Mailing List Archive

Xorg nouveau driver vs. nvidia-driver
Hi,

  I am running mythtv 31-fixes on Debian Buster (10) through
deb-multimedia backports. I started with Nouveau driver for Xorg as that
is the default in Debian buster.  After testing a while and making sure
that it works, I added nvidia-driver.  While mythfrontend seem to look
tiny bit better, I see that gui is not fitting due to overscan on TV. 
It was perfect with nouveau driver and overscanned on nvidia-driver.
Another thing I noticed is nouveau drive gives me 1920x1080@120hz
whereas nvidia does 1920x1080@119.88hz. Not sure if nouveau is rouding
or giving me a true 120hz. I do see that my TV takes a while when
switching from another source to mythtv host when in 119.88hz rating.
Given this,

Is nvidia-driver known to be superior that I should try to keep it and
adjust frontend gui resolution to make things fit or should I simply
switch back to nouveau driver?

Also, overscan is a general issue even with Xorg, and fixing gui
resolution will not make Xorg better. I will have to fix Xorg overscan
somehow. So, I prefer nouveau over nvidia in this aspect.

Any help suggestion in improving what I have is much appreciated.

Thanks
Ramesh

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Re: Xorg nouveau driver vs. nvidia-driver [ In reply to ]
On Wed, 4 Nov 2020 13:13:02 -0600, you wrote:

>Hi,
>
> ? I am running mythtv 31-fixes on Debian Buster (10) through
>deb-multimedia backports. I started with Nouveau driver for Xorg as that
>is the default in Debian buster.? After testing a while and making sure
>that it works, I added nvidia-driver.? While mythfrontend seem to look
>tiny bit better, I see that gui is not fitting due to overscan on TV.?
>It was perfect with nouveau driver and overscanned on nvidia-driver.
>Another thing I noticed is nouveau drive gives me 1920x1080@120hz
>whereas nvidia does 1920x1080@119.88hz. Not sure if nouveau is rouding
>or giving me a true 120hz. I do see that my TV takes a while when
>switching from another source to mythtv host when in 119.88hz rating.
>Given this,
>
>Is nvidia-driver known to be superior that I should try to keep it and
>adjust frontend gui resolution to make things fit or should I simply
>switch back to nouveau driver?
>
>Also, overscan is a general issue even with Xorg, and fixing gui
>resolution will not make Xorg better. I will have to fix Xorg overscan
>somehow. So, I prefer nouveau over nvidia in this aspect.

I think you are confusing things here. Nouveau uses X in the form of
Xorg just as Nvidia does. And the overscan problem is usually in the
TV, not the video drivers. And to complicate things further, the
Nouveau drivers do now have some VDPAU abilities so they can offload
some things onto the GPU for video playback.

>Any help suggestion in improving what I have is much appreciated.
>
>Thanks
>Ramesh

I used Nouveau last year on my first GT1030 for a while. That PC has
an ancient motherboard (Intel Core2 Duo E6550, from 2008) and only 4
Gibytes of RAM. So it needs the graphics processing to be done by the
GPU. It was fine for desktop use, but mythfrontend could not play any
TV successfully. Even SD recordings (576p) seemed to judder a bit as
though there were dropped frames. And HD (720p, 1080i) was impossible
to watch. Installing the Nvidia drivers made everything work
properly. If you have a fast modern CPU, it may be able to do the
graphics processing fast enough in the CPU with the Nouveau drivers,
but where you normally see problems is in deinterlacing. So try
playing 1080i recordings, and watch scenes where there is fast
panning.

And it is unlikely that any 4k video will work properly. I found that
on my main MythTV box with a GT220 (no 4k support), the CPU was unable
to rescale 4k downloaded video to 1080p. When I changed it to a
GT1030 also, 4k rescaled on the GPU without any problems.

So, which Nvidia card are you using? And just what is your TV? If it
is 4k, then you definitely will want to be using the Nvidia drivers. I
would recommend using Nvidia anyway - it uses much less electricity to
use the GPU instead of the CPU for graphics processing.

You should check if your TV can be set to have its overscan disabled.
Some have options for this, and others automatically do it on inputs
that are identified as a PC rather than a video player device, so if
the TV manual says to use one specific input for PCs, that will likely
not have overscan. Others TVs can do it only via a hidden maintenance
menu, and then there are some that have no way of disabling it. And
in others, it is off in some modes and on in others, so try using
xrandr to change modes and see if that is what is happening. It would
also be good to set full debug output (if that is possible) in the
Nouveau drivers and keep a copy of the log. It may well show in there
exactly what the Nouveau drivers do that removes the overscan. I have
also heard of a TV that drops the overscan when you use the menu
options for naming the inputs and select the name option that has a PC
like name. A web search for your exact TV model may be able to help.
Or is there a manufacturer's help service that you can contact?

If you need to select from only specific modes to get no overscan,
then you will probably need to get a copy of all the modes from the
log file and convert them into modelines and create an xorg.conf file
from them. That is very tedious to do, but not horribly complicated.
I am in the process of doing this at the moment, and have it working
for all the standard modes I need so far except the 24 Hz ones. To
get the log information you need for this, you need to add this:

Option "ModeDebug" "true"

in the Screen section of xorg.conf:

Section "Screen"
Option "ModeDebug" "true"
EndSection

If you are unable to disable the overscan, then you can always use the
ViewPortOut setting in the Nvidia drivers. That does reduce the
resolution of the picture a little bit though, so it is not the
preferred fix.
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Re: Xorg nouveau driver vs. nvidia-driver [ In reply to ]
Am 05.11.2020 um 06:04 schrieb Stephen Worthington:> >
> You should check if your TV can be set to have its overscan disabled.
> Some have options for this, and others automatically do it on inputs
> that are identified as a PC rather than a video player device, so if
> the TV manual says to use one specific input for PCs, that will likely
> not have overscan. Others TVs can do it only via a hidden maintenance
> menu, and then there are some that have no way of disabling it. And
> in others, it is off in some modes and on in others, so try using
> xrandr to change modes and see if that is what is happening. It would
> also be good to set full debug output (if that is possible) in the
> Nouveau drivers and keep a copy of the log. It may well show in there
> exactly what the Nouveau drivers do that removes the overscan. I have
> also heard of a TV that drops the overscan when you use the menu
> options for naming the inputs and select the name option that has a PC
> like name. A web search for your exact TV model may be able to help.
> Or is there a manufacturer's help service that you can contact?
>
> If you need to select from only specific modes to get no overscan,
> then you will probably need to get a copy of all the modes from the
> log file and convert them into modelines and create an xorg.conf file
> from them. That is very tedious to do, but not horribly complicated.
> I am in the process of doing this at the moment, and have it working
> for all the standard modes I need so far except the 24 Hz ones. To
> get the log information you need for this, you need to add this:
>
> Option "ModeDebug" "true"
>
> in the Screen section of xorg.conf:
>
> Section "Screen"
> Option "ModeDebug" "true"
> EndSection
>
> If you are unable to disable the overscan, then you can always use the
> ViewPortOut setting in the Nvidia drivers. That does reduce the
> resolution of the picture a little bit though, so it is not the
> preferred fix.
>

I don't know if it helps, but I remember that I had to overwrite a "dpi
value" in the xorg-settings to fix overscan (with a very old Nvidia
integrated graphic chip). Unfortunately, I changed the hardware in the
meantime and don't remember where the settings hat to go.
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Re: Xorg nouveau driver vs. nvidia-driver [ In reply to ]
Ramesh:


> Is nvidia-driver known to be superior that I should try to keep it and
> adjust frontend gui resolution to make things fit or should I simply
> switch back to nouveau driver?
>
> Also, overscan is a general issue even with Xorg, and fixing gui
> resolution will not make Xorg better. I will have to fix Xorg overscan
> somehow. So, I prefer nouveau over nvidia in this aspect.
>
> Any help suggestion in improving what I have is much appreciated.

nVidia does have a GUI option where one can adjust the settings to
compensate for the television's overscan.  Used it with one of the
Frontends here because the TV did not have an overscan compensation.

Barry


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Re: Xorg nouveau driver vs. nvidia-driver [ In reply to ]
On 11/5/20 7:46 AM, Barry Martin wrote:
>
> Ramesh:
>
>
>> Is nvidia-driver known to be superior that I should try to keep it and
>> adjust frontend gui resolution to make things fit or should I simply
>> switch back to nouveau driver?
>>
>> Also, overscan is a general issue even with Xorg, and fixing gui
>> resolution will not make Xorg better. I will have to fix Xorg overscan
>> somehow. So, I prefer nouveau over nvidia in this aspect.
>>
>> Any help suggestion in improving what I have is much appreciated.
>
> nVidia does have a GUI option where one can adjust the settings to
> compensate for the television's overscan.  Used it with one of the
> Frontends here because the TV did not have an overscan compensation.
>
> Barry
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> mythtv-users mailing list
> mythtv-users@mythtv.org
> http://lists.mythtv.org/mailman/listinfo/mythtv-users
> http://wiki.mythtv.org/Mailing_List_etiquette
> MythTV Forums: https://forum.mythtv.org

I am not sure I understand. Can you clarify? Which utility are you
talking about?

Ramesh

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Re: Xorg nouveau driver vs. nvidia-driver [ In reply to ]
On 11/4/20 11:04 PM, Stephen Worthington wrote:
> On Wed, 4 Nov 2020 13:13:02 -0600, you wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>>   I am running mythtv 31-fixes on Debian Buster (10) through
>> deb-multimedia backports. I started with Nouveau driver for Xorg as that
>> is the default in Debian buster.  After testing a while and making sure
>> that it works, I added nvidia-driver.  While mythfrontend seem to look
>> tiny bit better, I see that gui is not fitting due to overscan on TV.
>> It was perfect with nouveau driver and overscanned on nvidia-driver.
>> Another thing I noticed is nouveau drive gives me 1920x1080@120hz
>> whereas nvidia does 1920x1080@119.88hz. Not sure if nouveau is rouding
>> or giving me a true 120hz. I do see that my TV takes a while when
>> switching from another source to mythtv host when in 119.88hz rating.
>> Given this,
>>
>> Is nvidia-driver known to be superior that I should try to keep it and
>> adjust frontend gui resolution to make things fit or should I simply
>> switch back to nouveau driver?
>>
>> Also, overscan is a general issue even with Xorg, and fixing gui
>> resolution will not make Xorg better. I will have to fix Xorg overscan
>> somehow. So, I prefer nouveau over nvidia in this aspect.
> I think you are confusing things here. Nouveau uses X in the form of
> Xorg just as Nvidia does. And the overscan problem is usually in the
> TV, not the video drivers. And to complicate things further, the
> Nouveau drivers do now have some VDPAU abilities so they can offload
> some things onto the GPU for video playback.
>
>> Any help suggestion in improving what I have is much appreciated.
>>
>> Thanks
>> Ramesh
> I used Nouveau last year on my first GT1030 for a while. That PC has
> an ancient motherboard (Intel Core2 Duo E6550, from 2008) and only 4
> Gibytes of RAM. So it needs the graphics processing to be done by the
> GPU. It was fine for desktop use, but mythfrontend could not play any
> TV successfully. Even SD recordings (576p) seemed to judder a bit as
> though there were dropped frames. And HD (720p, 1080i) was impossible
> to watch. Installing the Nvidia drivers made everything work
> properly. If you have a fast modern CPU, it may be able to do the
> graphics processing fast enough in the CPU with the Nouveau drivers,
> but where you normally see problems is in deinterlacing. So try
> playing 1080i recordings, and watch scenes where there is fast
> panning.
>
> And it is unlikely that any 4k video will work properly. I found that
> on my main MythTV box with a GT220 (no 4k support), the CPU was unable
> to rescale 4k downloaded video to 1080p. When I changed it to a
> GT1030 also, 4k rescaled on the GPU without any problems.
>
> So, which Nvidia card are you using? And just what is your TV? If it
> is 4k, then you definitely will want to be using the Nvidia drivers. I
> would recommend using Nvidia anyway - it uses much less electricity to
> use the GPU instead of the CPU for graphics processing.
>
> You should check if your TV can be set to have its overscan disabled.
I thought I did, but since you mention here, I went back and searched
all over the menu. It is under one of the submenu. It is called "fit to
screen" and it was set to auto. Last time I must not have tried all
options. I changed it "on" instead of "auto," and voila! everything
looks good now.

Thanks for your help.

Regards
Ramesh
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Re: Xorg nouveau driver vs. nvidia-driver [ In reply to ]
On Thu, 5 Nov 2020 11:21:02 -0600, you wrote:

>On 11/5/20 7:46 AM, Barry Martin wrote:
>>
>> Ramesh:
>>
>>
>>> Is nvidia-driver known to be superior that I should try to keep it and
>>> adjust frontend gui resolution to make things fit or should I simply
>>> switch back to nouveau driver?
>>>
>>> Also, overscan is a general issue even with Xorg, and fixing gui
>>> resolution will not make Xorg better. I will have to fix Xorg overscan
>>> somehow. So, I prefer nouveau over nvidia in this aspect.
>>>
>>> Any help suggestion in improving what I have is much appreciated.
>>
>> nVidia does have a GUI option where one can adjust the settings to
>> compensate for the television's overscan.? Used it with one of the
>> Frontends here because the TV did not have an overscan compensation.
>>
>> Barry

>
>I am not sure I understand. Can you clarify? Which utility are you
>talking about?
>
>Ramesh

nvidia-settings > X Server Display Configuration > Underscan

Set as much underscan as is needed to compensate for the TV's
overscan. This just creates a ViewPortOut setting in xorg.conf. You
need to run nvidia-settings from sudo or root for it to be able to
directly write to /etc/xorg.conf.
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Re: Xorg nouveau driver vs. nvidia-driver [ In reply to ]
Hi Ramesh!

>>> Is nvidia-driver known to be superior that I should try to keep it and
>>> adjust frontend gui resolution to make things fit or should I simply
>>> switch back to nouveau driver?
>>>
>>> Also, overscan is a general issue even with Xorg, and fixing gui
>>> resolution will not make Xorg better. I will have to fix Xorg overscan
>>> somehow. So, I prefer nouveau over nvidia in this aspect.
>>>
>>> Any help suggestion in improving what I have is much appreciated.
>>
>> nVidia does have a GUI option where one can adjust the settings to
>> compensate for the television's overscan.  Used it with one of the
>> Frontends here because the TV did not have an overscan compensation.
>
> I am not sure I understand. Can you clarify? Which utility are you
> talking about?
>
I knew you were going to ask that! <g>   I can't look directly as with
the previous MythTV system here: 0.28, now version 30 and while
upgrading wiped the old version.

Old notes say "nVidia XServer Display Config".  A very quick look didn't
find a download so I'll let you do a bit of digging.

<code>  sudo ubuntu-drivers autoinstall  </code>

--or--

<code>  sudo apt install nvidia-390  </code>

Not sure from my notes if that installed the driver I needed at the time
/and/ the GUI.  Sorry.


One thing that may be useful is a note I had set the resolution on that
TV/FrontEnd combination to 1680x1050 (16:10).  The default 1920x1080
(16:9) had an overscan.
Re: Xorg nouveau driver vs. nvidia-driver [ In reply to ]
On Thu, Nov 5, 2020 at 6:24 PM Barry Martin <barry3martin@gmail.com> wrote:

>
> Hi Ramesh!
>
> Is nvidia-driver known to be superior that I should try to keep it and
> adjust frontend gui resolution to make things fit or should I simply
> switch back to nouveau driver?
>
> Also, overscan is a general issue even with Xorg, and fixing gui
> resolution will not make Xorg better. I will have to fix Xorg overscan
> somehow. So, I prefer nouveau over nvidia in this aspect.
>
> Any help suggestion in improving what I have is much appreciated.
>
>
> nVidia does have a GUI option where one can adjust the settings to
> compensate for the television's overscan. Used it with one of the
> Frontends here because the TV did not have an overscan compensation.
>
>
> I am not sure I understand. Can you clarify? Which utility are you talking
> about?
>
> I knew you were going to ask that! <g> I can't look directly as with the
> previous MythTV system here: 0.28, now version 30 and while upgrading wiped
> the old version.
>
> Old notes say "nVidia XServer Display Config". A very quick look didn't
> find a download so I'll let you do a bit of digging.
>
> <code> sudo ubuntu-drivers autoinstall </code>
>
> --or--
>
> <code> sudo apt install nvidia-390 </code>
>
> Not sure from my notes if that installed the driver I needed at the time
> *and* the GUI. Sorry.
>
>
> One thing that may be useful is a note I had set the resolution on that
> TV/FrontEnd combination to 1680x1050 (16:10). The default 1920x1080 (16:9)
> had an overscan.
>
On my system the nvidia settings utility is called "nvidia-settings" I
think I had to install it in addition to the drivers