Hello,

Could you tell me a graphic card (pci express) that will work fine
on FreeBSD? (If i can use a dual screen it will be better).

I'm using a Nvidia 460 but my box is stable as a Windows3.1 :(

Thanks in advance.
Regards.
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On Thu, 2011-06-23 at 22:13 +0200, Patrick Lamaiziere wrote:
> Hello,
>
> Could you tell me a graphic card (pci express) that will work fine
> on FreeBSD? (If i can use a dual screen it will be better).
>
> I'm using a Nvidia 460 but my box is stable as a Windows3.1 :(
>
> Thanks in advance.
> Regards.


Nvidia GTX 460 works perfectly fine on FreeBSD and same goes for any
modern/supported Nvidia hardware (which is basically all of them, save
for some brain-dead stuff like Nvidia Optimus).

Your stability issues are most probably caused by something else, or at
least something more specific than simple combination of Nvidia 460 and
FreeBSD.

m.



--
Michal Varga,
Stonehenge (Gmail account)


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On 6/24/2011 3:56 AM, Michal Varga wrote:
> On Thu, 2011-06-23 at 22:13 +0200, Patrick Lamaiziere wrote:
>> Hello,
>>
>> Could you tell me a graphic card (pci express) that will work fine
>> on FreeBSD? (If i can use a dual screen it will be better).
>>
>> I'm using a Nvidia 460 but my box is stable as a Windows3.1 :(
>>
>> Thanks in advance.
>> Regards.
>
>
> Nvidia GTX 460 works perfectly fine on FreeBSD and same goes for any
> modern/supported Nvidia hardware (which is basically all of them, save
> for some brain-dead stuff like Nvidia Optimus).
>
> Your stability issues are most probably caused by something else, or at
> least something more specific than simple combination of Nvidia 460 and
> FreeBSD.
>
> m.

Nvidia has always worked well for me as well; Nvidia is one of the only
companies that makes GOOD drivers specifically for FreeBSD. They
actually make the driver, and they have one for more than Windows unlike
some companies. Whenever I have an Nvidia card, I generally know I'll be
doing fine with good hardware, as they have a driver for FreeBSD, Linux,
and Solaris.

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On Fri, Jun 24, 2011 at 12:41 PM, Allen <> wrote:
>
> Nvidia has always worked well for me as well; Nvidia is one of the only
> companies that makes GOOD drivers specifically for FreeBSD. They
> actually make the driver, and they have one for more than Windows unlike
> some companies. Whenever I have an Nvidia card, I generally know I'll be
> doing fine with good hardware, as they have a driver for FreeBSD, Linux,
> and Solaris.
>

Ditto, except watch out for laptops that have both Intel and nvidia
graphics chips in them, they will probably be configured in what is
termed 'nvidia Optimus', which uses the Intel part its low power
consumption, and the nvidia one for 3D/scaling etc. This is all
managed seamlessly by the driver in Windows 7, but doesn't yet exist
for Linux or BSD, so neither graphics card works correctly. Avoid!

Cheers

Tom
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On Jun 24, 2011 4:32 AM, "Tom Evans" <> wrote:
>
> On Fri, Jun 24, 2011 at 12:41 PM, Allen <> wrote:
> >
> > Nvidia has always worked well for me as well; Nvidia is one of the only
> > companies that makes GOOD drivers specifically for FreeBSD. They
> > actually make the driver, and they have one for more than Windows unlike
> > some companies. Whenever I have an Nvidia card, I generally know I'll be
> > doing fine with good hardware, as they have a driver for FreeBSD, Linux,
> > and Solaris.
> >
>
> Ditto, except watch out for laptops that have both Intel and nvidia
> graphics chips in them, they will probably be configured in what is
> termed 'nvidia Optimus', which uses the Intel part its low power
> consumption, and the nvidia one for 3D/scaling etc. This is all
> managed seamlessly by the driver in Windows 7, but doesn't yet exist
> for Linux or BSD, so neither graphics card works correctly. Avoid!

Worse, NVIDIA has stated that they have no plans to ever supply Optimus
support for OSes other than Windows.

Just to be clear, are you running the nv driver from Xorg or the separate
NVIDIA-driver port? Both should work, but nv will not work well.

R. Kevin Oberman, Network Engineer
Retired

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On Fri, Jun 24, 2011 at 7:31 PM, Kevin Oberman <> wrote:
> Worse, NVIDIA has stated that they have no plans to ever supply Optimus
> support for OSes other than Windows.
>
> Just to be clear, are you running the nv driver from Xorg or the separate
> NVIDIA-driver port? Both should work, but nv will not work well.
>

I run the nvidia supplied drivers, and they do run well. Full 2D/3D
acceleration and video codec acceleration (mplayer+vdpau) is a
combination that no other graphics card/driver hits on FreeBSD. I used
to struggle with the intel drivers, but they just got progressively
slower and slower and less functional.

Cheers

Tom
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Le Fri, 24 Jun 2011 09:56:22 +0200,
Michal Varga <> a écrit :

> Nvidia GTX 460 works perfectly fine on FreeBSD and same goes for any
> modern/supported Nvidia hardware (which is basically all of them, save
> for some brain-dead stuff like Nvidia Optimus).

Here it does not work. Watching a video is enought to freeze the box
(using the Xvideo extension). I've tried all the drivers available from
Nvidia with various issues.

> Your stability issues are most probably caused by something else, or
> at least something more specific than simple combination of Nvidia
> 460 and FreeBSD.

That could be. But this is very hard to find the cause, I've moved from
amd64 to i386 to see, and reverted to ad0 instead using ada0.
I'm sure the hardware is working fine (checked memory, works very well
on Windows 2008).

I know that should work, I've got a Macbook pro (nvidia) that works
nicely and my previous machine worked fine too.

Anyway, I would not say that NVidia always works, that is my fourth
box using a nvidia card and only two cards worked well (since FreeBSD
4.7).

So my question is still open:

"Could you tell me a graphic card (pci express) that will work fine
on FreeBSD? (If i can use a dual screen it will be better)"

Thanks, regards.
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On 06/28/11 14:17, Patrick Lamaiziere wrote:
> Le Fri, 24 Jun 2011 09:56:22 +0200,
> Michal Varga<> a écrit :
>
>> Nvidia GTX 460 works perfectly fine on FreeBSD and same goes for any
>> modern/supported Nvidia hardware (which is basically all of them, save
>> for some brain-dead stuff like Nvidia Optimus).
> Here it does not work. Watching a video is enought to freeze the box
> (using the Xvideo extension). I've tried all the drivers available from
> Nvidia with various issues.

Long ago I gave up on getting a stable system with the nvidia drivers.

> That could be. But this is very hard to find the cause, I've moved from
> amd64 to i386 to see, and reverted to ad0 instead using ada0.
> I'm sure the hardware is working fine (checked memory, works very well
> on Windows 2008).
>
> I know that should work, I've got a Macbook pro (nvidia) that works
> nicely and my previous machine worked fine too.
>
> Anyway, I would not say that NVidia always works, that is my fourth
> box using a nvidia card and only two cards worked well (since FreeBSD
> 4.7).
>
> So my question is still open:
>
> "Could you tell me a graphic card (pci express) that will work fine
> on FreeBSD? (If i can use a dual screen it will be better)"

Unfortunately, modern non-nvidia video cards can be problematic on
FreeBSD. I think the only ones that are going "work"** are from AMD.
Any radeon card up to and including the HD4950 will provide 2D and basic
3D acceleration, including modesetting on two monitors via xrandr.
Separate screens will break acceleration (as will xinerama) so you
pretty much have to use xrandr. 3D acceleration is good enough for some
light games and/or 3D compositing with kwin/compiz. If you need to use
3D acceleration on a linux application, you will want to use
FreeBSD/i386 as DRI doesn't work with linux apps on AMD64 at the
moment. There is no kernel modesetting, so there is no DRI2 or gallium3d.

You should be able to get 2D acceleration and full modesetting on HD5xxx
GPUs. No 3D (not without KMS). There is no acceleration or modesetting
for HD6xxx GPUs without KMS, so don't get one of those.

** A few caveats and the reason for the quotes around work...
A) QT apps often have serious rendering issues. This is true on Linux
when not using KMS, too, but the driver developers don't care much about
bugs with the UMS path these days.
B) On one machine of mine, if I restart X, the entire box locks up
within seconds. There is no kernel panic dumped to the serial console,
so I know no way of debugging this further. If I have to restart X for
some reason, I must reboot.
C) Previously, on this machine, before adding an extra 2 gigs of memory,
if I restarted X, Xorg complained about not being able to allocate
enough RAM, and Direct Rendering would be disabled, so I'd be running
entirely without 2D acceleration. Unloading and reloading the radeon
kld would simply prevent X from starting.
D) I know on IRC this is at least one person for whom the radeon driver
will completely lock their machine solid as soon as X starts.

All in all, the lack of KMS is really impacts the usability of FreeBSD
on the desktop for those of us who can't/won't use nvidia. As far as I
know, there is no one working on KMS for radeon cards, and there has
been no progress update on the KMS work being done for Intel GPUs. In
addition, KMS for intel wouldn't do you much good anyway, as Intel
doesn't make discreet PCIe cards.

Having said all that... There may be GPUs from other manufacturers that
can be bought on discrete PCIe cards that have drivers for Xorg. Full
xrandr (to drive two monitors) is likely not supported on anything
other than radeon cards, though.

Adam

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On Tue, 2011-06-28 at 20:17 +0200, Patrick Lamaiziere wrote:
> Le Fri, 24 Jun 2011 09:56:22 +0200,
> Michal Varga <> a écrit :
>
> > Nvidia GTX 460 works perfectly fine on FreeBSD and same goes for any
> > modern/supported Nvidia hardware (which is basically all of them, save
> > for some brain-dead stuff like Nvidia Optimus).
>
> Here it does not work. Watching a video is enought to freeze the box
> (using the Xvideo extension). I've tried all the drivers available from
> Nvidia with various issues.
>

Is it possible that your're actually running VDPAU-enabled video
acceleration under compositor, i.e. metacity WM in compositing mode
(which is non-default btw)?

That's one (and probably the only one in the wild) known cause that
produces random, but quite frequent freezes.

This is as far as I know still unresolved by Nvidia, but also probably
very low on their to-do list, for obvious reasons.


> Anyway, I would not say that NVidia always works, that is my fourth
> box using a nvidia card and only two cards worked well (since FreeBSD
> 4.7).
>
> So my question is still open:
>
> "Could you tell me a graphic card (pci express) that will work fine
> on FreeBSD? (If i can use a dual screen it will be better)"
>
> Thanks, regards.

I can only say it again - aside from the known compositor issue (which
is pretty specifically narrowed down and thus easy to avoid, if only by
disabling metacity compositing), there are tons of people running Nvidia
hardware under FreeBSD without any issues, and even by a magnitude more
under Linux (it might look that that's unrelated, but with the way
Nvidia builds their drivers, it actually is).


So, to your (repeated) question.


There is only one graphics card manufacturer that actually PRODUCES
drivers for FreeBSD. That is Nvidia.

Intel drivers are horrible crap, but someone already stated that
somewhere in this thread (and too much politely by the way).

AMD, both hardware and software is a joke, even under Linux, where they
actually have *some* driver support, they're a terrible joke (and nobody
laughs, especially the owners). Open source drivers for their hardware
are something... where... well, where you can sometimes display 2D
graphics. Some of those times even without issues and glitches.

What else exactly would you want to use? VIA (absolutely no support
under Linux, absolutely absolutely completely none support under
FreeBSD)?

Matrox?

Ahem. Ok, let's stop right there.

You already own Nvidia hardware (which alone is the best choice you have
anyway), and from what I've seen, at least a few people already told you
that Nvidia hardware works.

It's your choice and your time of course, so you can spend it either on
trying to narrow down your Nvidia issue, which must be pretty exotic
that it bites only you while so many people enjoy working Nvidia
products, or you can spend (read: waste) it on looking for something
that doesn't exist. The thing that doesn't exist is *other* graphics
card manufacturer that actually supports FreeBSD. It's your choice,
again.

m.

--
Michal Varga,
Stonehenge (Gmail account)


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On Tue, Jun 28, 2011 at 6:48 PM, Michal Varga <> wrote:
> On Tue, 2011-06-28 at 20:17 +0200, Patrick Lamaiziere wrote:
>> Le Fri, 24 Jun 2011 09:56:22 +0200,
>> Michal Varga <> a écrit :
>>
>> > Nvidia GTX 460 works perfectly fine on FreeBSD and same goes for any
>> > modern/supported Nvidia hardware (which is basically all of them, save
>> > for some brain-dead stuff like Nvidia Optimus).
>>
>> Here it does not work. Watching a video is enought to freeze the box
>> (using the Xvideo extension). I've tried all the drivers available from
>> Nvidia with various issues.
>>
>
> Is it possible that your're actually running VDPAU-enabled video
> acceleration under compositor, i.e. metacity WM in compositing mode
> (which is non-default btw)?
>
> That's one (and probably the only one in the wild) known cause that
> produces random, but quite frequent freezes.
>
> This is as far as I know still unresolved by Nvidia, but also probably
> very low on their to-do list, for obvious reasons.
>

So you agree with that Nvidia drivers are not stable. I agree with it
because my roommate has 2 boxes running Nvidia cards and their
official binary drivers. He suffered from the unstable video and the
incomplete Xcomposite supports a lot.

>
>> Anyway, I would not say that NVidia always works, that is my fourth
>> box using a nvidia card and only two cards worked well (since FreeBSD
>> 4.7).
>>
>> So my question is still open:
>>
>> "Could you tell me a graphic card (pci express) that will work fine
>> on FreeBSD? (If i can use a dual screen it will be better)"
>>
>> Thanks, regards.
>
> I can only say it again - aside from the known compositor issue (which
> is pretty specifically narrowed down and thus easy to avoid, if only by
> disabling metacity compositing), there are tons of people running Nvidia
> hardware under FreeBSD without any issues, and even by a magnitude more
> under Linux (it might look that that's unrelated, but with the way
> Nvidia builds their drivers, it actually is).
>
>
> So, to your (repeated) question.
>
>
> There is only one graphics card manufacturer that actually PRODUCES
> drivers for FreeBSD. That is Nvidia.

Yes, and no. Nvidia provides closed source drivers only, and never
helps open source drivers. As what you have agreed with: when their
drivers are not stable, or even their drivers introduce security
problems, you can do nothing. You have no choice but be at their
mercy.

>
> Intel drivers are horrible crap, but someone already stated that
> somewhere in this thread (and too much politely by the way).
>
> AMD, both hardware and software is a joke, even under Linux, where they
> actually have *some* driver support, they're a terrible joke (and nobody
> laughs, especially the owners). Open source drivers for their hardware
> are something... where... well, where you can sometimes display 2D
> graphics. Some of those times even without issues and glitches.

But AMD/ATI supports the development of the open source drivers. Now
xf86-video-ati driver supports full 2D acceleration, xrander,
anti-tears, KMS, basic 3D acceleration... what Nvidia has? Unstable
vdpau? And also, when we meet problems, we can check ATI documents and
modify the source code. Just compare the quality of xf86-video-ati and
xf86-video-nouveau, and you will know which cards are better choice.

>
> What else exactly would you want to use? VIA (absolutely no support
> under Linux, absolutely absolutely completely none support under
> FreeBSD)?
>
> Matrox?
>
> Ahem. Ok, let's stop right there.
>
> You already own Nvidia hardware (which alone is the best choice you have
> anyway), and from what I've seen, at least a few people already told you
> that Nvidia hardware works.
>
> It's your choice and your time of course, so you can spend it either on
> trying to narrow down your Nvidia issue, which must be pretty exotic
> that it bites only you while so many people enjoy working Nvidia
> products, or you can spend (read: waste) it on looking for something
> that doesn't exist. The thing that doesn't exist is *other* graphics
> card manufacturer that actually supports FreeBSD. It's your choice,
> again.
>

No. They are not supporting FreeBSD. They are weakening and destroying
the philosophy of FreeBSD and Open Source communities with their
unstable, buggy, and insecure favors.

> m.
>
> --
> Michal Varga,
> Stonehenge (Gmail account)
>
>
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