# x64 nvidia driver



## cuongvt (Aug 30, 2009)

Hi all
I tend to switch from i386 to amd x64.
But currently I have an 8500GT nvidia card and I heared that
thereis no nvidia driver for x64.
How about it's status currently? nvidia driver for amd64 came out?
regards


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## vermaden (Aug 30, 2009)

FreeBSD team added needed kernel interfaces that blobVidia demanded, the amd64 driver should be ready for 8.0 or little after the release.


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## cuongvt (Aug 30, 2009)

vermaden said:
			
		

> the amd64 driver should be ready for 8.0 or little after the release.


I just to make sure, this means if I install freebsd 8.0 beta 3 now, I still cannot use X (gnome or kde)?
Or I can use X?
thanks


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## pbd (Aug 30, 2009)

I heard in bsdtalk 173 that there is some progress, but I don't remember any details (if they were said).


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## Carpetsmoker (Aug 30, 2009)

cuongvt said:
			
		

> I just to make sure, this means if I install freebsd 8.0 beta 3 now, I still cannot use X (gnome or kde)?
> Or I can use X?
> thanks



You can still use X with the Open Source nv driver, the downside is that 3D acceleration is pretty much nonexistent. OTher than this, it works fine.


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## aragon (Aug 30, 2009)

In addition to the nv driver there's also the nouveau driver.


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## Carpetsmoker (Aug 30, 2009)

That's not stable. In fact, it's a piece of useless crap.


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## adamk (Aug 30, 2009)

Carpetsmoker said:
			
		

> That's not stable. In fact, it's a piece of useless crap.



Did you open up a freebsd problem report for the stability problems you had?

Adam


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## Carpetsmoker (Aug 31, 2009)

Why? It's not a FreeBSD problem.


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## Ranguvar (Aug 31, 2009)

Care to back up those claims? It's new and under rapid development, so it might not work for everyone yet, but "useless piece of crap" is overly negative.

All I can use is my own experience, Nouveau's almost always worked great for me. Very recent git builds have been troublesome, but before that, it worked far better than the nv driver at 2D on my 9600GT. 3D is still a long way off, but Nouveau still usually smokes NV -- at one point, I had basic xcompmgr with shadows, fades, and transparency, and few stutters. That's a start.

I recommend to others to give it a shot if you don't need accelerated 3D.


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## adamk (Aug 31, 2009)

Carpetsmoker said:
			
		

> Why? It's not a FreeBSD problem.



That's news to me.  I've used it without any problems on Linux.  But if you really think the stability problems you had with nouveau are not related to FreeBSD, did you check to see if their is a bug report for your issue on the freedesktop bugzilla and, if not, open one yourself?

To the OP, if you go with AMD64, I would suggest at least giving nouveau a shot.  Despite carpetsmoker's claims, many people have used nouveau quite happily.

Adam


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## macbias (Aug 31, 2009)

@cuongvt, i have the same card you have and was wondering what was going on and how far along we are to seeing an nvidia driver. from searches it seems we might have it somewhere in 8 but i can't find anything certain.

at nv news the notion a couple months ago was they were waiting on the freebsd requested features to be implemented, then they'd write some basic tests way before even betas. good news is what vermaden wrote above (so i might have to recap)

i am using the nouveau driver straight from ports, ( seems better than nv but no 3d ), but the pkg-message gives info on how to update/install drm/git patches something or other, and that didn't go so well. i had to clean up and use the port as is. ( maybe what carpetsmoker was referring to? )

in any case, i only have the amd64 version installed since i still rely on windows for a few apps and can wait on the driver; so i don't have to reinstall everything and all ports eventually. if freebsd was my only os, i might as well use i386, then spend that day or two upgrading when the driver is out.

if you use wine, are you aware that that is another issue on amd64? there is a recent post here somewhere with progress on that, but still these are two issues that come up now and again on the dorums and i think it's best to track progress on the two before taking the plung if they are crucial to you.


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