GeForce 8800 GTS under Linux

This is to document my recent experiences when I bought a GeForce
8800 GTS. The reason I bough it was, of course, not Linux, but
gaming under Windows. But since I do everything else under Linux,
it was critical to get the card working there as well.

Test-system:

Asus m2n32ws Professional, 2GB RAM, Athlon 64 x2 5600+
GeForce 8800GTS from Asus with 640MB RAM (EN8800GTS)
BenQ FP73G LCD with 1280x1024 resolution
Debian Lenny 32 bit (currently testing)

Hardware Installation:

The card requires a 6-pin PCI-E power connector in order to work.
Asus recomments a 450W PSU for a single-card recommendation. If
you gave a PSU with good reserves (e.g. Enermax), 400W should
also be enough, depending on the rest of the system. The card
also takes the space for two slots.


Noise/Heat:

ASUS uses the stock cooler from Nvidia, which is very quiet as it
usually runs slow. This is also true under Linux and does not require
any driver. Card temperature is around 35C over PC air temperature
when idle and can climb another 20C under full load (testsd with the
Bioshock-Demo under Windows, which runs very smooth with this card
BTW). Dirung this test the GPU fan was still running slow and quiet.
Unfortunately I could not find any information what the maximum
temperature for this card is. If it is comparable to current CPUs,
90C-100C would be a possible upper limit. However the GPU fan has a
lot of reserves, which can be heard for a second on power-up when it
briefly spins at full speed. Loud, but not very lound. I would say the
risk of damaging the card by overheating is low.


Linux Console:

No issues. I think there is a maybe 5mm border around the screen which
my old card (Nvidia 7600GT) did not have. This has no impact on usability.


Linux X.org - nv driver:

In order to get support for the 8800GTS from the nv driver, you need
at least X.org 7.1.1. Unfortunately Debian Etch has 7.1.0 and hence no
support fot the card in the nv driver. The card can still run with the
VESA driver, see below. I updated to Debian Lenny, which has X.org
7.2. The nv driver works out of the box.

One issue I found is that xvideo support seems to be missing. I
suspect that it is not malfunctioning, but actually not (yet)
implemented. The one application I use that needs xvideo is
mplayer. After some fruitless efforts to get xvideo to work, I found a
work-around: Use mplayer with the x11 output driver and allow software
scaling ("mplayer -vo x11 -zooom). I found that playing viedo full
screen only takes about 20% CPU load (of one core) and is running
smoothly.

The other issue was that I had a mouse-button limit of 7 in my
old xorg.config (my current mouse has 8 buttons) and it seems this
limit was broken in X.org 7.1, but works in x.org 7.2. Removing
the limit fixed the problem. Apart from that, no issues at all.

Note: I did not try the Nvidia driver for Linux, since I do not
need 3D support and viedo-playback wiorks fine without it.


Linux X.org, VESA driver:

For X.org 7.1 the 88000GTS can be run with the VESA driver at
1280x1024 resolution. Beware that you only get 60Hz with this.
For an LCD this is fine, but a CRT will likely flicker.


Windows XP SP2:

Since most people interessted in this card will be dual-booters
like me, a word on this as well. Aside the usual boot-several-times
and loose-all-your-icon-positions stupidity, there was no issue
with the current driver from Nvidias website.

Arno
.