# how to select "primary" video card (not related to sli or crossfire)...



## edhunter (Nov 29, 2008)

Hello guys.

I am intending to put additional video card in my pc. Currently I have nvidia 8800gt pci-e. I have additional one free pci-e x16 slot and I want to put another video card in it - ati x1950 or something similar. My monitor also has two videdo inputs (dvi).

I want to use my nvidia for windows, and ati for freebsd.

Is there any way that I can disable the nvidia video card from being "detected" and used even for console under freebsd??

Or the general question: When more than one video card exist in the pc, is there a way to select which one to be "primary"? :>>

10x in advance


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## tingo (Nov 29, 2008)

edhunter said:
			
		

> Hello guys.
> Or the general question: When more than one video card exist in the pc, is there a way to select which one to be "primary"? :>>
> 
> 10x in advance


Usually this is done in BIOS. How to do it depends on the bios in question of course.


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## Djn (Nov 29, 2008)

Or even by swapping the cards around, which is somewhat primitive.
(Of course, you could just set KDM/GDM/XDM to start at boot and ignore the whole thing - not very elegant either, but ...)


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## edhunter (Nov 29, 2008)

10x for answers :>>

swapping cards is not an offer )
goint through bios is not an offer too...
This is my home computer .. it is used by me and my wife. She could not manage with bios :>>


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## Djn (Nov 29, 2008)

The thing with card swapping and BIOS settings is that you'd only need to do it once - since windows lets you set which card to use, you should be good when the default card is the one you want the FreeBSD console on.

Out of interest - why an ati card for FreeBSD? 64-bit driver support?


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## edhunter (Nov 29, 2008)

10x
I am not sure about which ati driver i have to use ... I intend to try xf86-video-radeonhd.



			
				Djn said:
			
		

> Out of interest - why an ati card for FreeBSD? 64-bit driver support?


In current configuration I am stucked to X with nv or vesa driver. I am trying almost every new version of nvidia-driver, but I always get hard lock on starting X. The only way I get X running on nvidia-driver is by physically removing 2GB ram from my system (I have 2x2GB).
Thats why. And yes if ati runs well on freebsd I'll switch to amd64 version.


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## none (Dec 1, 2008)

can't say for the default video, but I do use two video cards on ubuntu and no problem. and as xorg is quite the same, this should function ...

you put there that the driver is radeon and it should work, shouldn't it ?

none


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## tingo (Dec 1, 2008)

edhunter said:
			
		

> 10x
> In current configuration I am stucked to X with nv or vesa driver. I am trying almost every new version of nvidia-driver, but I always get hard lock on starting X. The only way I get X running on nvidia-driver is by physically removing 2GB ram from my system (I have 2x2GB).
> Thats why. And yes if ati runs well on freebsd I'll switch to amd64 version.



Well, in theory at least (I haven't tried it) you could always configure Xorg to use a different card than the primary one for it's display. You haven't said anything about how you intend to wire everything up (two monitors? One monitor with two inputs?), so I can't say if this would work in your situation.


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## inurneck (Jan 26, 2010)

tingo said:
			
		

> >>>Well, in theory at least (I haven't tried it) you could always configure Xorg to use a different card than the primary one for it's display. <<< You haven't said anything about how you intend to wire everything up (two monitors? One monitor with two inputs?), so I can't say if this would work in your situation.



How please? http://forums.freebsd.org/showthread.php?p=64247#post64247

Thats exactly what im trying to do here ^  and its kicking my tail.


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