FreeBSD 8 / amd64 / Xorg / nvidia GeForce 5200

[Tijl Coosemans]

On Thursday 25 March 2010 04:14:09 Tim Gustafson wrote:
> My workstation runs FreeBSD 8.0-STABLE amd64.  I have Xorg 1.6.5 and
> an nVidia GeForce 5200 dual head video card.
> 
> Currently the first head of the card is operating well using the "nv"
> driver.  I tried to compile the nvidia-driver port, but it tells me
> that I need nvidia-driver-173 because the 5200 chipset isn't
> supported by the current driver.  When I go to compile
> nvidia-driver-173 it tells me that it is not supported under the
> amd64 architecture.  I can't switch to an i386 kernel because I need
> the amd64 architecture to take advantage of all my RAM and also
> because I am using ZFS on this workstation, which more or less
> requires the amd64 architecture.
> 
> So, I have two questions:
> 
> 1. Is there any way to get the nvidia-driver-173 port to work with my
> amd64 OS?
> 
> 2. Is there any way to get the second head of the 5200 video card to
> work using the nv driver?  I tried adding a second device section to
> xorg.conf but the system errors out telling me that it tried to use
> conflicting hardware.  I've attached both my xorg.conf and my
> Xorg.0.log file to this message.

For dual head you need xrandr 1.2 I believe and I'm not sure the nv
driver supports that for your card. You could check by running xrandr
in a terminal window. It should list the different outputs of your
graphics card. In my case:

Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1280 x 800, maximum 1280 x 1280
VGA-0 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
LVDS connected 1280x800+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 0mm x 0mm
   1280x800       60.0*+
   1280x720       59.9
   1152x768       59.8
   1024x768       60.0     59.9
   800x600        60.3     59.9
   640x480        59.9     59.4
S-video disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)

This means I have outputs "VGA-0", "LVDS" and "S-video". All you need
in xorg.conf is a monitor section for each of these outputs with the
Identifier string matching an output name.


Section "Monitor"
 Identifier "Ouput0"           # set this to an output like "VGA-0"
 VendorName "NEC"
 ModelName "MultiSync LCD 195VX"
 HorizSync 30.0 - 50.0
 VertRefresh 56.0 - 63.0
 Option "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
 Identifier "Output1"          # set this to an output like "VGA-1"
 VendorName "NEC"
 ModelName "MultiSync LCD 195VX"
 HorizSync 30.0 - 50.0
 VertRefresh 56.0 - 63.0
 Option "DPMS"
 Option "RightOf" "Output0"    # set this to an output like "VGA-0"
EndSection


If the nv driver doesn't seem to support xrandr 1.2, you could give the
nouveau driver a try.