dual monitors - nvidia

[Len Ovens]

I had been putting off trying to test my desktop which has an nvidia card
with a video (75ohm RCA) output as well as VGA. I am not using the nvidia
driver... output from X while loading:
[    21.808] (II) LoadModule: "nvidia"
[    21.823] (WW) Warning, couldn't open module nvidia
[    21.823] (II) UnloadModule: "nvidia"
[    21.823] (II) Unloading nvidia
[    21.823] (EE) Failed to load module "nvidia" (module does not exist, 0)
[    21.823] (II) LoadModule: "nouveau"
[    21.823] (II) Loading /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers/nouveau_drv.so
[    21.992] (II) Module nouveau: vendor="X.Org Foundation"
[    22.006]    compiled for 1.10.0, module version = 0.0.16
[    22.006]    Module class: X.Org Video Driver
[    22.006]    ABI class: X.Org Video Driver, version 10.0
and
[    22.059] (II) NOUVEAU driver for NVIDIA chipset families :
[    22.059]    RIVA TNT    (NV04)
[    22.059]    RIVA TNT2   (NV05)
[    22.059]    GeForce 256 (NV10)
[    22.059]    GeForce 2   (NV11, NV15)
[    22.059]    GeForce 4MX (NV17, NV18)
[    22.059]    GeForce 3   (NV20)
[    22.059]    GeForce 4Ti (NV25, NV28)
[    22.059]    GeForce FX  (NV3x)
[    22.059]    GeForce 6   (NV4x)
[    22.059]    GeForce 7   (G7x)
[    22.059]    GeForce 8   (G8x)

Hmm, doesn't tell me what I have. I just bought the cheapest thing I could
find that would fit the board... I am not playing high powered games after
all...

[    22.177] (--) NOUVEAU(0): Chipset: "NVIDIA NV05"
[    22.177] (II) NOUVEAU(0): Creating default Display subsection in
Screen section        "Default Screen Section" for depth/fbbpp 24/32
[    22.177] (==) NOUVEAU(0): Depth 24, (--) framebuffer bpp 32
[    22.177] (==) NOUVEAU(0): RGB weight 888
[    22.177] (==) NOUVEAU(0): Default visual is TrueColor
[    22.177] (==) NOUVEAU(0): Using HW cursor
[    22.342] (II) NOUVEAU(0): Output VGA-1 has no monitor section
[    22.411] (II) NOUVEAU(0): Output TV-1 has no monitor section
[    22.518] (II) NOUVEAU(0): EDID for output VGA-1
[    22.518] (II) NOUVEAU(0): Manufacturer: ACR  Model: ad64  Serial#:
196511424
6

Ok, it is an "NVIDIA NV05" whatever that is.

The end result after many more lines of setup is:
[    22.603] (II) NOUVEAU(0): Output VGA-1 connected
[    22.604] (II) NOUVEAU(0): Output TV-1 disconnected

Ok that makes sense. Truth is the only video in device I have is the big
heavy TV upstairs... I am not going to move that down to the computer and
taking the computer up to the TV is almost as bad... Well the card doesn't
have much in the way of options for detecting a monitor being connected...
it has to be looking for a load on the output. Standard circuitry would be
a source with an internal 75ohm series resister that expects a 75 ohm
load... I figured I could probably get away with just shorting it as I
couldn't find any terminations just now.

Without termination xrandr gives:
$ xrandr
Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1680 x 1050, maximum 2048 x 2048
VGA-1 connected 1680x1050+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
433mm x 271mm
   1680x1050      60.0*+
   1600x1200      60.0
   1400x1050      60.0
   1280x1024      75.0
   1440x900       75.0     59.9
   1280x960       60.0
   1360x768       59.8
   1152x864       75.0
   1024x768       75.1     70.1     60.0
   832x624        74.6
   800x600        72.2     75.0     60.3     56.2
   640x480        72.8     75.0     66.7     60.0
   720x400        70.1
TV-1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)

Great, that means any of the xrandr tools should be able to deal with it.

With the output shorted:

~$ xrandr
Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1680 x 1050, maximum 2048 x 2048
VGA-1 connected 1680x1050+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
433mm x 271mm
   1680x1050      60.0*+
   1600x1200      60.0
   1400x1050      60.0
   1280x1024      75.0
   1440x900       75.0     59.9
   1280x960       60.0
   1360x768       59.8
   1152x864       75.0
   1024x768       75.1     70.1     60.0
   832x624        74.6
   800x600        72.2     75.0     60.3     56.2
   640x480        72.8     75.0     66.7     60.0
   720x400        70.1
TV-1 connected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
   800x600        50.0
   720x576        50.0
   640x480        50.0
   720x400        50.0
   640x400        50.0
   512x384        50.0

So as best I can tell... at least with the NOUVEAU driver, there are no
extra issues. The OS was UStudio 11.04 BTW.

I have UStudio on the other drive. I will try downloading the genuine
nvidia driver there later (this week, prolly not today) and see what I can
see.

-- 
Len Ovens
www.OvenWerks.net