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jlacroix

Member

Registered: 2009-08-16

Posts: 576

[SOLVED] Nouveau vs Nvidia in regards to Twinview

Hello all. I have a laptop that has an nvidia video card, using the proprietary nvidia driver. I also use a docking station, so I have Twinview set up so that it shows the same thing on both screens so when docked I'll see something on the external monitor (without Twinview, this curiously doesn't work).

I'm considering switching to the nouveau driver, so that I can get KMS like Intel users get. But I've heard that Twinview doesn't work with nouveau, or at least it didn't used to. In addition, the wiki mentions that 3D support in Nouveau is experimental, so that scares me a bit, but then again, I'm not sure if that's old info or if that is still the case. I use 3D effects for Kwin and open source games such as Neverball and Tux Racer. Is using Nouveau still as experimental as the wiki mentions? Does it still not work with Twinview?

Last edited by jlacroix (2012-03-23 01:50:39)

Trilby

Inspector Parrot

Registered: 2011-11-29

Posts: 30,516

Website

Re: [SOLVED] Nouveau vs Nvidia in regards to Twinview

I recently installed arch on a (very) old computer at the office.  It has a nvidia card.  I first went with nouveau but once everything was up and running I switched to nvidia.  I also missed KMS, but (and I don't really know how this all works) once it sets the mode while starting X, even after I close my x sessions or change to another tty, that tty is in the higher resolution.

This leads me to my question: What's the benefit of KMS?  Other than, perhaps, a little bit prettier boot sequence, you can still get the good resolution ttys once fully booted.

EDIT: This may be a completely ignorant question - feel free to tell me if it is.

Last edited by Trilby (2012-03-22 22:43:19)

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"UNIX is simple and coherent" - Dennis Ritchie; "GNU's Not Unix" - Richard Stallman

aking9

Member

Registered: 2009-03-30

Posts: 65

Re: [SOLVED] Nouveau vs Nvidia in regards to Twinview

I've tried twinview with both drivers, as much as I'd like to use nouveau it's not developed enough for me yet but this was down to power saving and other things like it, performance wise I had no problem with either driver

Gusar

Member

Registered: 2009-08-25

Posts: 3,607

Re: [SOLVED] Nouveau vs Nvidia in regards to Twinview

TwinView is nvidia-specific, only their proprietary driver uses it. Nouveau is using xrandr-1.2 for dual-monitor support. Which, as far as I know, is fully working.

Regarding 3d in nouveau, it works. It's slow, in particular because because nouveau lacks reclocking support, but if you're not doing anything fancy it's ok.

jlacroix

Member

Registered: 2009-08-16

Posts: 576

Re: [SOLVED] Nouveau vs Nvidia in regards to Twinview

Thanks guys, based on the comments I'll stick with nvidia for now.

And Trilby, your experience isn't consistent with mine. For me, I don't get KMS at any point, even after bootup. If I hit alt+ctrl+f1 right now, I get the non-KMS extremely huge font on my screen. Sometimes I switch to tty because I like to get to a terminal quickly and it gives me huge real-estate with KMS so I can type long commands without wrapping. But at no point on this laptop does KMS ever kick in.