance penalty. See for details. Default: off. Option "AllowDDCCI" "boolean" Enables DDC/CI support in the NV-CONTROL X extension. DDC/CI is a mechanism for communication between your computer and your display device. This can be used to set the values normally controlled through your display device's On Screen Display. Please see the DDC/CI NV-CONTROL attributes in 'NVCtrl.h' and functions in 'NVCtrlLib.h' in the 'nvidia-settings' source code. Default: DDC/CI is disabled. Option "SWCursor" "boolean" Enable or disable software rendering of the X cursor. Default: off. Option "HWCursor" "boolean" Enable or disable hardware rendering of the X cursor. Default: on. Option "CursorShadow" "boolean" Enable or disable use of a shadow with the hardware accelerated cursor; this is a black translucent replica of your cursor shape at a given offset from the real cursor. This option is only available on GeForce2 or better hardware (ie everything but TNT/TNT2, GeForce 256, GeForce DDR and Quadro). Default: no cursor shadow. Option "CursorShadowAlpha" "integer" The alpha value to use for the cursor shadow; only applicable if CursorShadow is enabled. This value must be in the range [0, 255] -- 0 is completely transparent; 255 is completely opaque. Default: 64. Option "CursorShadowXOffset" "integer" The offset, in pixels, that the shadow image will be shifted to the right from the real cursor image; only applicable if CursorShadow is enabled. This value must be in the range [0, 32]. Default: 4. Option "CursorShadowYOffset" "integer" The offset, in pixels, that the shadow image will be shifted down from the real cursor image; only applicable if CursorShadow is enabled. This value must be in the range [0, 32]. Default: 2. Option "ConnectedMonitor" "string" Allows you to override what the NVIDIA kernel module detects is connected to your video card. This may be useful, for example, if you use a KVM (keyboard, video, mouse) switch and you are switched away when X is started. In such a situation, the NVIDIA kernel module cannot detect what display devices are connected, and the NVIDIA X driver assumes you have a single CRT. Valid values for this option are "CRT" (cathode ray tube), "DFP" (digital flat panel), or "TV" (television); if using TwinView, this option may be a comma-separated list of display devices; e.g.: "CRT, CRT" or "CRT, DFP". NOTE: anything attached to a 15 pin VGA connector is regarded by the driver as a CRT. "DFP" should only be used to refer to flatpanels connected via a DVI port. Default: string is NULL. Option "UseEdidFreqs" "boolean" This option causes the X server to use the HorizSync and VertRefresh ranges given in a display device's EDID, if any. EDID provided range information will override the HorizSync and VertRefresh ranges specified in the Monitor section. If a display device does not provide an EDID, or the EDID does not specify an hsync or vrefresh range, then the X server will default to the HorizSync and VertRefresh ranges specified in the Monitor section. Option "IgnoreEDID" "boolean" Disable probing of EDID (Extended Display Identification Data) from your monitor. Requested modes are compared against values gotten from your monitor EDIDs (if any) during mode validation. Some monitors are known to lie about their own capabilities. Ignoring the values that the monitor gives may help get a certain mode validated. On the other hand, this may be dangerous if you do not know what you are doing. Default: Use EDIDs. Option "NoDDC" "boolean" Synonym for "IgnoreEDID" Option "FlatPanelProperties" "string" Requests particular properties of any connected flat panels as a comma-separated list of property=value pairs. Currently, the only two available properties are 'Scaling' and 'Dithering'. The possible values for 'Scaling' are: 'default' (the driver will use whatever scaling state is current), 'native' (the driver will use the flat panel's scaler, if it has one), 'scaled' (the driver will use the NVIDIA scaler, if possible), 'centered' (the driver will center the image, if possible), and 'aspect-scaled' (the driver will scale with the NVIDIA scaler, but keep the aspect ratio correct). The possible values for 'Dithering' are: 'default' (the driver will decide when to dither), 'enabled' (the driver will always dither when possible), and 'disabled' (the driver will never dither). If any property is not specified, it's value shall be 'default'. An example properties string might look like: "Scaling = centered, Dithering = enabled" Option "UseInt10Module" "boolean" Enable use of the X Int10 module to soft-boot all secondary cards, rather than POSTing the cards through the NVIDIA kernel module. Default: off (POSTing is done through the NVIDIA kernel module). Option "TwinView" "boolean" Enable or disable TwinView. Please see Appendix G for details. Default: TwinView is disabled. Option "TwinViewOrientation" "string" Controls the relationship between the two display devices when using TwinView. Takes one of the following values: "RightOf" "LeftOf" "Above" "Below" "Clone". Please see Appendix G for details. Default: string is NULL. Option "SecondMonitorHorizSync" "range(s)" This option is like the HorizSync entry in the Monitor section, but is for the second monitor when using TwinView. Please see Appendix G for details. Default: none. Option "SecondMonitorVertRefresh" "range(s)" This option is like the VertRefresh entry in the Monitor section, but is for the second monitor when using TwinView. Please see Appendix G for details. Default: none. Option "MetaModes" "string" This option describes the combination of modes to use on each monitor when using TwinView. Please see Appendix G for details. Default: string is NULL. Option "NoTwinViewXineramaInfo" "boolean" When in TwinView, the NVIDIA X driver normally provides a Xinerama extension that X clients (such as window managers) can use to discover the current TwinView configuration. Some window mangers get confused by this information, so this option is provided to disable this behavior. Default: TwinView Xinerama information is provided. Option "TVStandard" "string" Please see Appendix H for details on configuring TV-out. Option "TVOutFormat" "string" Please see Appendix H for details on configuring TV-out. Option "TVOverScan" "Decimal value in the range 0.0 to 1.0" Valid values are in the range 0.0 through 1.0; Please see Appendix H for details on configuring TV-out. Option "Stereo" "integer" Enable offering of quad-buffered stereo visuals on Quadro. Integer indicates the type of stereo glasses being used: Value Equipment ----------------------------- ----------------------------- 1 DDC glasses. The sync signal is sent to the glasses via the DDC signal to the monitor. These usually involve a passthrough cable between the monitor and video card. 2 "Blueline" glasses. These usually involve a passthrough cable between the monitor and video card. The glasses know which eye to display based on the length of a blue line visible at the bottom of the screen. When in this mode, the root window dimensions are one pixel shorter in the Y dimension than requested. This mode does not work with virtual root window sizes larger than the visible root window size (desktop panning). 3 Onboard stereo support. This is usually only found on professional cards. The glasses connect via a DIN connector on the back of the video card. 4 TwinView clone mode stereo (aka "passive" stereo). On video cards that support TwinView, the left eye is displayed on the first display, and the right eye is displayed on the second display. This is normally used in conjuction with special projectors to produce 2 polarized images which are then viewed with polarized glasses. To use this stereo mode, you must also configure TwinView in clone mode with the same resolution, panning offset, and panning domains on each display. Stereo is only available on Quadro cards. Stereo options 1, 2, and 3 (aka "active" stereo) may be used with TwinView if all modes within each metamode have identical timing values. Please see Appendix J for suggestions on making sure the modes within your metamodes are identical. The identical modeline requirement is not necessary for Stereo option 4 ("passive" stereo). Currently, stereo operation may be "quirky" on the original Quadro (NV10) chip and left-right flipping may be erratic. We are trying to resolve this issue for a future release. Default: Stereo is not enabled. UBB must be enabled when stereo is enabled (this is the default behavior). Stereo options 1, 2, and 3 (aka "active" stereo) are not supported on digital flat panels. Option "AllowDFPStereo" "boolean" By default, the NVIDIA X driver performs a check which disables active stereo (stereo options 1, 2, and 3) if the X screen is driving a DFP. The "AllowDFPStereo" option bypasses this check. Option "NoBandWidthTest" "boolean" As part of mode validation, the X driver tests if a given mode fits within the hardware's memory bandwidth constraints. This option disables this test. Default: the memory bandwidth test is performed. Option "IgnoreDisplayDevices" "string" This option tells the NVIDIA kernel module to completely ignore the indicated classes of display devices when checking what display devices are connected. You may specify a comma-separated list containing any of "CRT", "DFP", and "TV". For example: Option "IgnoreDisplayDevices" "DFP, TV" will cause the NVIDIA driver to not attempt to detect if any flatpanels or TVs are connected. This option is not normally necessary; however, some video BIOSes contain incorrect information about what display devices may be connected, or what i2c port should be used for detection. These errors can cause long delays in starting X. If you are experiencing such delays, you may be able to avoid this by telling the NVIDIA driver to ignore display devices which you know are not connected. NOTE: anything attached to a 15 pin VGA connector is regarded by the driver as a CRT. "DFP" should only be used to refer to flatpanels connected via a DVI port. Option "MultisampleCompatibility" "boolean" Enable or disable the use of separate front and back multisample buffers. This will consume more memory but is necessary for correct output when rendering to both the front and back buffers of a multisample or FSAA drawable. This option is necessary for correct operation of SoftImage XSI. Default: a singlemultisample buffer is shared between the front and back buffers. Option "NoPowerConnectorCheck" "boolean" The NVIDIA X driver will abort X server initialization if it detects that a GPU that requires an external power connector does not have an external power connector plugged in. This option can be used to bypass this test. Default: the power connector test is performed. Option "XvmcUsesTextures" "boolean" Forces XvMC to use the 3D engine for XvMCPutSurface requests rather than the video overlay. Default: video overlay is used when available. Option "AllowGLXWithComposite" "boolean" Enables GLX even when the Composite X extension is loaded. ENABLE AT YOUR OWN RISK. OpenGL applications will not display correctly in many circumstances with this setting enabled. Default: GLX is disabled when Composite is loaded. Option "ExactModeTimingsDVI" "boolean" Forces the initialization of the X server with the exact timings specified in the ModeLine. Default: For DVI devices, the X server inilializes with the closest mode in the EDID list. Option "Coolbits" "integer" Enables support in the NV-CONTROL X extension for manipulating GPU clock settings. When this option is set to "1" the nvidia-settings utility will contain a page labeled "Clock Frequencies" through which clock settings can be manipulated. Coolbits is only available on GeForce FX, Quadro FX, and newer GPUs. WARNING: this may cause system damage and void warranties. This utility can run your computer system out of the manufacturer's design specifications, including, but not limited to: higher system voltages, above normal temperatures, excessive frequencies, and changes to BIOS that may corrupt the BIOS. Your computer's operating system may hang and result in data loss or corrupted images. Depending on the manufacturer of your computer system, the computer system, hardware and software warranties may be voided, and you may not receive any further manufacturer support. NVIDIA does not provide customer service support for the Coolbits option. It is for these reasons that absolutely no warranty or guarantee is either express or implied. Before enabling and using, you should determine the suitability of the utility for your intended use, and you shall assume all responsibility in connection therewith. Option "LoadKernelModule" "boolean" By default, the NVIDIA Solaris X driver module will attempt to load the NVIDIA Solaris kernel module. Set this option to "off" to disable automatic loading of the NVIDIA kernel module by the NVIDIA X driver. __________________________________________________________________________ Appendix E. OpenGL Environment Variable Settings __________________________________________________________________________ FULL SCENE ANTIALIASING Antialiasing is a technique used to smooth the edges of objects in a scene to reduce the jagged "stairstep" effect that sometimes appears. Full-scene antialiasing is supported on GeForce or newer hardware. By setting the appropriate environment variable, you can enable full-scene antialiasing in any OpenGL application on these GPUs. Several anti-aliasing methods are available and you can select between them by setting the __GL_FSAA_MODE environment variable appropriately. Note that increasing the number of samples taken during FSAA rendering may decrease performance. The following tables describe the possible values for __GL_FSAA_MODE and their effect on various NVIDIA GPUs. __GL_FSAA_MODE GeForce, GeForce2, Quadro, and Quadro2 Pro ------------------------------- ------------------------------- 0 FSAA disabled 1 FSAA disabled 2 FSAA disabled 3 1.5 x 1.5 Supersampling 4 2 x 2 Supersampling 5 FSAA disabled 6 FSAA disabled 7 FSAA disabled __GL_FSAA_MODE GeForce4 MX, GeForce4 4xx Go, Quadro4 380,550,580 XGL, and Quadro4 NVS ------------------------------- ------------------------------- 0 FSAA disabled 1 2x Bilinear Multisampling 2 2x Quincunx Multisampling 3 FSAA disabled 4 2 x 2 Supersampling 5 FSAA disabled 6 FSAA disabled 7 FSAA disabled __GL_FSAA_MODE GeForce3, Quadro DCC, GeForce4 Ti, GeForce4 4200 Go, and Quadro4 700,750,780,900,980 XGL ------------------------------- ------------------------------- 0 FSAA disabled 1 2x Bilinear Multisampling 2 2x Quincunx Multisampling 3 FSAA disabled 4 4x Bilinear Multisampling 5 4x Gaussian Multisampling 6 2x Bilinear Multisampling by 4x Supersampling 7 FSAA disabled __GL_FSAA_MODE GeForce FX, GeForce 6xxx, GeForce 7xxx, Quadro FX ------------------------------- ------------------------------- 0 FSAA disabled 1 2x Bilinear Multisampling 2 2x Quincunx Multisampling 3 FSAA disabled 4 4x Bilinear Multisampling 5 4x Gaussian Multisampling 6 2x Bilinear Multisampling by 4x Supersampling 7 4x Bilinear Multisampling by 4x Supersampling 8 4x Bilinear Multisampling by 2x Supersampling (available on GeForce FX and later GPUS; not available on Quadro GPUs) ANTISTROPIC TEXTURE FILTERING Automatic anisotropic texture filtering can be enabled by setting the environment variable __GL_LOG_MAX_ANISO. The possible values are: __GL_LOG_MAX_ANISO Filtering Type ------------------------------- ------------------------------- 0 No anisotropic filtering 1 2x anisotropic filtering 2 4x anisotropic filtering 3 8x anisotropic filtering 4 16x anisotropic filtering 4x and greater are only available on GeForce3 or newer GPUS; 16x is only available on GeForce 6800 or newer GPUs. VBLANK SYNCHING Setting the environment variable __GL_SYNC_TO_VBLANK to a non-zero value will force glXSwapBuffers to sync to your monitor's vertical refresh rate (perform a swap only during the vertical blanking period). When using __GL_SYNC_TO_VBLANK with TwinView, OpenGL can only sync to one of the display devices; this may cause tearing corruption on the display device to which OpenGL is not syncing. You can use the environment variable __GL_SYNC_DISPLAY_DEVICE to specify to which display device OpenGL should sync. You should set this environment variable to the name of a display device; for example "CRT-1". Please look for the line "Connected display device(s):" in your X log file for a list of the display devices present and their names. DISABLING CPU SPECIFIC FEATURES Setting the environment variable __GL_FORCE_GENERIC_CPU to a non-zero value will inhibit the use of CPU specific features such as MMX, SSE, or 3DNOW!. Use of this option may result in performance loss. This option may be useful in conjunction with software such as the Valgrind memory debugger. __________________________________________________________________________ Appendix F. Configuring AGP __________________________________________________________________________ You can disable NVIDIA's AGP module (NVAGP) through the "NvAGP" option in your X config file. This same option is used with Linux and Solaris. Its effect for Solaris is as follows: Option "NvAgp" "0" ... disables AGP support Option "NvAgp" "1" ... use NVAGP, if possible Option "NvAgp" "2" ... disables AGP support Option "NvAGP" "3" ... use NVAGP, if possible The default is 3 (the default was 1 until after 1.0-1251). If you are experiencing problems with stability, you may want to start by disabling AGP and observing if that solves the problems. The following AGP chipsets are supported by NVIDIA's AGP; for all other chipsets it is recommended that you use the AGPGART module. Supported AGP Chipsets ------------------------------------------------- Intel 440LX Intel 440BX Intel 440GX Intel 815 ("Solano") Intel 820 ("Camino") Intel 830 Intel 840 ("Carmel") Intel 845 ("Brookdale") Intel 845G Intel 850 ("Tehama") Intel 855 ("Odem") Intel 860 ("Colusa") Intel 865G ("Springdale") Intel 875P ("Canterwood") Intel E7205 ("Granite Bay") Intel E7505 ("Placer") AMD 751 ("Irongate") AMD 761 ("IGD4") AMD 762 ("IGD4 MP") AMD 8151 ("Lokar") VIA 8371 VIA 82C694X VIA KT133 VIA KT266 VIA KT400 VIA P4M266 VIA P4M266A VIA P4X400 VIA K8T800 RCC CNB20LE RCC 6585HE Micron SAMDDR ("Samurai") Micron SCIDDR ("Scimitar") NVIDIA nForce NVIDIA nForce2 NVIDIA nForce3 ALi 1621 ALi 1631 ALi 1647 ALi 1651 ALi 1671 SiS 630 SiS 633 SiS 635 SiS 645 SiS 646 SiS 648 SiS 648FX SiS 650 SiS 655FX SiS 730 SiS 733 SiS 735 SiS 745 SiS 755 ATI RS200M If you are experiencing AGP stability problems, you should be aware of the following Additional AGP Information AGP drive strength BIOS setting (Via based mainboards) Many Via based mainboards allow adjusting the AGP drive strength in the system BIOS. The setting of this option largely affects system stability, the range between 0xEA and 0xEE seems to work best for NVIDIA hardware. Setting either nibble to 0xF generally restults in severe stability problems. If you decide to experiment with this, you need to be aware of the fact that you are doing so at your own risk and that you may render your system unbootable with improper settings until you reset the setting to a working value (w/ a PCI graphics card or by resetting the BIOS to its default values). System BIOS version Make sure to have the latest system BIOS provided by the board manufacturer. On ALi1541 and ALi1647 chipsets, NVIDIA drivers disable AGP to work around timing issues and signal integrity issues. You can force AGP to be enabled on these chipsets by setting NVreg_EnableALiAGP to 1. Note that this may cause the system to become unstable. Early SBIOS revisions for the ASUS A7V8X-X KT400 motherboard misconfigure the chipset when an AGP 2.x graphics card is installed; if X hangs on your ASUS KT400 system with NvAGP enabled and the installed graphics card is not an AGP 8x device, make sure that you have the lastest SBIOS installed. __________________________________________________________________________ Appendix G. Configuring Twinview __________________________________________________________________________ The TwinView feature is only supported on NVIDIA GPUs that support dual-display functionality, such as the GeForce2 MX, GeForce2 Go, Quadro2 MXR, Quadro2 Go, and any of the GeForce4, Quadro4, GeForce FX, or Quadro FX GPUs. Please consult with your video card vendor to confirm that TwinView is supported on your card. TwinView is a mode of operation where two display devices (digital flat panels, CRTs, and TVs) can display the contents of a single X screen in any arbitrary configuration. This method of multiple monitor use has several distinct advantages over other techniques (such as Xinerama): A single X screen is used. The NVIDIA driver conceals all information about multiple display devices from the X server; as far as X is concerned, there is only one screen. Both display devices share one frame buffer. Thus, all the the functionality present on a single display (e.g. accelerated OpenGL) is available on TwinView. No additional overhead is needed to emulate having a single desktop. If you are interested in using each display device as a separate X screen, please see Appendix O. X CONFIG TWINVIEW OPTIONS To enable TwinView, you must specify the following options in the Device section of your X Config file: Option "TwinView" Option "MetaModes" "" You must also specify either: Option "SecondMonitorHorizSync" "" Option "SecondMonitorVertRefresh" "" or: Option "HorizSync" "" Option "VertRefresh" "" You may also use any of the following options, though they are not required: Option "TwinViewOrientation" "" Option "ConnectedMonitor" "" Please see detailed descriptions of each option below. Detailed Description of Options TwinView This option is required to enable TwinView; without it, all other TwinView related options are ignored. SecondMonitorHorizSync SecondMonitorVertRefresh You specify the constraints of the second monitor through these options. The values given should follow the same convention as the "HorizSync" and "VertRefresh" entries in the Monitor section. As the XF86Config man page explains it: the ranges may be a comma separated list of distinct values and/or ranges of values, where a range is given by two distinct values separated by a dash. The HorizSync is given in kHz, and the VertRefresh is given in Hz. You may, if you trust your display devices' EDIDs, use the "UseEdidFreqs" option instead of these options (see Appendix D for a description of the "UseEdidFreqs" option). HorizSync VertRefresh Which display device is "first" and which is "second" is often unclear. For this reason, you may use these options instead of the SecondMonitor versions. With these options, you can specify a semicolon-separated list of frequency ranges, each optionally prepended with a display device name. For example: Option "HorizSync" "CRT-0: 50-110; DFP-0: 40-70" Option "VertRefresh" "CRT-0: 60-120; DFP-0: 60" Please see Appendix P on Display Device Names for more information. MetaModes A single MetaMode describes what mode should be used on each display device at a given time. Multiple MetaModes list the combinations of modes and the sequence in which they should be used. When the NVIDIA driver tells X what modes are available, it is really the minimal bounding box of the MetaMode that is communicated to X, while the "per display device" mode is kept internal to the NVIDIA driver. In MetaMode syntax, modes within a MetaMode are comma separated, and multiple MetaModes are separated by semicolons. For example: ", ; , " Where is the name of the mode to be used on display device 0 concurrently with used on display device 1. A mode switch will then cause to be used on display device 0 and to be used on display device 1. Here is a real MetaMode entry from the X config sample config file: Option "MetaModes" "1280x1024,1280x1024; 1024x768,1024x768" If you want a display device to not be active for a certain MetaMode, you can use the mode name "NULL", or simply omit the mode name entirely: "1600x1200, NULL; NULL, 1024x768" or "1600x1200; , 1024x768" Optionally, mode names can be followed by offset information to control the positioning of the display devices within the virtual screen space; e.g.: "1600x1200 +0+0, 1024x768 +1600+0; ..." Offset descriptions follow the conventions used in the X "-geometry" command line option; i.e. both positive and negative offsets are valid, though negative offsets are only allowed when a virtual screen size is explicitly given in the X config file. When no offsets are given for a MetaMode, the offsets will be computed following the value of the TwinViewOrientation option (see below). Note that if offsets are given for any one of the modes in a single MetaMode, then offsets will be expected for all modes within that single MetaMode; in such a case offsets will be assumed to be +0+0 when not given. When not explicitly given, the virtual screen size will be computed as the the bounding box of all MetaMode bounding boxes. MetaModes with a bounding box larger than an explicitly given virtual screen size will be discarded. A MetaMode string can be further modified with a "Panning Domain" specification; eg: "1024x768 @1600x1200, 800x600 @1600x1200" A panning domain is the area in which a display device's viewport will be panned to follow the mouse. Panning actually happens on two levels with TwinView: first, an individual display device's viewport will be panned within its panning domain, as long as the viewport is contained by the bounding box of the MetaMode. Once the mouse leaves the bounding box of the MetaMode, the entire MetaMode (i.e. all display devices) will be panned to follow the mouse within the virtual screen. Note that individual display devices' panning domains default to being clamped to the position of the display devices' viewports, thus the default behavior is just that viewports remain "locked" together and only perform the second type of panning. The most beneficial use of panning domains is probably to eliminate dead areas -- regions of the virtual screen that are inaccessible due to display devices with different resolutions. For example: "1600x1200, 1024x768" produces an inaccessible region below the 1024x768 display. Specifying a panning domain for the second display device: "1600x1200, 1024x768 @1024x1200" provides access to that dead area by allowing you to pan the 1024x768 viewport up and down in the 1024x1200 panning domain. Offsets can be used in conjunction with panning domains to position the panning domains in the virtual screen space (note that the offset describes the panning domain, and only affects the viewport in that the viewport must be contained within the panning domain). For example, the following describes two modes, each with a panning domain width of 1900 pixels, and the second display is positioned below the first: "1600x1200 @1900x1200 +0+0, 1024x768 @1900x768 +0+1200" Because it is often unclear which mode within a MetaMode will be used on each display device, mode descriptions within a MetaMode can be prepended with a display device name. For example: "CRT-0: 1600x1200, DFP-0: 1024x768" If no MetaMode string is specified, then the X driver uses the modes listed in the relevant "Display" subsection, attempting to place matching modes on each display device. TwinViewOrientation This option controls the positioning of the second display device relative to the first within the virtual X screen, when offsets are not explicitly given in the MetaModes. The possible values are: "RightOf" (the default) "LeftOf" "Above" "Below" "Clone" When "Clone" is specified, both display devices will be assigned an offset of 0,0. Because it is often unclear which display device is "first" and which is "second", TwinViewOrientation can be confusing. You can further clarify the TwinViewOrientation with display device names to indicate which display device is positioned relative to which display device. For example: "CRT-0 LeftOf DFP-0" ConnectedMonitor With this option you can override what the NVIDIA kernel module detects is connected to your video card. This may be useful, for example, if any of your display devices do not support detection using Display Data Channel (DDC) protocols. Valid values are a comma-separated list of display device names; for example: "CRT-0, CRT-1" "CRT" "CRT-1, DFP-0" WARNING: this option overrides what display devices are detected by the NVIDIA kernel module, and is very seldom needed. You really only need this if a display device is not detected, either because it does not provide DDC information, or because it is on the other side of a KVM (Keyboard-Video-Mouse) switch. In most other cases, it is best not to specify this option. Just as in all X config entries, spaces are ignored and all entries are case insensitive. FREQUENTLY ASKED TWINVIEW QUESTIONS Q. Nothing gets displayed on my second monitor; what is wrong? A. Monitors that do not support monitor detection using Display Data Channel (DDC) protocols (this includes most older monitors) are not detectable by your NVIDIA card. You need to explicitly tell the NVIDIA X driver what you have connected using the "ConnectedMonitor" option; e.g.: Option "ConnectedMonitor" "CRT, CRT" Q. Will window managers be able to appropriately place windows (e.g. avoiding placing windows across both display devices, or in inaccessible regions of the virtual desktop)? A. Yes. The NVIDIA X driver provides a Xinerama extension that X clients (such as window managers) can use to discover the current TwinView configuration. Note that the Xinerama protocol provides no way to inform clients of when a configuration change occurs. So, if you modeswitch to a different MetaMode, your window manager will still think you have the previous configuration. Using the Xinerama extension, in conjunction with the XF86VidMode extension to get modeswitch events, window managers should be able to determine the TwinView configuration at any given time. Unfortunately, the data provided by XineramaQueryScreens() appears to confuse some window managers; to workaround such broken window mangers, you can disable communication of the TwinView screen layout with the "NoTwinViewXineramaInfo" X config Option (please see Appendix D for details). Be aware that the NVIDIA driver cannot provide the Xinerama extension if the X server's own Xinerama extension is being used. Explicitly specifying Xinerama in the X config file or on the X server commandline will prohibit NVIDIA's Xinerama extension from installing, so make sure that the X server's log file does not contain: (++) Xinerama: enabled if you wish the NVIDIA driver to be able to provide the Xinerama extension while in TwinView. Another solution is to use panning domains to eliminate inaccessible regions of the virtual screen (see the MetaMode description above). A third solution is to use two separate X screens, rather than use TwinView. Please see Appendix O. Q. Why can I not get a resolution of 1600x1200 on the second display device when using a GeForce2 MX? A. Because the second display device on the GeForce2 MX was designed to be a digital flat panel, the Pixel Clock for the second display device is only 150 MHz. This effectively limits the resolution on the second display device to somewhere around 1280x1024 (for a description of how Pixel Clock frequencies limit the programmable modes, see the XFree86 Video Timings HOWTO). This constraint is not present on GeForce4 or GeForce FX chips -- the maximum pixel clock is the same i on both heads. Q. Do video overlays work across both display devices? A. Hardware video overlays only work on the first display device. The current solution is that blitted video is used instead on TwinView. Q. How are virtual screen dimensions determined in TwinView? A. After all requested modes have been validated, and the offsets for each MetaMode's viewports have been computed, the NVIDIA driver computes the bounding box of the panning domains for each MetaMode. The maximum bounding box width and height is then found. Note that one side effect of this is that the virtual width and virtual height may come from different MetaModes. Given the following MetaMode string: "1600x1200,NULL; 1024x768+0+0, 1024x768+0+768" the resulting virtual screen size will be 1600 x 1536. Q. Can I play full screen games across both display devices? A. Yes. While the details of configuration will vary from game to game, the basic idea is that a MetaMode presents X with a mode whose resolution is the bounding box of the viewports for that MetaMode. For example, the following: Option "MetaModes" "1024x768,1024x768; 800x600,800x600" Option "TwinViewOrientation" "RightOf" produce two modes: one whose resolution is 2048x768, and another whose resolution is 1600x600. Games such as Quake 3 Arena use the VidMode extension to discover the resolutions of the modes currently available. To configure Quake 3 Arena to use the above MetaMode string, add the following to your q3config.cfg file: seta r_customaspect "1" seta r_customheight "600" seta r_customwidth "1600" seta r_fullscreen "1" seta r_mode "-1" Note that, given the above configuration, there is no mode with a resolution of 800x600 (remember that the MetaMode "800x600, 800x600" has a resolution of 1600x600"), so if you change Quake 3 Arena to use a resolution of 800x600, it will display in the lower left corner of your screen, with the rest of the screen grayed out. To have single head modes available as well, an appropriate MetaMode string might be something like: "800x600,800x600; 1024x768,NULL; 800x600,NULL; 640x480,NULL" More precise configuration information for specific games is beyond the scope of this document, but the above examples coupled with numerous online sources should be enough to point you in the right direction. __________________________________________________________________________ Appendix H. Configuring TV-Out __________________________________________________________________________ NVIDIA GPU-based video cards with a TV-Out (S-Video) connector can be employed to use a television as another display device, just like a CRT or digital flat panel. The TV can be used by itself, or (on appropriate video cards) in conjunction with another display device in a TwinView configuration. If a TV is the only display device connected to your video card, it will be used as the primary display when you boot your system (i.e. the console will come up on the TV just as if it were a CRT). To use your TV with X, there are a few parameters that you should pay special attention to in your X config file: The VertRefresh and HorizSync values in your monitor section; please make sure these are appropriate for your television. Values are generally: HorizSync 30-50 VertRefresh 60 The Modes in your screen section; the valid modes for your TV encoder will be reported in a verbose X log file (generated with `startx -- -logverbose 5`) when X is run on a TV. Some modes may be limited to certain TV Standards; if that is the case, it will be noted in the X log file. Generally, at least 800x600 and 640x480 are supported. The "TVStandard" option should be added to your screen section; valid values are: TVStandard Description ----------------------------- ----------------------------- "PAL-B" used in Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Guinea, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Italy, Malaysia, The Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland "PAL-D" used in China and North Korea "PAL-G" used in Denmark, Finland, Germany, Italy, Malaysia, The Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland "PAL-H" used in Belgium "PAL-I" used in Hong Kong and The United Kingdom "PAL-K1" used in Guinea "PAL-M" used in Brazil "PAL-N" used in France, Paraguay, and Uruguay "PAL-NC" used in Argentina "NTSC-J" used in Japan "NTSC-M" used in Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, Puerto Rico, South Korea, Taiwan, United States of America, and Venezuela "HD480i" 480 line interlaced "HD480p" 480 line progressive "HD720p" 720 line progressive "HD1080i" 1080 line interlaced "HD1080p" 1080 line progressive "HD576i" 576 line interlace "HD576p" 576 line progressive The line in your X config file should be something like: Option "TVStandard" "NTSC-M" If you do not specify a TVStandard, or you specify an invalid value, the default "NTSC-M" will be used. Note: if your country is not in the above list, select the country closest to your location. The "ConnectedMonitor" option can be used to tell X to use the TV for display. This should only be needed if your TV is not detected by the video card, or you use a CRT (or digital flat panel) as your boot display, but want to redirect X to use the TV. The line in your config file should be: Option "ConnectedMonitor" "TV" The "TVOutFormat" option can be used to force SVIDEO or COMPOSITE output. Without this option the driver autodetects the output format. Unfortunately, it does not always do this correctly. The output format can be forced with the options: Option "TVOutFormat" "SVIDEO" or Option "TVOutFormat" "COMPOSITE" The "TVOverScan" option can be used to enable Overscan where supported. Valid values are decimal values in the range 1.0 (which means overscan as much as possible: make the image as large as possible) and 0.0 (which means disable overscanning: make the image as small as possible). Overscanning is disabled (0.0) by default. Overscan is currently only available on GeForce4 or newer GPUs with either NVIDIA or Conexant TV encoders. The NVIDIA X driver may not restore the console correctly with XFree86 versions older than 4.3 when the console is a TV. This is due to binary incompatibilities between XFree86 int10 modules. If you use a TV as your console it is recommended that you upgrade to XFree86 4.3 or later. __________________________________________________________________________ Appendix I. Configuring a Laptop __________________________________________________________________________ INSTALLATION AND CONFIGURATION Installation and configuration of the NVIDIA Accelerated Solaris Driver Set on a laptop is the same as for any desktop environment, with a few minor exceptions, listed below. Starting in the 1.0-2802 release, information about the internal flatpanel for use in initializing the display is by default generated on the fly from data stored in the video BIOS. This can be disabled by setting the "SoftEDIDs" kernel option to 0. If "SoftEDIDs" is turned off, then hardcoded data will be chosen from a table, based on the value of the "Mobile" kernel option. The "Mobile" kernel option can be set to any of the following values: Value Meaning ------------------------------- ------------------------------- 0xFFFFFFFF let the kernel module auto detect the correct value 1 Dell laptops 2 non-Compal Toshiba laptops 3 all other laptops 4 Compal Toshiba laptops 5 Gateway laptops Again, the "Mobile" kernel option is only needed if SoftEDIDs is disabled; when it is used, it is usually safest to let the kernel module auto detect the correct value (this is the default behavior). Should you need to alter either of these options, you may do so in any of the following ways: editing os-registry.c in the usr/src/nv/ directory of the .run file. setting the value on the modprobe command line (e.g.: `modprobe nvidia NVreg_SoftEDIDs=0 NVreg_Mobile=3`) adding an "options" line to your module configuration file, usually /etc/modules.conf (e.g.: "options nvidia NVreg_Mobile=5") ADDITIONAL FUNCTIONALITY In this section we discuss additional functionality associated with laptop configuration. TWIN VIEW All mobile NVIDIA chips support TwinView. TwinView on a laptop can be configured in the same way as on a desktop machine (please refer to Appendix G ); note that in a TwinView configuration using the laptop's internal flat panel and an external CRT, the CRT is the primary display device (specify it's HorizSync and VertRefresh in the Monitor section of your X config file) and the flat panel is the secondary display device (specify it's HorizSync and VertRefresh through the SecondMonitorHorizSync and SecondMonitorVertRefresh options). You can also employ the UseEdidFreqs option to acquire the HorizSync and VertRefresh from the EDID of each display devices, and not worry about setting them in your X config file (this should only be done if you trust your display device's reported EDIDs -- please see the description of the UseEdidFreqs option in Appendix D for details). HOTKEY SWITCHING OF DISPLAY DEVICES Besides TwinView, mobile NVIDIA chips also have the capacity to react to an LCD/CRT hotkey event, toggling between each of the connected display devices and each possible combination of the connected display devices (note that only 2 display devices may be active at a time). TwinView as configured in your X config file and hotkey functionality are mutually exclusive -- if you enable TwinView in your X config file, then the NVIDIA X driver will ignore LCD/CRT hotkey events. Another important aspect of hotkey functionality is that you can dynamically connect and remove display devices to/from your laptop and hotkey to them without restarting X. A concern with all of this is how to validate and determine what modes should be programmed on each display device. First, it is immensely helpful to use the UseEdidFreqs so that the hsync and vrefresh for each display device can be retrieved from the display devices' EDID -- otherwise, the semantics of what the contents of the monitor section mean constantly changes with each hotkey event. When X is started, or when a change is detected in the list of connected display devices, a new hotkey sequence list is constructed -- this lists what display devices will be used with each hotkey event. When a hotkey event occurs, then the next hotkey state in the sequence is chosen. Each mode requested in the X config file is validated against each display device's constraints, and the resulting modes are made available for that display device. If multiple display devices are to be active at once, then the modes from each display device are paired together; if an exact match (same resolution) cannot be found, then the closest fit is found, and the display device with the smaller resolution is panned within the resolution of the other display device. When vt-switching away from X, the vga console will always be restored on the display device on which it was present when X was started. Similarly, when vt-switching back into X, the same display device configuration will be used as when you vt-switched away from X, regardless of what LCD/CRT hotkey activity occurred while vt-switched away. KNOWN LAPTOP ISSUES There are a few known issues associated with laptops. LCD/CRT hotkey switching is not currently functioning on any Toshiba laptop, with the exception of the Toshiba Satellite 3000 series. TwinView on Satellite 2800 series Toshbia laptops is not currently functioning. The video overlay only works on the first display device on which you started X. For example, if you start X on the internal LCD, run a video application that uses the video overlay (uses the "Video Overlay" adaptor advertised through the XV extension), and then hotkey switch to add a second display device, the video will not appear on the second display device. To work around this, you can either configure the video application to use the "Video Blitter" adaptor advertised through the XV extension (this is always available), or hotkey switch to the display device on which you want to use the video overlay *before* starting X. __________________________________________________________________________ Appendix J. Programming Modes __________________________________________________________________________ The NVIDIA Accelerated Solaris Driver Set supports all standard VGA and VESA modes, as well as most user-written custom mode lines; double-scan modes are supported on all hardware. Interlaced modes are supported on all GeForce FX/Quadro FX and newer GPUs, and certain older GPUs; the X log file will contain a message "Interlaced video modes are supported on this GPU" if interlaced modes are supported. In general, your display device (monitor/flat panel/television) will be a greater constraint on what modes you can use than either your NVIDIA GPU-based video board or the NVIDIA Accelerated Solaris Driver Set. To request one or more standard modes for use in X, you can simply add a "Modes" line such as: Modes "1600x1200" "1024x768" "640x480" in the appropriate Display subsection of your X config file (please see the XF86Config(5x) or xorg.conf(5x) man pages for details). The following documentation is primarily of interest if you compose your own custom mode lines, or are just interested in learning more. Please note that this is neither an explanation nor a guide to the fine art of crafting custom mode lines for X. We leave that, rather, to documents such as the XFree86 Video Timings HOWTO (which can be found at http://www.tldp.org). DEPTH, BITS PER PIXEL, AND PITCH While not directly a concern when programming modes, the bits used per pixel is an issue when considering the maximum programmable resolution; for this reason, it is worthwhile to address the confusion surrounding the terms "depth" and "bits per pixel". Depth is how many bits of data are stored per pixel. Supported depths are 8, 15, 16, and 24. Most video hardware, however, stores pixel data in sizes of 8, 16, or 32 bits; this is the amount of memory allocated per pixel. When you specify your depth, X selects the bits per pixel (bpp) size in which to store the data. Below is a table of what bpp is used for each possible depth: Depth BPP ------------------------------- ------------------------------- 8 8 15 16 16 16 24 32 Lastly, the "pitch" is how many bytes in the linear frame buffer there are between one pixel's data, and the data of the pixel immediately below. You can think of this as the horizontal resolution multiplied by the bytes per pixel (bits per pixel divided by 8). In practice, the pitch may be more than this product due to alignment constraints. MAXIMUM RESOLUTIONS The NVIDIA Accelerated Solaris Driver Set and NVIDIA GPU-based video boards support resolutions up to 2048x1536, though the maximum resolution your system can support is also limited by the amount of video memory (see USEFUL FORMULAS for details) and the maximum supported resolution of your display device (monitor/flat panel/television). Also note that while use of a video overlay does not limit the maximum resolution or refresh rate, video memory bandwidth used by a programmed mode does effect the overlay quality. USEFUL FORMULAS The maximum resolution is a function both of the amount of video memory and the bits per pixel you elect to use: HR * VR * (bpp/8) = Video Memory Used In other words, the amount of video memory used is equal to the horizontal resolution (HR) multiplied by the vertical resolution (VR) multiplied by the bytes per pixel (bits per pixel divided by eight). Technically, the video memory used is actually the pitch times the vertical resolution, and the pitch may be slightly greater than(HR * (bpp/8))to accommodate hardware requirements that the pitch be a multiple of some value. Please note that this is just memory usage for the frame buffer; video memory is also used by other things such as OpenGL or pixmap caching. Another important relationship is that between the resolution, the pixel clock (aka dot clock) and the vertical refresh rate: RR = PCLK / (HFL * VFL) In other words, the refresh rate (RR) is equal to the pixel clock (PCLK) divided by the total number of pixels: the horizontal frame length (HFL) multiplied by the vertical frame length (VFL) (note that these are the frame lengths, and not just the visible resolutions). As described in the XFree86 Video Timings HOWTO, the above formula can be rewritten as: PCLK = RR * HFL * VFL Given a maximum pixel clock, you can adjust the RR, HFL and VFL as desired, as long as the product of the three is consistent. The pixel clock is reported in the log file when you run X with verbose logging: `startx -- -logverbose 5`. Your X log should contain several lines like: (--) NVIDIA(0): Display Device 0: maximum pixel clock at 8 bpp: 350 MHz (--) NVIDIA(0): Display Device 0: maximum pixel clock at 16 bpp: 350 MHz (--) NVIDIA(0): Display Device 0: maximum pixel clock at 32 bpp: 300 MHz which indicate the maximum pixel clock at each bit per pixel size. HOW MODES ARE VALIDATED During the PreInit phase of the X server, the NVIDIA X driver validates all requested modes by doing the following: Take the intersection of the HorizSync and VertRefresh ranges given by the user in the X config file with the ranges reported by the monitor in the EDID (Extended Display Identification Data); this behavior can be disabled by using the "IgnoreEDID" option in which case the X driver will blindly accept the HorizSync and VertRefresh ranges given by the user. Call the xf86ValidateModes() helper function, which finds modes with the names the user specified in the X config file, pruning out modes with invalid horizontal sync frequencies or vertical refresh rates, pixel clocks larger than the maximum pixel clock for the video card, or resolutions larger than the virtual screen size (if a virtual screen size was specified in the X config file). Several other constraints are applied; see 'xc/programs/Xserver/hw/xfree86/common/xf86Mode.c' : xf86ValidateModes(). All modes returned from xf86ValidateModes() are then examined to make sure their resolutions are not larger than the largest mode reported by the monitor's EDID (this can be disabled with the "IgnoreEDID" option. If the display is a TV, each mode is checked to make sure it has a resolution that is supported by the TV encoder (usually only 800x600 and 640x480 are supported by the encoder). All modes are also tested to confirm that they fit within the hardware's memory bandwidth constraints. This test can be disabled with the NoBandWidthTest X config file option. All remaining modes are then checked to make sure they pass the constraints described below in ADDITIONAL MODE CONSTRAINTS. The last three steps are also done when each mode is programmed, to catch potentially invalid modes submitted by the XF86VidModeExtension (eg xvidtune(1)). For TwinView, the above validation is done for the modes requested for each display device. ADDITIONAL MODE CONSTRAINTS Below is a list of additional constraints on a mode's parameters that must be met. In some cases these are chip-specific. The horizontal resolution (HR) must be a multiple of 8 and be less than or equal to the value in the table below. The horizontal blanking width (the maximum of the horizontal frame length and the horizontal sync end minus the minimum of the horizontal resolution and the horizontal sync start (max(HFL,HSE) - min(HR,HSS)) must be a multiple of 8 and be less than or equal to the value in the table below. The horizontal sync start (HSS) must be a multiple of 8 and be less than or equal to the value in the table below. The horizontal sync width (the horizontal sync end minus the horizontal sync start (HSE - HSS)) must be a multiple of 8 and be less than or equal to the value in the table below. The horizontal frame length (HFL) must be a multiple of 8, must be greater than or equal to 40, and must be less than or equal to the value in the table below. The horizontal frame length (HFL) must be a multiple of 8, must be greater than or equal to 40, and must be less than or equal to the value in the table below. The vertical resolution (VR) must be less than or equal to the value in the table below. The vertical blanking width (the maximum of the vertical frame length and the vertical sync end minus the minimum of the vertical resolution and the vertical sync start (max(VFL,VSE) - min(VR,VSS)) must be less than or equal to the value in the table below. The vertical sync start (VSS) must be less than or equal to the value in the table below. The vertical sync width (the vertical sync end minus the vertical sync start (VSE - VSS)) must be less than or equal to the value in the table below. The vertical frame length (VFL) must be greater than or equal to 2 and less than or equal to the value in the table below. Here is an example mode line demonstrating the use of each abbreviation used above: # Custom Mode line for the SGI 1600SW Flatpanel # name PCLK HR HSS HSE HFL VR VSS VSE VFL ENSURING IDENTICAL MODE TIMINGS Some functionality, such as Active Stereo with TwinView, requires control over exactly what mode timings are used. There are several ways to accomplish that: If you only want to make sure that both display devices use the same modes, you only need to make sure that both display devices use the same HorizSync and VertRefresh values when performing mode validation; this would be done by making sure the HorizSync and SecondMonitorHorizSync match, and that the VertRefresh and the SecondMonitorVertRefresh match. A more explicit approach is to specify the modeline you wish to use (using one of the modeline generators available), and using a unique name. For example, if you wanted to use 1024x768 at 120 Hz on each monitor in TwinView with active stereo, you might add something like: # 1024x768 @ 120.00 Hz (GTF) hsync: 98.76 kHz; pclk: 139.05 MHz Modeline "1024x768_120" 139.05 1024 1104 1216 1408 768 769 772 823 -HSync +Vsync In the monitor section of your X config file, and then in the Screen section of your X config file, specify a MetaMode like this: Option "MetaModes" "1024x768_120, 1024x768_120" ADDITIONAL INFORMATION An XFree86 modeline generator, conforming to the GTF Standard is available at http://gtf.sourceforge.net/. Additional generators can be found by searching for "modeline" on freshmeat.net. __________________________________________________________________________ Appendix K. Flipping and UBB __________________________________________________________________________ The NVIDIA Accelerated Solaris Driver Set supports Unified Back Buffer (UBB) and OpenGL Flipping. These features can provide performance gains in certain situtations. Unified Back Buffer (UBB): UBB is available only on the Quadro family of GPUs (Quadro4 NVS excluded) and is enabled by default when there is sufficient video memory available. This can be disabled with the UBB X config option described in Appendix D. When UBB is enabled, all windows share the same back, stencil and depth buffer. When there are many windows, the back, stencil and depth usage will never exceed the size of that used by a full screen window. However, even for a single small window the back, stencil and depth the video memory usage is that of a full screen window. In that case video memory may be used less efficiently than in the non-UBB case. Flipping: when OpenGL flipping is enabled, OpenGL can perform buffer swaps by changing which buffer the DAC scans out rather than copying the back buffer contents to the front buffer; this is generally a much higher performance mechanism and allows tearless swapping during the vertical retrace (when __GL_SYNC_TO_VBLANK is set). The conditions under which OpenGL can flip are slightly complicated, but in general: on Geforce or newer hardware, OpenGL can flip when a single full screen unobscured OpenGL application is running, and __GL_SYNC_TO_VBLANK is enabled. Additionally, OpenGL can flip on Quadro hardware even when an OpenGL window is partially obscured or not full screen or __GL_SYNC_TO_VBLANK is not enabled. __________________________________________________________________________ Appendix L. Swapping boards __________________________________________________________________________ Here is a common problem seen after swapping a board for a different model. Xorg fails to start with the message: (EE) NVIDIA(0): Failed to initialize the NVIDIA graphics device! (EE) NVIDIA(0): *** Aborting *** (II) UnloadModule: "nvidia" (EE) Screen(s) found, but none have a usable configuration. This is because Solaris "remembers" the previous model that was installed and increments the instance numbering. For example, if an NVS 280 was the original card and then it is replaced with an FX 1100, the configuration reboot will create the following device links: /dev/fbs/nvidia0 ----> NVS 280 instance /dev/fbs/nvidia1 ----> FX 1100 instance The easiest way to solve this is remove the "nvidia" line(s) from the file /etc/path_to_inst before doing the configuration reboot: # reboot -- -r or type b -r at the boot prompt. If you have already done the configuration reboot, just modify the file and do the configuration reboot again. Please note that corrupting this file can stop your machine from booting properly, in which case a boot -a must be performed, causing the file to be recreated from scratch. __________________________________________________________________________ Appendix M. Known Issues __________________________________________________________________________ The following problems still exist in this release and are in the process of being resolved. Laptops If you are using a laptop please see the "Known Laptop Issues" in Appendix I. FSAA When FSAA is enabled (the __GL_FSAA_MODE environment variable is set to a value that enables FSAA and a multisample visual is chosen), the rendering may be corrupted when resizing the window. libGL DSO finalizer and pthreads When a multithreaded OpenGL application exits, it is possible for libGL's DSO finalizer (also known as the destructor, or "_fini") to be called while other threads are executing OpenGL code. The finalizer needs to free resources allocated by libGL. This can cause problems for threads that are still using these resources. Setting the environment variable "__GL_NO_DSO_FINALIZER" to "1" will work around this problem by forcing libGL's finalizer to leave its resources in place. These resources will still be reclaimed by the operating system when the process exits. Note that the finalizer is also executed as part of dlclose(3), so if you have an application that dlopens(3) and dlcloses(3) libGL repeatedly, "__GL_NO_DSO_FINALIZER" will cause libGL to leak resources until the process exits. Using this option can improve stability in some multithreaded applications, including Java3D applications. XVideo and the Composite X extension XVideo will not work correctly when Composite is enabled. See Appendix Q. This section describes problems that will not be fixed. Usually, the source of the problem is beyond the control of NVIDIA. Following is the list of problems: Problems that Will Not Be Fixed Gigabyte GA-6BX Motherboard This motherboard uses a LinFinity regulator on the 3.3-V rail that is rated to only 5 A -- less than the AGP specification, which requires 6 A. When diagnostics or applications are running, the temperature of the regulator rises, causing the voltage to the NVIDIA chip to drop as low as 2.2 V. Under these circumstances, the regulator cannot supply the current on the 3.3-V rail that the NVIDIA chip requires. This problem does not occur when the graphics board has a switching regulator or when an external power supply is connected to the 3.3-V rail. VIA KX133 and 694X Chip sets with AGP 2x On Athlon motherboards with the VIA KX133 or 694X chip set, such as the ASUS K7V motherboard, NVIDIA drivers default to AGP 2x mode to work around insufficient drive strength on one of the signals. Irongate Chip sets with AGP 1x AGP 1x transfers are used on Athlon motherboards with the Irongate chip set to work around a problem with the signal integrity of the chip set. ALi chipsets, ALi1541 and ALi1647 On ALi1541 and ALi1647 chipsets, NVIDIA drivers disable AGP to work around timing issues and signal integrity issues. See for more information on ALi chipsets. __________________________________________________________________________ Appendix N. GLX Support __________________________________________________________________________ This release supports GLX 1.3 with the following extensions: GLX_EXT_visual_info GLX_EXT_visual_rating GLX_SGIX_fbconfig GLX_SGIX_pbuffer GLX_ARB_get_proc_address For a description of these extensions, please see the OpenGL extension registry at http://oss.sgi.com/projects/ogl-sample/registry/index.html Some of the above extensions exist as part of core GLX 1.3 functionality, however, they are also exported as extensions for backwards compatibility. __________________________________________________________________________ Appendix O. Configuring Multiple X Screens on One Card __________________________________________________________________________ Graphics chips that support TwinView (Appendix G) can also be configured to treat each connected display device as a separate X screen. While there are several disadvantages to this approach as compared to TwinView (eg: windows cannot be dragged between X screens, hardware accelerated OpenGL cannot span the two X screens), it does offer several advantages over TwinView: If each display device is a separate X screen, then properties that may vary between X screens may vary between displays (eg: depth, root window size, etc). Hardware that can only be used on one display at a time (eg: video overlays, hardware accelerated RGB overlays), and which consequently cannot be used at all when in TwinView, can be exposed on the first X screen when each display is a separate X screen. The 1-to-1 association of display devices to X screens is more historically in line with X. To configure two separate X screens to share one graphics chip, here is what you will need to do: First, create two separate Device sections, each listing the BusID of the graphics card to be shared, each listing the driver as "nvidia", and assign each a separate screen: Section "Device" Identifier "nvidia0" Driver "nvidia" # Edit the BusID with the location of your graphics card BusID "PCI:2:0:0" Screen 0 EndSection Section "Device" Identifier "nvidia1" Driver "nvidia" # Edit the BusID with the location of your graphics card BusId "PCI:2:0:0" Screen 1 EndSection Then, create two Screen sections, each using one of the Device sections: Section "Screen" Identifier "Screen0" Device "nvidia0" Monitor "Monitor0" DefaultDepth 24 Subsection "Display" Depth 24 Modes "1600x1200" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480" EndSubsection EndSection Section "Screen" Identifier "Screen1" Device "nvidia1" Monitor "Monitor1" DefaultDepth 24 Subsection "Display" Depth 24 Modes "1600x1200" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480" EndSubsection EndSection (note: you'll also need to create a second Monitor section) Finally, update the ServerLayout section to use and position both Screen sections: Section "ServerLayout" ... Screen 0 "Screen0" Screen 1 "Screen1" leftOf "Screen0" ... EndSection For further details, please refer to the XF86Config(5x) or xorg.conf(5x) manpages. __________________________________________________________________________ Appendix P. Display Device Names __________________________________________________________________________ A "Display Device" refers to some piece of hardware capable of displaying an image. Display devices are separated into the three general categories: analog CRTs, digital flatpanels (DFPs), and TeleVisions. Note that analog flatpanels are considered the same as analog CRTs by the driver. A "Display Device Name" is a string description that uniquely identifies a display device; it follows the format "-", for example: "CRT-0", "CRT-1", "DFP-0", or "TV-0". Note that the number indicates how the display device connector is wired on the graphics board, and has nothing to do with how many of that display device type is present. This means, for example, that you may have a "CRT-1", even if you do not have a "CRT-0". To determine which display devices are currently connected, you may check your X log file for a line similar to the following: (II) NVIDIA(0): Connected display device(s): CRT-0, DFP-0 Display device names can be used in the MetaMode, HorizSync, and VertRefresh X config options to indicate what display device a setting should be applied to. For example: Option "MetaModes" "CRT-0: 1600x1200, DFP-0: 1024x768" Option "HorizSync" "CRT-0: 50-110; DFP-0: 40-70" Option "VertRefresh" "CRT-0: 60-120; DFP-0: 60" Specifying the display device name in these options is not required; if display device names are specified, then the driver attempts to infer which display device a setting applies to. In the case of MetaModes, for example, the first mode listed is applied to the "first" display device, and the second mode listed is applied to the "second" display device. Unfortunately, it is often unclear which display device is the "first" or "second". That is why specifying the display device name is preferable. When specifying display device names, you may also omit the number part of the name, though this is only useful if you only have one of that type of display device. For example, if you have one CRT and DFP connected, you may reference in the MetaMode string as follows: Option "MetaModes" "CRT: 1600x1200, DFP: 1024x768" __________________________________________________________________________ Appendix Q. The X Composite Extension __________________________________________________________________________ X.org version X11R6.8.0 contains experimental support for a new X protocol extension called Composite. This extension allows windows to be drawn into pixmaps instead of directly onto the screen. In conjuction with the DAMAGE and RENDER extensions, this allows a program called a composite manager to blend windows together to draw the screen. Performance can be improved by enabling "Option "RenderAccel"" in xorg.conf. See Appendix D for more details. Full Composite support will require additional driver support. Currently, direct rendering clients such as GLX have no way of knowing that they are supposed to render into a pixmap, and will draw directly to the screen instead. We are currently investigating what is necessary for such clients to interoperate seamlessly with Composite. In the meantime, GLX will be disabled by default when the Composite extension is detected. An option has been provided to re-enable it. See "Option "AllowGLXWithComposite"" in Appendix D. This issue was discussed on the xorg mailing list: http://freedesktop.org/pipermail/xorg/2004-May/000607.html Composite also causes problems with other driver components: Xv cannot draw into pixmaps that have been redirected offscreen and will draw directly onto the screen instead. For some programs you can work around this issue by using an alternative video driver. For example, "mplayer -vo x11" will work correctly, as will "xine -V xshm". If you wish to use Xv, you can simply disable the compositing manager and re-enable it when you are finished. Workstation overlays are incompatible with Composite. More information about Composite can be found at http://freedesktop.org/Software/CompositeExt __________________________________________________________________________ Appendix R. The nvidia-settings Utility __________________________________________________________________________ A graphical configuration utility, 'nvidia-settings', is included with the NVIDIA Solaris graphics driver. After installing the driver and starting X, you can run this configuration utility by running: % nvidia-settings in a terminal window. Detailed information about the configuration options available are documented in the help window in the utility. For more information, please see the user guide available here: ftp://download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86/nvidia-settings-user-guide.txt The source code to nvidia-settings is released as GPL and is available here: ftp://download.nvidia.com/XFree86/nvidia-settings/ __________________________________________________________________________ Appendix S. Support for GLX in Xinerama __________________________________________________________________________ This driver supports GLX when Xinerama is enabled on similar GPUs. The Xinerama extension takes multiple physical X screens (possibly spanning multiple GPUs), and binds them into one logical X screen. This allows windows to be dragged between GPUs and to span across multiple GPUs. The NVIDIA driver supports hardware accelerated OpenGL rendering across all NVIDIA GPUs when Xinerama is enabled. To configure Xinerama: configure multiple X screens (please refer to the XF86Config(5x) or xorg.conf(5x) manpages for details). The Xinerama extension can be enabled by adding the line Option "Xinerama" "True" to the "ServerFlags" section of your X config file. Requirements: It is recommended to use identical GPUs. Some combinations of non-identical, but similar, GPUs are supported. If a GPU is incompatible with the rest of a Xinerama desktop then no OpenGL rendering will appear on the screens driven by that GPU. Rendering will still appear normally on screens connected to other supported GPUs. In this situation the X log file will include a message of the form: (WW) NVIDIA(2): The GPU driving screen 2 is incompatabile with the rest of (WW) NVIDIA(2): the GPUs composing the desktop. OpenGL rendering will (WW) NVIDIA(2): be disabled on screen 2. The NVIDIA X driver must be used for all X screens in the server. Only the intersection of capabilities across all GPUs will be advertised. X configuration options that affect GLX operation (eg: stereo, overlays) should be set consistently across all X screens in the X server. Known Issues: The maximum renderable window dimension is 4096 pixels. Versions of XFree86 prior to 4.5 and versions of X.org prior to 6.8.0 lack the required interfaces to properly implement overlays with the Xinerama extension. On earlier server versions mixing overlays and Xinerama will result in rendering corruption. If you are using the Xinerama extension with overlays, it is recommended that you upgrade to XFree86 4.5, X.org 6.8.0, or newer