Just got myself an nvidia GeForce 9500GT for very cheap and plugged it in the PCI express slot (replacing the SVDO extension of the onboard intel graphics I have been using for > 2 years).
What a change!!!!!!
I compiled the official nvidia driver against kernel 2.6.31 (not even with the RT patch), enabled 3D and all composite effects, and set it up with twinview.
I run the latest jack2 at < 1ms latency and I have no glitch AT ALL! The nvidia card is doing lots of stuff on its own, bypassing the CPU. I can watch movies thanks to the nvidia vdpau output (the nvidia PureVideo API for unix that mplayer is using), while playing ardour, rosegarden, a VSTi and jamin all together and rotating the 3D cube (composite effect under KDE 4.3).
simply amazing!!!!
graphics card
Moderators: MattKingUSA, khz
Re: graphics card
haha, yeah, this composite stuff is totally useless and distracting 
The cool thing is that my CPU usage is now much better. The latest xorg (7.4.xxx) was really crapping out with the latest intel video driver, everything turned sluggish, barely any h/w rendering (2D), etc. This nvidia card is a big overhaul, together with kernel 2.6.31 which has real improvements at the desktop level. I have not seen a single xrun with lots of shit running, and this is without any RT patch. I think I'll stick to this combination for a long while. Since I upgraded from 2.6.24, I've had too many system related issues. Not that I could not work them around but I found myself spending a non negligible amount of time on system related stuff. These issues seem to be gone now and I can focus on the music only
The cool thing is that my CPU usage is now much better. The latest xorg (7.4.xxx) was really crapping out with the latest intel video driver, everything turned sluggish, barely any h/w rendering (2D), etc. This nvidia card is a big overhaul, together with kernel 2.6.31 which has real improvements at the desktop level. I have not seen a single xrun with lots of shit running, and this is without any RT patch. I think I'll stick to this combination for a long while. Since I upgraded from 2.6.24, I've had too many system related issues. Not that I could not work them around but I found myself spending a non negligible amount of time on system related stuff. These issues seem to be gone now and I can focus on the music only
Re: graphics card
update:
I have had my DAW running for all this time, I have been throwing a lot of stuff at it, maxed out the DSP to 100%, stressed it like hardly before: I cannot trigger one single xrun even at < 1ms latency!! This is really surreal, I had even some jack clients dying or freezing at times, due to stress or to their own flaky code. Jack stays on, just reports that this or that client seems to be gone, and that's all. I cannot hear a glitch. For me, this is it, this kernel (still without RT patch!!! just plain vanilla) and this nvidia GPU are acting like I initially wanted my system to act before I built it up 2 years ago.
I encourage most of you guys to update to 2.6.31 and give the vanilla kernel a try. To me, considering the optimal performance I am getting, it seems like the RT patch is no longer necessary. Of course, YMMV depending on your architecture and sound card.
I have had my DAW running for all this time, I have been throwing a lot of stuff at it, maxed out the DSP to 100%, stressed it like hardly before: I cannot trigger one single xrun even at < 1ms latency!! This is really surreal, I had even some jack clients dying or freezing at times, due to stress or to their own flaky code. Jack stays on, just reports that this or that client seems to be gone, and that's all. I cannot hear a glitch. For me, this is it, this kernel (still without RT patch!!! just plain vanilla) and this nvidia GPU are acting like I initially wanted my system to act before I built it up 2 years ago.
I encourage most of you guys to update to 2.6.31 and give the vanilla kernel a try. To me, considering the optimal performance I am getting, it seems like the RT patch is no longer necessary. Of course, YMMV depending on your architecture and sound card.
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StudioDave
- Established Member
- Posts: 753
- Joined: Sat Nov 01, 2008 1:12 pm
Re: graphics card
For all the heat that nVidia takes from some members of the FLOSS community I must admit that I've been pleased with their cards & drivers for many years now. My particular stress test is Jean-Pierre Lemoine's AVSynthesis. AVS demands some significant resources, including accelerated 3D graphics (via OpenGL and Java's JOGL shaders) and high-quality audio output from Csound (via JACK), all in realtime. Incredibly, I can run AVS alongside other activities, and this is all on an AMD64 3200+ CPU (~ 2GHz) with 4G RAM. Audio interface is an M-Audio Delta 66 set up for ~5 msecs latency.
AVS produces some very richly detailed output, sonically and visually. I'm impressed at its efficiency on this hardware, but I should note that I get similar performance from my 2nd machine (an AMD 3800+) and my laptop (a newer AMD Turion dual-core machine), both with nVidia graphics.
Best,
dp
AVS produces some very richly detailed output, sonically and visually. I'm impressed at its efficiency on this hardware, but I should note that I get similar performance from my 2nd machine (an AMD 3800+) and my laptop (a newer AMD Turion dual-core machine), both with nVidia graphics.
Best,
dp
Re: graphics card
Thorgal, are you running a 64bit or 32bit kernel? I've been running 2.6.31 with the RT patch for a couple of weeks now (64bit laptop with Intel graphics), and I still get plenty of xruns.
Re: graphics card
I run a 32bit system, without the RT patch (could not compile the nvidia driver against the RT kernel). I stopped using the Intel GPU and that changed a lot of things for me. Note that a laptop is a different matter due to IRQ handling. My soundcard (RME HDSP) is not sharing the IRQ.
My testing without the RT patch was really out of curiousity, as I heard that 2.6.31 has a lot of improvements for the desktop.
My testing without the RT patch was really out of curiousity, as I heard that 2.6.31 has a lot of improvements for the desktop.
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rosetaylor01
- Established Member
- Posts: 3
- Joined: Tue Oct 13, 2009 6:19 am
Re: graphics card
hi there.....
do I have to care about if it's a dual chip card, don't even know what means. I just need a good graphics card I want the GeForce GTX 295,Please help, I just need a good graphics card without my PC being ruined. The computer is called Targa Ultra AN64 4800 + DC or something like that....if someone can help me out i will appreciate it........
do I have to care about if it's a dual chip card, don't even know what means. I just need a good graphics card I want the GeForce GTX 295,Please help, I just need a good graphics card without my PC being ruined. The computer is called Targa Ultra AN64 4800 + DC or something like that....if someone can help me out i will appreciate it........