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getting high resolution with recent nvidia card

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  getting high resolution with recent nvidia card Ross Boylan <rossboylan@stanfordalumni.org> - 2015-12-31 10:30 +0100
    Re: getting high resolution with recent nvidia card deloptes <deloptes@yahoo.com> - 2015-12-31 11:50 +0100
    Re: getting high resolution with recent nvidia card Sven Joachim <svenjoac@gmx.de> - 2015-12-31 11:50 +0100

#162338 — getting high resolution with recent nvidia card

I'm running wheezy and recently added a new graphics card (nvidia 980
Ti) and a new monitor (Dell 3440x1440 resolution). The connection is
via DisplayPort.  I would like to get this to work, though I don't
necessarily need a lot of acceleration.  At the moment the best I can
do is 1024x768 (method 1 below), and most things (methods 2 and 3)
produce a blank monitor.  I'm also having some weird BIOS behavior
(point 5 below).

Any advice about the best way to proceed?  Should I be trying to make
the vesa driver (if that's what I'm using) work by filling in
modelines in xorg.conf?  I'd have to make up a lot of the info they
call for.  Or perhaps I should try to manually build the driver from
nvidia?   But I suspect that may not work with the wheezy kernel.

DETAILS

1. [Vanilla autodetect] X appears unable to get useful info from the
monitor.  It mentions  the nouveau driver (which mentions specific
device ids, none of which match my card), but the active section seems
to be after
[   127.155] (II) VESA: driver for VESA chipsets: vesa
[   127.155] (II) FBDEV: driver for framebuffer: fbdev

It assumes default sync and refresh rates, which don't line up well with the
monitor specs.  After several attempts it says
[   127.731] (WW) VESA(0): No valid modes left. Trying less strict filter...
[   127.731] (II) VESA(0): <default monitor>: Using hsync range of
31.50-48.00 kHz
[   127.731] (II) VESA(0): <default monitor>: Using vrefresh range of
50.00-70.00 Hz
[   127.731] (II) VESA(0): <default monitor>: Using maximum pixel
clock of 65.00 MHz
[   127.731] (WW) VESA(0): Unable to estimate virtual size
[   127.731] (II) VESA(0): Not using built-in mode "1600x1200" (hsync
out of range)
[   127.731] (II) VESA(0): Not using built-in mode "1280x1024" (hsync
out of range)
[   127.731] (II) VESA(0): Not using built-in mode "1280x800" (hsync
out of range)
[   127.731] (II) VESA(0): Not using built-in mode "640x400" (hsync
out of range)
[   127.731] (II) VESA(0): Not using built-in mode "320x400" (hsync
out of range)
[   127.731] (II) VESA(0): Not using built-in mode "320x240" (illegal
horizontal timings)
[   127.731] (II) VESA(0): Not using built-in mode "320x200" (illegal
horizontal timings)
[   127.731] (--) VESA(0): Virtual size is 1024x768 (pitch 1024)
[   127.731] (**) VESA(0): *Built-in mode "1024x768"
[   127.731] (**) VESA(0): *Built-in mode "800x600"
[   127.731] (**) VESA(0): *Built-in mode "640x480"
[   127.731] (==) VESA(0): DPI set to (96, 96)

2. [nVidia proprietary packed for Wheezy]
I tried the proprietary driver following the instructions for
https://wiki.debian.org/NvidiaGraphicsDrivers#Version_340.65_.28via_wheezy-backports.29
However, this produced a blank screen and the log showed the driver
didn't recognize the card.  I belatedly checked the list of supported
cards, and mine wasn't on it (though the 980Ti is on
https://wiki.debian.org/NvidiaGraphicsDrivers#Version_352.55_64bit_.28nvidia_site_installer.29
for Jessie/sid).
So I purged everything from that step.

3. [nouveau in wheezy]
I modified the xorg.conf that the nvidia utility produced in 2. so
that it used the nouveau driver.  I added the physical
dimensions of the monitor and the refresh and sync rates from the
monitor specs, but no specific resolutions.  This produced a blank
screen.  I had thought 1. was using nouveau, but not I think it
wasn't.  I'd guess the nouveau driver is tied to specific device id's,
and doesn't recognize newer hardware.

BTW, the info I provided was
Section "Monitor"
    Identifier     "Monitor0"
    VendorName     "Dell"
    ModelName      "U3415W"
    HorizSync       30 - 89
    VertRefresh     48 - 85
    DisplaySize     798.20 334.80
    Option         "DPMS"
EndSection
The manual provides specific resolution and frequency combinations,
though not anything that looks to me like syncstart or syncend values.

4. Dell's site doesn't seem to have an edid file for the monitor; some
net resources mentioned using one if it was available.  I downloaded
their drivers on windows and expanded them to check.

5. I tried to install a fresh jessie system in some unused space, but
I can't get into my BIOS to get it boot off USB.  The BIOS setting for
virtualization seems to have mysteriously turned off too.  I realize I
could run debootstrap, but since I'm not ready to migrate for real
that seems a lot of work.

Thanks.
Ross Boylan

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#162342

Ross Boylan wrote:

> [ 127.155] (II) VESA: driver for VESA chipsets: vesa

to me it looks like you do not have any nvidea driver loaded.

probably in wheezy you would need to add the proper driver to the xorg.conf.

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#162343

On 2015-12-31 01:24 -0800, Ross Boylan wrote:

> I'm running wheezy and recently added a new graphics card (nvidia 980
> Ti) and a new monitor (Dell 3440x1440 resolution).

Wheezy's kernel is four years old, don't expect brand-new hardware to
work with it.

> The connection is
> via DisplayPort.  I would like to get this to work, though I don't
> necessarily need a lot of acceleration.

The nouveau driver won't provide any acceleration at all for this card
even in current versions, because the hardware needs signed firmware for
that, and NVidia does not release this firmware.  Basic modesetting does
work with a kernel ≥ 3.19, but you would need to backport at least
libdrm and xserver-org-video-nouveau from Jessie to make use of that.

> Any advice about the best way to proceed?  Should I be trying to make
> the vesa driver (if that's what I'm using) work by filling in
> modelines in xorg.conf?

Probably won't work, and the vesa driver certainly does not support the
native resolution of your display.

> Or perhaps I should try to manually build the driver from nvidia?

That's your best call.

> But I suspect that may not work with the wheezy kernel.

I would give it a try, NVidia's driver usually does not need recent
kernels.

Cheers,
       Sven

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