Arch Linux

SulucOhmun

Member

Registered: 2012-05-20

Posts: 2

Help with Geforce 8400GS

Hello archlinux! I need a little advice. I'm using nvidia-proprietary drivers with a geforce 8400GS, the card has a tv-out via s-video, a quick scan of Xorg.0.log shows that "nvidia tv encoder" is listed as a connected display device on GeForce 8400 as (TV-0) (it also lists my acer LCD). -- my problem: In gnome system settings (gnome-shell/3.4) in details it shows graphics: unknown", and in gnome 3 display settings it only recognizes my acer LCD monitor. I can get multihead working using nvidia-settings to make an xorg.conf(twinview), but is this the proper/only way to do this? it seems Xorg is detecting/loading my TV-out without an xorg.conf file? ...

Shouldn't I see my second display/TV in gnome system settings and be able to just enable it if things are set up properly?

Thanks,
-Sully.

The relevant section of my Xorg.0.log here:

[    20.259] (--) NVIDIA(0): Connected display device(s) on GeForce 8400 GS at PCI:1:0:0
[    20.259] (--) NVIDIA(0):     NVIDIA TV Encoder (TV-0)
[    20.259] (--) NVIDIA(0):     Acer X191W (DFP-0)
[    20.259] (--) NVIDIA(0): NVIDIA TV Encoder (TV-0): 400.0 MHz maximum pixel clock
[    20.259] (--) NVIDIA(0): TV encoder: NVIDIA
[    20.313] (**) NVIDIA(0): Using HorizSync/VertRefresh ranges from the EDID for display
[    20.313] (**) NVIDIA(0):     device Acer X191W (DFP-0) (Using EDID frequencies has been
[    20.313] (**) NVIDIA(0):     enabled on all display devices.)
[    20.359] (II) NVIDIA(0): Assigned Display Device: DFP-0
[    20.359] (==) NVIDIA(0):
[    20.359] (==) NVIDIA(0): No modes were requested; the default mode "nvidia-auto-select"
[    20.359] (==) NVIDIA(0):     will be used as the requested mode.
[    20.359] (==) NVIDIA(0):

NOTE: Using twinview, and nvidia-settings as root to generate an xorg.conf works fine, I just have a feeling that there is a better(newer) way to accomplish this with the proprietary drivers, especially considering the way that large xorg.conf files have been deprecated in favor of hal/evdev stuff, and how they are now separated in /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d, It seems like I should be able to do something a little more simple  in 10-monitor.conf file like add a screen section only Vs. a giant/full xorg.conf file generated by nvidia-settings.

Lastly, I can't play fullscreen flash videos @ youtube(or anywhere else) on my second screen (TV-0) using twinview and work on my first/main LCD, as the flash-beta 11.2 from AUR loses focus whenever I click an icon on my main LCD. There are fixes for this for flash focus issue on windows that relate to modifying a DLL file, but I can't find a fix for flash on linux. Supposedly adobe added this functionality in flash 10.2 but it's not working for me.

Is this fullscreen issue because I am using proprietary drivers & twinview? would using the nouveau drivers & xinerama fix this flash losing focus problem?

In the meantime I have been using a firefox add on that automatically opens flash movies in totem and starts playing them, but this is not ideal as doing things like playing a playlist on youtube is not possible, and obviously embedded video links and things of that sort on youtube don't show in totem, etc.

Thank you very much for your time,
--Sully.

Last edited by SulucOhmun (2012-05-20 09:51:56)

KingX

Member

From: CA

Registered: 2010-03-24

Posts: 324

Re: Help with Geforce 8400GS

nvidia-settings is the proper and clean way to make changes to your display settings. You don't need a xorg.conf file and your displays should be correctly autodetected, but I feel X loads up faster with a xorg.conf in place. I use Xfce4 and my LCD monitor is simply detected as "default". Not sure about the flash issue, just a guess, do you have hardware acceleration enabled? check in /etc/adobe/mms.cfg and if it is enabled I would set it to 0 (off!) and see if that would fix the issue.